Because Of Course I Have

Over in the Archie Comics corner of the comics universe, a story is underway in which they will be – sort of – killing off the eternal teenager who serves as the publisher’s namesake.
I say “sort of” because it’s happening in just one of the comics they publish, a series entitled Life With Archie, which, inasmuch as there’s any real continuity in Archie comics, is an out of continuity comic.  That’s my understanding, at least: I occasionally read things about Archie Comics, but I don’t actually read any of the comics themselves, and haven’t done so for decades.  The closest I’ve come is reading the utterly fantastic Criminal:  The Last of the Innocent, which, deservedly so, was on all sorts of “best of” lists a few years back.
(Archie tends to be in the news – at least the comics news – frequently, as they’ve done a lot of interesting things lately, such as introducing an enormously popular openly-gay character, launched a horror comic called Afterlife With Archie, with a complementary horror-centric Sabrina the Teenage Witch comic on the way, and apparently* they tagged Girls creator Lena Dunham to write a comic.)
In any case, the upcoming issue featuring the final fate of young Mr. Andrews is going to feature a lot of variant covers by different artists, including this fantastic cover by AH! himself, Adam Hughes.
Earlier today I shot the link above to Scott, which prompted the inevitable question:  Betty or Veronica?
I replied that for years my default answer, without even really thinking about it, was Betty.  Granted, Veronica is rich, and, in theory more physically attractive than Betty (in practice, owing to the general artistic style of Archie Comics, they tend to look the same, just with different hair), and I do tend to prefer dark-haired women to blondes, but Betty wins out largely due to her personality.  She’s more good-natured, less high-strung, and not nearly so high-maintenance.
However, in recent years I’ve found myself drifting a little more towards Team Veronica.  Ultimately, my answer hasn’t changed – it’s still Betty.  However, it’s not as reflexive a response as it once was.
After explaining all of this, I said, “And yes, I have thought about this a lot.”
Because of course I have.
So what has changed over the years to make me less steadfast in my choice?  (By the way, in a perfect world, my answer to the question “Betty or Veronica?” would be “Yes.  And also Midge.  And Josie.  And the Pussycats.  And Sabrina.”)
Scott asked if I’d become a gold digger.  It’s not that, though sure, the money would be appealing.  If anything, it’s just that I’ve become more shallow.
But no, it’s not really that, either.  Despite the fact that I’ve thought about it a lot, I’m not really sure that I know the answer, other than that when I was younger, I was more drawn to the tomboy, girl next door type, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve developed more of an appreciation for the more, for want of a better term, girly types.  At the very least, I can appreciate someone who is very well put-together.
(And yes, this is all horribly objectifying, but we are talking about actual objects, given that neither Betty nor Veronica is a real woman, and to the extent that this is at all applicable to real women, it’s more to do with general archetypes than anything else.  Or something.  And of course it should go without saying that the assumption is that we’re talking about adult versions of Betty and Veronica.)
The other questions that this discussion raised was, beyond the obvious “Because of course I have” response, why have I given this a lot of thought?
As mentioned, I don’t actually read any of the comics, so what brings it to mind?  Well, Betty and Veronica’s floating heads adorn one of the signs on my spinner rack, so that’s probably part of it, but really it’s just a matter of spending a lot of time thinking about all sorts of comic book women.
Comics do, after all, play a big role in who I am, and my interest in them is something of a defining characteristic.  It’s only natural, then, that comic book women have an impact on my thoughts about and interactions with actual women.  I’ve mentioned in other posts about how certain women in comics have had an influence on the kind of women I’m attracted to.
And the fact is that I spend more time thinking about women like Lois Lane, Jinal, Zatanna, Kitty Pryde, and a host of others, but Betty and Veronica find their way into the mix as well.
One of these days I might get around to actually writing up a post exploring just what impact the fictional women listed above have had on my feelings about actual women – at least in terms of what qualities I find attractive – but this isn’t that post.
Mostly I just wanted to get you all to look at that awesome AH! cover, and also share my amusement at my own statement about thinking about this a lot.

*That’s a sarcastic “apparently.”  I’ve got a news app on my phone that, amongst other things, is set to find me articles about comics.  At the time that the Dunhman-penned story was announced, there was a period of several days in which the only results I got – mostly from non-comics news sources – were about Lena Dunham writing an Archie story.

