They both blinded me with SCIENCE!!

This past Sunday, Brit Hume (Fox News’ answer to Walter Cronkite) offered up some friendly advice to Tiger Woods to help him with his recent travails. Simply put, he suggests Woods – FIND JESUS! Yes, according to Hume, if Tiger turned to the Christian faith, he would make a complete recovery and become a great example to the world. Brit-Brit went on to say that Golfer-Boy’s current Buddhist status does not afford the complete and total comprehensive redemption that Christianity does…fascinating stuff, sounds like insurance coverage.

If Christianity is the new Geico, then Brit-Brit could be its lizard mascot.

Ah these wacky Christian conservos and their magical thinking — there’s absolutely no problem that can’t be solved with a little prayer. The abject childishness never fails to astonish me.

As we head into a new decade, it seems religion (Christianity in particular) continues to thrive amongst a large swathe of the American population. I wouldn’t mind so much, as everyone’s entitled to his or her personal beliefs; it’s just the leaders of the cause who have direct impact upon my life that I object to. This is why I’ve been seriously considering starting my own religion. I mean, if these muldoons are so gung-ho to believe in fairy tales, why not believe in me? After all, I’m skinny white and bearded. I even look like Jesus. Why not pray to me? If you do, I offer you salvation. Screw around as much as you like with whomever you like  –  you’re absolved. In fact, I say go for it! After all, doesn’t the bible say go forth and multiply?

WORSHIP ME!

As for the major hot topics like abortion and same sex marriage, I’m all in favor. In fact,I believe in most cases abortion should be mandated. Look at our history as a civilization, all the pointless wars, persecution of innocents, and repression of freedom. If the majority of the nimrods that have run our world had been aborted, I believe we’d all be far better off.

Speaking of gay marriage, where’s the downside? It controls population and gets all those third world cast-away babies adopted, not to mention all the added FABULOUSNESS potentially imparted to the next generation – it’s a win-win!

So, what do you think? Will you join my flock? C’mon… what the flock! In the end you won’t be any better or worse off than you are right now, but at least I’d feel special. Just think about it. As an added bonus,  if you decide to throw in with me, I promise to protect you from the Mayan ghosts that are coming to eat your soul in 2012.

May you all have a blessed day!

BY ZEITGEISTY

Oh my aching head.

I woke up this afternoon with only a vague recollection of what happened the night before. New Year’s Eve…I partied like it was 2009. Luckily I had a notepad with me, so I was able to jot down a few thoughts, ruminations, and observances. Unfortunately, the further I traveled into the night, the less discernible my scribblings became. I will do my best however, to decipher the hieroglyphics, and perhaps piece together what exactly went on last evening.

Absinthe…last time, not so impressed, this time way harsh man. This shit tastes like I’m going down on Mr. Licorice. How long do I have to drink this shit? Permission to stop captain? Feels like I’ve been gargling paint thinner, I can’t taste anything but Mr. Licorice. This salami taste like licorice.

Twilight Zone marathon. Who came up with the idea that the Twilight Zone and New Years Eve go together? Two great tastes that taste great together. Your Twilight Zone is in my New Years Eve… fuck you Muldoon, your New Years Eve is in my Twilight Zone! I suppose there is a distinct melancholy to the program that compliments the occasion quite nicely. I like the episode where the kid is stuck in the 4th dimension underneath her bed. I haven’t seen this one tonite though, just a bunch of the lame-os. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the Zones, but when they were bad, they were just BAD!

Howie Long, I don’t dig you man. You look like an erect penis with a buzz cut, and you hawk ugly cars.

My friend has accused me of having a jejune sense of humor. I take offense, I’ve always felt my sense of humor was more jejuly-ish. He doesn’t think I’m very punny.

Dick Clark, I can’t understand a word you’re saying. I appreciate the fact that you’ve had a stroke, but that doesn’t give you the right to ruin my evening.

J-lo, you’ve hit the wall, and apparently it was face first. What’s with the ridiculous cat suit? Eventually there comes a time in everyone’s life when they must accept their limitations, and your time has come…and gone. Your ass which at one time was globally revered for it’s unique curvaceousness, now just looks like 30 pounds of Yoplait stuffed into an old pair of L’eggs, sized x-small.

Ryan Seacrest, how short are you anyway? You appear to be quite miniscule.

Oh…Mr. Licorice, you’re running through my system like Drano, I fear I may shit my pants before this night is through. 2000s, you sucked so severely. Perhaps shitting my pants might be an appropriate ending to this abominable decade. Bush, Cheney, Limbaugh, Palin, all the underwhelming dates, and uninspiring relationships. It’s impacted in my colon like rotting meat. The absinthe will do the trick – I have hope.

2010, the Huffington Post has an article stating that I should pronounce you “twenty-ten.” Huffington Post, go fuck yourself.

Watching the Inglourious Basterds. It’s ok I guess, however, I count five endless scenes  where the characters sit around a table as tension mounts to a decided anti-climax. They should have called this flick “The Tables Of Tension”. The character of Shoshana looks like Jeremy Miller from Growing Pains with a wig.

Shit… it’s almost midnight, gather ’round everyone and lets count down.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! The ball has dropped, Dick Clark is garbling something unintelligible. Ryan Seacrest is hopping about like a leprechaun, and J-Lo and her Yoplait ass is flitting across the screen. Everything’s blurry. I call my girlfriend who’s visiting her father in Texas, she’s an hour behind, or two hours I’m not sure.