Baltimore Comic-Con 2010: The Overview

First of all, as people start uploading them, there are bound to be better pictures from the Con than what I took showing up online on sites like Flickr, so I highly recommend checking them out. There were a lot of people I missed. Some I didn’t see at all, such as a Green Arrow/Black Canary couple, a Magneto, a Black Adam, and others I saw but didn’t get a chance to photograph, such as a young Mary Marvel.

Overall I had a very good time – as mentioned the AH! compliment alone made the trip worthwhile – and it was very cool to get stuff signed by some of my favorite artists, and to shake hands with Marv Wolfman (and get my copy of The Judas Contract signed by him).

Still, I couldn’t help but feel a bit awkward and out of place – it takes a special kind of talent to feel awkward when surrounded by thousands of nerds – and I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I hadn’t been there completely by myself. Being alone made me something of an anomaly; most of the people there were couples, groups of friends, or families.

Even if I weren’t pretty much uniformly terrible at that sort of thing, it wasn’t an environment that was conducive to mingling. Everyone was moving around trying to get somewhere, or jockeying for position in lines at the booths or just to get a picture of a cosplayer.

On Saturday I was kind of hesitant to approach people to photograph them, so I took a few pictures stealthily while they weren’t looking, or by riding on the coattails of other people who were taking their pictures. Eventually, towards the end of the day, I got a bit bolder, but I still felt kind of weird about it.

I had only brought things to be signed by a few specific people – and one of them, Greg Horn, was only signing prints and books that he was selling there, so I didn’t get the books I brought signed, and didn’t want to buy any prints, seeing as how I’d just bought two volumes of his collected work a bit ago – but there were a lot of other people whose work I like who were there. I felt weird about approaching them, since I didn’t have anything of theirs to sign, and while I could have gone up to them and just said hi, the idea felt kind of weird.

(And initially I was too flustered to remember to, you know, actually give them my Heroic Portraits card. I got better about that on Sunday, for all the good it’s likely to do.)

Beyond that, I was just kind of overwhelmed by being in an unfamiliar place surrounded by thousands of people. While I’ve lived in larger cities for several years now, I spent most of my life practically living in the wilderness, so while I’m not exactly a slack-jawed yokel, I can get a little intimidated by cities, which makes me withdraw (even more than usual) into myself.

That’s where I think it would have come in handy to have someone there with me. (Note: Scott, don’t take this as me sniping at you or anything; I know you would have liked to have been there.) I wouldn’t have felt quite so, well, alone in a sea of people. While I spend most of my non-work time alone, I don’t often feel lonely, but there, in Baltimore, surrounded by “my people,” I felt lonelier than I have in a very long time, and my excitement was dampened by the fact that I didn’t have anyone to share the excitement with.

(Sleeping in a ginormous King-size bed didn’t help matters any either.)

While there were a lot of places to eat within walking distance, they were a bit of a hike, so in the morning on Saturday I just had a peanut bar I’d picked up in the hotel gift shop, so by the time I was standing at Amanda Conner’s booth and was getting out the money to pay her for the prints I’d bought, I noticed that my hands were shaking. I thought, “Hmm, I’m not that excited about meeting her. I suppose I should eat something.”

Unfortunately, that was right before the DC Nation panel, so I put it off for and went to that. After that, I realized that I needed to skip the upcoming Mondo Marvel panel because I needed to eat something right now.

So I went to the food service place in the Convention Center and found that everything looked terrible, but ultimately decided on these overpriced cheese pizza bagels.

There seemed to be a significant portion of Con attendees who had showed up just because they were looking for a place to sit down – seriously, there were people who found a spot to sit, and then never moved all day – so I couldn’t find anywhere to sit to eat, so I just kind of paced around, and got to eating.

As mentioned, I was eating a bagel that had been made into a pizza. After a few bites I realized that it was, in fact, a cinnamon raisin bagel. They seriously just took whatever bagels they had lying around, sliced them, covered them with cheese and sauce, and heated them up, with no consideration of whether or not the kind of bagels they were would mix well with cheese and sauce.

It was nasty, but, again, need food now, so I channeled Bear Grylls and forced it down, and chased it with a $3 bottle of water (the somewhat cheaper vending machines, conveniently, weren’t working).

There was some enterprising woman selling water for $1 outside the Convention Center, but I couldn’t bring myself to buy anything from her. Why?

Because for hours on end – it’s still burned into my brain from all the times I heard it whenever I went out for a smoke – she loudly “sang,” in this monotone voice that, I think, was intended to sound robotic (presumably to appeal to the nerds):

I got that ice cold water. And it’s only one dollar. I got that ice cold water. And it’s only one dollar.

Over and over again without pausing, from around noon until the Con ended for the day at 6 PM.

Sometimes she would mix it up a little:

I got that ice cold water. And they only one dollar. I got that ice cold water. And they only one dollar. I got that ice ice. Cold cold. I got that ice cold water…

(On Sunday, it was a guy, who simply repeated “Cold, cold, cold.” for hours on end.)

I’d hoped to meet up with my friend Eric after the Con, but he wasn’t able to make it to Baltimore, so I was on my own for the evening.

I decided to walk over to the Hooters across the street to get some dinner, but the line there was almost as long as the line had been to get into the Con, so I opted instead for a sandwich from Subway.

And then…well, what was I going to do? I know there were lots of things that it was possible for me to do, the sort of things that other people would do, but what was I going to do? It needs to be understood that a lot of things that would appeal to other people are of no interest to me, particularly because, not to keep harping on this, I was alone. Honestly, how many of you go out and do interesting and exciting things completely by yourself? No friends, no spouses or significant others, no family? I had already stepped pretty goddamn far outside of my comfort zone just by being there in the first place.

As mentioned in the Comments on a previous post, at a couple of points in the evening I lurked outside the hotel looking for an opportunity to insert myself into a conversation with Adam Hughes, Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, and a bunch of other comics pros who were gathered there, but A. I suck at that kind of thing to the extent that I wouldn’t even have the first clue how to go about doing it and B. I was just some nobody, pissant fan.

I walked over to the Inner Harbor for a while, but, again, I just felt alone in a sea of people, so I went back to my room, downloaded Friday night’s episode of Eureka, watched it, and turned in for the night, feeling a weird combination of excitement, anxiety, sadness, and self-loathing.

Well, really, the only thing that makes that combination of feelings different from any other night is the inclusion of “excitement.”

Sunday came around and I was up bright and early. I walked over to a Panera Bread and got a breakfast sandwich, then walked back to the hotel and started packing. I transferred a few things out to the car, ultimately deciding not to take my laptop with me in order to spare myself the extra weight, since it didn’t seem likely that I was ever going to actually engage anyone to need it for showing off my artwork.

I took my time packing, and once it was close to the time for the Con to start up again, I hauled everything out to the car and checked out.

The line wasn’t quite as long to get in this time around, but I still spent about 15 minutes standing in the blazing sun.

Once inside I wandered around for a while before taking in my first panel of the day (I’ll write a separate post about the panels I attended), and then went back to walking the floor.

At 1 PM it was time for the costume contest. Most of the cosplayers had gathered in the lobby, so I went there and took a few pictures and handed out a few cards. The costume contest was supposed to be in one conference room, but it proved to be far more popular than anticipated, and the Con staff had to work out the logistics of getting more space and cramming in all of the people who were planning to attend, so it started about an hour late.

I was really only interested in the “Over 13, Female” categories (as was most of the audience), so I left after that was done, wandered around a bit more, took some more pictures, pointlessly handed out a few more cards, left cards lying around on various tables, and decided that I was ready to head home.

The drive home was uneventful, except for a few times when I had to take some detours to get back on the planned route, as there were a couple of times when the signs seemed to contradict the Nav system but actually didn’t, and one time in which the Nav system was just plain wrong, because it didn’t know about a new exit (it wanted me to make a “sharp left,” but there was a handy exit onto the road I needed to get on to the right).

Once I started getting closer to home, I realized that I was absolutely starving. As I got even closer to Leesburg, I thought about how I was in an area that I almost never get to, so I should try to be like a normal person and find some quaint little local eatery, but I didn’t really notice anything along the way, so I decided I’d just stop somewhere in Leesburg.

I was craving either a steak or ribs, so I opted for Ruby Tuesday. There were a bunch of cute waitresses, there, and only one guy, so guess who I got as a server?

“Hi, I’m Max,” he said, “and I’ll be your server this evening.” And I thought, “Of course you will.”

I opted for ribs, and found that I was so hungry that I was tempted to start crunching on the bones. I sucked my meal down with the efficiency of a Dyson vacuum cleaner.

And then I was home.

Again, while the trip was expensive, and engendered some unpleasant feelings about myself, The Universe, and my place in it, it was worthwhile, and I honestly did have a good time. The misgivings and angst are just part and parcel of being Jon, and serve as a reminder that “No matter where you go, there you are.”

My “take” for the Con:

An Absolute Edition of V for Vendetta, purchased for 50% off from the booth being run by my local comic shop (which was the only place where I saw people I knew/recognized, including the cute girl who works at the comic shop, who saw me, waved excitedly, and then wandered off with someone I’m assuming was her boyfriend).

Three signed Amanda Conner prints, two of Power Girl, one of Catwoman, and her signature, and Jimmy Palmiotti’s, on my copy of Power Girl #12 (their last issue on the series) and my copy of The Pro.

A signed AH! sketchbook (not an actual sketchbook, but a printed pamphlet of sketches), a sketch of Power Girl, and his signature in my copy of Cover Run, a collection of his DC Comics covers.

Two signed Frank Cho prints, one of which is of Playboy Playmate Tiffany Taylor, who’s actually originally from Leesburg, his signature in my copy of Apes & Babes – a collection of some of his work – and a signed copy of a Washington Post magazine insert that did a feature on Cho (which ran yesterday; he had advance copies to give out at the Con). (I don’t want to unroll the prints just to photograph them; I’m going to get them custom-framed and will take pictures of them then).

Marv Wolfman’s signature on my trade paperback copy of The Judas Contract.

I didn’t dive too deeply into the bins that the retailers had, as, apart from things that I’d never be able to afford, there weren’t really any particular back issues I was looking for. I did keep an eye out for issues of Superman Family, as I feel really nostalgic about that series and would like to have a complete run. I’ve been buying the Showcase Presents collections of that, but at the rate new volumes come out, it will probably be at least five years before they get past reprinting the individual issues of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen and Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane and get to the point at which the actual Superman Family title started getting published (taking over Jimmy Olsen’s numbering).

I found a handful of issues, but many of them were in pretty rough shape, so I decided to pass.

I did think about buying some Jimmy Olsens and Lois Lanes, but I didn’t see any particular issues that I’d like to have.

It’s a pretty good haul, I think. I wish I’d been more gregarious and had chatted some more cosplayers up, but, again, awkward, and when I did manage to corner them they were in a hurry to move on to the next photo opportunity.

But, again, and especially for me, I really did have a good time.

10 (Also: !!!!!)

Before I mention anything about the Con, I just wanted to point out that, as of today, I’ve been sober for ten years.

That’s pretty much all I have to say on the subject, but I thought it was worth pointing out, not to be self-congratulatory, or to seek out praise, but because it’s a significant event, and, while I’m not exactly a shining example of how it’s done, I am an example of the fact that it can be done.

And hopefully that’s of some use to someone.

Now, as for the Con, well, there’s really only one thing that needs to be mentioned immediately.

I was getting things signed by Adam Hughes – and getting some tips on coloring techniques  in Photoshop – and I showed him one of my pictures.

“Oh, that’s lovely.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ll give a more detailed report – along with pictures – later, but I had to mention that.

Preparations

Preparing my Baltimore Comic-Con travel kit.

Pros And Con

So yesterday’s entry was originally intended to be a bit longer than it was, but I was having some issues with the keyboard drawer on my desk.

One of the screws holding the slider in place had fallen out, so the whole thing was bouncing like crazy when I typed, so I paused from writing my entry to try to fix it.  I put the screw back in, but it was clear that it was just going to pop back out again, as the brackets the sliders were attached to were a bit too far apart, so I decided to take the whole thing down and try to put the brackets in a better position.

…

This resulted in three things: 

1.  A face full of sawdust.

2.  The screws getting completely stripped.

3.  A lot of swearing.

I don’t really understand the people who are comfortable typing with their keyboard in their lap, as it’s never been something I could pull off for any extended period of time, and with the Cintiq in the way, there wasn’t anywhere I could put my keyboard on the desk itself, so I decided to just post what I had.

Today I moved things around, putting the monitor and Cintiq over on the other, longer part of the L-shaped desk.  With the raised portion over on that section, I can put the monitor up high enough that I can have the Cintiq tilted at its maximum angle and have it pushed back far enough to make room for the keyboard without obscuring my view of the monitor.

It’s not an ideal circumstance, as it puts the monitor at a height that’s uncomfortable for viewing, but it’s only meant as a temporary solution, as tomorrow I’m going to buy a new, better keyboard drawer.  I may – in fact, I almost definitely will – leave everything where it’s been relocated, but not having to make room for the keyboard on the desk will allow me to position the two monitors a little better.

In any case, that’s not what I wanted to write about.

One of my favorite bits on the show Futurama features a storyline about an anomaly in space that’s causing time to randomly jump ahead.  The people experiencing it find themselves moved forward in time to find that significant changes have occurred, but they’re unaware of how those changes came about.  For example, Fry and Leela find that they’re married, but have no idea how that came to pass.

In any case, Professor Farnsworth comes up with a solution to the problem, which involves the crew of the Planet Express having to fly out into space and deal with the anomaly.  As he’s explaining the mission to the crew, time skips, and suddenly it’s time for the crew to blast off, which leads the Professor to say, “Off you go, apparently…”

With that in mind, for the past few days I’ve been saying, “I’m going to Baltimore Comic-Con, apparently.”

Every so often either Scott or I will say, “We should go to Baltimore Comic-Con one of these years,” but generally we end up thinking of it after the year’s con has already taken place.

However, last week when I was at the comic shop I noticed a flyer for the con and saw that it’s happening on August 28 and 29.  So I texted Scott to let him know that.  Unfortunately, he’ll be out of town that weekend.  As I didn’t want to go by myself, that put an end to my hopes of going once more.

But I kept thinking about how I’d really like to go, especially since two – later I learned that it’s actually four – of my favorite artists are going to be there, along with some of my favorite writers.  So I was checking out the site and noticed that it takes place from 10-6, and I started thinking, “Well, maybe I could drive out for one of the days,” even though I really wanted to go for both days.  But that seemed like kind of a hassle.  So I decided to see if there were any vacancies in the area and found that there was one within walking distance.

With some not-so gentle prodding from Scott, the next thing I knew I was booking a room for Friday and Saturday, and ordering a two-day pass.

I didn’t spend as much time being indecisive as I normally would, so in a lot of ways it felt like I had – much like the Planet Express crew – jumped forward in time.  So, off I go, apparently…

I’m definitely looking forward to it, but being there by myself is going to kind of suck.  On the other hand, I’ll (hopefully) be able to get some things signed – and maybe even be able to buy some sketches from – Amanda Conner, Adam Hughes, Frank Cho, and Greg Horn.  (Conveniently, I recently purchased some books collecting, respectively, some of the artwork of Hughes, Cho, and Horn, though inconveniently they’re rather weighty tomes, and will be a hassle to lug around the convention floor.)

One other pro about going to the con is hot cosplay chicks.  (These pics are from the recent San Diego Comic-Con, which I would also like to go to someday.)

The con about going to the con, though, is that pretty much the first thing everyone says to me upon hearing that I’m going to Baltimore is some variation of, “You can hook up with some hot geek girl!”  (Some are more insistent that I shoot at everything that moves than others.  Apparently it’s not good enough that I’m just, you know, actually doing something;I have to come on to every woman I see while I’m at it.)

Sure, that would be nice, but I’m not going to hold my breath, or make an ass of myself by being geek number 3,589 to hit on some chick who’s just trying to show her geek pride and is sick to death of the endless parade of clumsy, sweaty come-ons (and in many cases, straight-up harassment and assault) that just being there while having the audacity to be in possession of breasts has forced her to contend with.

So, no, that’s not going to be my focus.  Sure, I’m going to look, and if something happens, great, but if not, well, I’m there for the panels and signings, announcements, free gifts, and to browse through the comics people are selling.

I’m also going to try to pimp Heroic Portraits as much as I can without being an obnoxious douche, handing out cards and leaving them lying around waiting to be discovered.

In fact, the other day I had an “Oh, duh,” moment and realized that I should actually wear a Heroic Portraits T-shirt.  Then it occurred to me that I should carry all of my stuff around in Heroic Portraits tote bag.

(By the way, if you go to my Zazzle Gallery following the link to the right, right there in the text, or at the bottom of the page, you, too, can purchase some Heroic Portraits merchandise.  You won’t, I know, but I’m just saying that you can.  It’s an available option, and there’s no law against it or anything.  Really, nothing other than your total lack of interest in doing so, or your callous disregard for the success or failure of my artistic endeavors is preventing you from doing that.  You have the ability to make that choice.  You know, the choice to do that thing that you’re going to choose not to do.  Because, you know, seriously, that guy Jon and his heroic whatever Web site?  Fuck that guy.)

So that’s the big excitement ahead of me:  making an irritating drive, going someplace totally unfamiliar, and being surrounded by thousands of people, including a bunch of hot, nerdy chicks that I won’t talk to.

But hey, at least I’m actually doing something, right?

When I told Scott that I’d decided to go, he said something like, “Cool!  I can live through you vicariously.”  I responded, “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.  Don’t ever say that again.”

It's All Lies

You: Hey Jon, you haven't drawn a picture of Rachael Leigh Cook recently.
Me: You're a filthy liar.



Me: I mean, why would you even lie about something like that? What do you stand to gain from it? Are you just the kind of person who has to tell lies about others just to feel good about yourself? That's pretty low.
You: Well...your attempt at mimicking the style of Adam Hughes is flawed at best.
Me: Touché.

Batman Night (Plus: Fishnets!)

So apparently I started a new tradition last night and henceforth Christmas Eve shall be known as Batman Night in the Heimdall household.
It started out with me deciding that I should get kind of into the spirit of things and watching the Christmas With The Joker episode of Batman: The Animated Series.
That episode has one of the greatest Batman lines ever. Robin, convinced that it’ll be a slow night in Gotham on Christmas Eve, makes a deal with Batman that if they go on patrol and nothing is happening, they’ll head back to Wayne Manor, enjoy a delicious Alfred-prepared meal, and watch It’s a Wonderful Life.
Batman says, “You know, I’ve never actually seen that. I could never get past the title.”
(One of my other favorite animated Batman line comes from an episode of Justice League Unlimited adapting Alan Moore’s excellent Superman story For The Man Who Has Everything. He and Wonder Woman are on their way to a private celebration of Superman’s birthday. Wonder Woman comments on how difficult it was to find an appropriate gift. Batman says, “Yes, it’s a difficult question: what do you get for the man who has everything?” There’s a pause, and then, horrified, Wonder Woman says, “Bruce…you didn’t get him a gift certificate, did you?” Batman responds in an offended tone, “Of course not!” Then, a little more weakly, adds “I’m giving him cash.”)
After that I decided to watch Holiday Knights, another holiday-themed episode from later in the series’ run. Watching that made me want to watch Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, the animated movie. That actually maintained the Christmas connection, as while the move itself doesn’t have a holiday theme, it did open in theaters on Christmas day back in 1993.
Watching that made me want to watch Batman Begins, which I did.
So it was an all-Batman night for me.
I don’t think I have anything else Chrismas-y to watch, unless you count the video of the photoshoot from which I pulled the reference image for my Christmas Eve picture, which, all things considered, probably isn’t the most appropriate Christmas video.
(I will just say that there are several other girls besides Eve in the photoshoot/video, so make of that what you will. I had been thinking about drawing a picture that featured Eve with her arms around two of the other similarly-clad girls and titling it Ho Ho Ho, but it would have been too much work and the other girls aren’t nearly as hot as Eve.)
Though all of the anticipation that accompanied the prospect of Christmas morning in my youth is long gone, I still traditionally have a difficult time getting to sleep on Christmas Eve, so I actually ended up being up until sometime after 2 with all of my Batman watching.
This morning I was off to Scott and Stacy’s for Christmas brunch, where I finally got to open a gift.
Scott had gotten me an Adam Hughes-designed Black Canary statuette (seen in the midst of unleashing her “Canary Cry”) from the same Women of the DC Universe series as the Power Girl statuette I got him when he got his new job. So now once I have my cubicle at my new job I’ll have some geek bling for it:


“I said, ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS AND STOP STARING AT MY BREASTS!’”


“No, I don’t know how my waist can possibly support my upper body.”


The Benes’ Eye View.


From this angle she looks like she’s preparing to catch Ollie’s “trick arrow,” if you know what I’m saying. (Hint: I’m talking about oral sex.) Coincidentally, it also looks a lot like the majority of the thumbnail previews of many of the video files on my hard drive.

He was torn between getting me the Black Canary statuette and getting me the Zatanna statuette, but the Canary won out due to the odd expression on Zatanna’s face, what with her tongue sticking out and all. Either way, fishnets, so I’m happy.
Of course, if they’d had it, he would have gotten me the Catwoman statuette, which would have been very cool.
Still, I have no complaints. I’ve always liked the Black Canary – except when she was presented as a strident, feminist cliché during the Giffen-Dematteis run of Justice League – and I really came to like her when she was handled by Gail Simone. Of course, Gail’s deft handling of the character worked against her, as she made Black Canary so popular that DC editorial took the character away from her to make her the current head of the Justice League and to give her a title of her own (shared with new hubby the Green Arrow).
I’m actually still waiting on a couple more presents, as my sister Kim got my address wrong, and presumably at some point today I’ll be getting one from Kathleen (and giving her one).
For some reason I’ve been getting flooded with MySpace friend requests today. I usually get a few a week, which I pretty much always ignore, as they are invariably just spammers, and I don’t actually spend any time on MySpace anyway, but they’ve been coming in non-stop.
Oh well, it gives me the illusion of popularity, which is important when you’re a jerk that no one likes. I think I’m going to make a T-shirt that says, “I’m the jerk that no one likes,” and include the text of the Emily Deschanel fan forum rant on it.
What can I say, apart from once having a commenter here call me a “whiny, pathetic buttwad,” I’ve never really been flamed – that I know of – on an Internet message board, so it feels kind of like an honor, albeit a dubious one.
Once I got home from brunch (I left just as they were preparing their marshmallow guns for battle and the grim specter of all-out marshmallow war was looming over everything. As a conscientious marshmallow objector, I could not in good conscience stay to watch the puffy, sugary mutually assured stickiness of their insane war. Marshmallow war is, after all, hell.) I called my sister and talked to her and her brood, then gave my mom a call. It’s a good thing I punked out and just gave money, as I was going to buy my mom a DVD player, but the grandkids got her one.
My plan to buy my nephew Jeremy a PSP for his graduation got shot down, too, as he got one today. His response: Get me a DS.
Because, you know, an X-Box, a Wii, a PS3, a PSP, and who knows what all else simply are not enough gaming systems.

Is This Some Kind Of Bust?

So today was Scott's last day at work.
When I picked up our comics on Wednesday, I also grabbed him a going away present, something that he could put on display in his shiny new pod at his shiny new job that would immediately establish his "geek cred."
I was going to go with a Superman, or Batman, or Spider-Man sculpture of some sort.
But then I saw this and knew it just had to be:




After all, nothing says "geek" (or at least "male geek") like a super-heroine in a skimpy skintight outfit with ridiculously large breasts.
The super-heroine in question is Power Girl, who is essentially an alternate universe version of Supergirl.
The story goes that when she was introduced in the 1970s, artist Wally Wood had initially designed her to be rather voluptuos in comparison to her more slender counterpart, but had the intention of increasing the size of her bust with each successive issue until someone in editorial finally took notice.
The tradition has sort of continued to this day.
This particular piece - complete with the trademark "magic cleavage window" - was designed by artist Adam Hughes, who is ideally suited to the task of drawing PG (though maybe that should be PG-13).
Cheesecake elements aside, when written well, Power Girl is actually a pretty interesting character, and she can be a lot of fun, particularly when she gives in to her more impulsive, angry side. She's certainly far more interesting than the current version of Supergirl.
Another sculpture designed by Hughes has recently stirred up a lot of controversy in comic fandom. A lot of people are upset about it, and, as fond as I obviously am of cheesecake art, I can certainly understand why.
Check it out here.
All I can say is what I said the first time I saw it: yikes.