I kiss the dog and pass out.

Sally Cruikshank’s “Quasi at the Quackadero” and  Winsor McCay’s “Little Nemo”   have both been included in the 2009 National Film Registry.  This is great news.  My only quibble is that they weren’t inducted years ago.

I  love with “Quasi at the Quackadero”- it’s one of my favorite cartoons.  It’s cute (without being cloying), bizarre (without being pretentious or annoying), inventive, colorful, funny and very original.  This isn’t a cartoon where you can guess what happens next.

As for Nemo, I’ve been familiar with the old comic strips since I was a kid, but saw the animated version a few years ago.  Amazing stuff.

While very different, these cartoons have some things in common:

Each was largely the creation of a single artist, who thought up the plot, created the characters, and did most (if not all) of the animation.  Also, note how both take advantage of the medium (a fancy way to say the creators realized  Hey, this is animation, so I can make  the characters do whatever I want!)  There’s morphing, surreal craziness, fantastic creatures and unique details.

And both are fun to watch.

See that? That’s me, on the Fox version of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurateur take-down, “Kitchen Nightmares,” from 2008.

I should preface this by saying that I’m no fan of reality television, particularly as applied by Fox, whose programmers seem hell bent on reducing humanity to their base impulses by any means possible. Just compare the humanist and involved shows Ramsay made for the BBC versus the point and laugh American versions. Anyway, what drew me out was a friend of mine (Jim) whose sister had attended the previous night’s taping. And what drew me out most of all, sad to say, was that on the night she attended, Ramsay came out in an angry huff, threw down a large pot of refried beans and said that everything was free, but the kitchen was now closed for the evening. So everyone there that night got a free meal.

While reality television depresses me, fewer things get me more excited than the idea of a free meal.

Jim’s sister was at the first night of taping, and we went on the second, at her prodding and with the idea of getting a free meal. The show films three nights at each establishment, which I’m guessing is to impose some kind of three-act structure on reality where none exists. Lord knows, it’s not enough time to turn around a business in any real sense. Judging by the story shown in the broadcast episode,

The story literally begins with the line, ‘it was a dark and stormy night.’ My wife chose to stay at home, because a) it really WAS dark and stormy – an actual blizzard – and b) we’d been to the restaurant when it first opened and the food was sub-par while the service was memorably lousy. I should note here that I usually have more patience than anyone else I know with slow service, but the entire meal took something like two hours from when we first sat at the table to when we got the check, and we weren’t exactly taking our time mulling over the menu.

So, anyway: I’d been before and decided not to go back, and also dislike reality TV and vowed at some point to never appear on one if the opportunity arose. But, hey: free dinner! I brushed my hair down in front to hide the giant zit on my forehead and headed out into the storm.

Upon arrival – driving a few miles through seriously deep snow – the production team put us in a tent outside in the parking lot (heated, thankfully) and kept us out there for about half an hour while they did whatever it was they needed to do in the restaurant, and also gave us some preparatory things to watch and fill out, including, no doubt, a non-disclosure agreement that I’m sure I’m in violation of.

Eventually, we filed in and sat down, a table of about six of us, including Jim and his wife (both fans of the show) and a colleague from his school (theater director) and his colleague’s partner. The partner may have been the most dyspeptic human being I’ve ever met, and if I were editing the show, it would have just starred him. The entire arc of drama was right there – customer in bad mood has evening that goes from bad to worse. He ordered a steak which arrived much after the other food and wasn’t cooked as he ordered, then sent it back only to decide when it finally came that he didn’t want it at all.

Take it from me: silent, resentful middle-aged suburban gay man versus wrongly prepared steak is fucking genius television. Quality entertainment by any standard.

On top of that, he wouldn’t play ball with the camera team, not saying a word when them came over. It was clear he’d been dragged to the thing against his will and was determined to make it as miserable for himself as possible, which, ironically, was the most entertaining thing he could possibly do. Of course, if the director had actually decided to have customers talk directly to the camera, they could have peppered him with questions, which would have just upped the hilarity, but having been directed to pretend that we were not being filmed, he clammed up and alternated looking out the window and looking at his non-present food.

I guess the producers were more fans of the Maysles Brothers school of ‘naturalistic’ documentary filmmaking than the Errol Morris talking head.

I ended up feeling bad for the serving girl, who clearly was stressed out by the whole Ramsay Affair in the first place. Every time she went to a table to deliver or receive some bit of bad news – I overheard her tell another table in her heavily accented English that they were out of steak (turns out that steak that my tablemate had such travails with was the last in stock) – her shoulders sunk a little lower.

After all that, though, Ramsay never made an appearance in the dining room.

A few months passed, and then one week, Jim’s students kept coming up to him and telling him they’d seen him on a commercial (probably during ‘Family Guy’), which is how we knew the episode was going to air. Jim did end up in the commercials, pulling a face edited in response to Ramsay coming out of the kitchen and throwing down that pot of nasty-looking frijoles refritos and telling everyone dinner was free – which, again, happened on the night we weren’t there. But when the final episode aired, I was the only one at the table to be in the broadcast.

My claim to fame? “I’ll have the beef enchiladas.”

Oh, and guess what? Dinner was not free. Dinner was actually more expensive than the usual middle-of-the-road Mexican place, and I think I paid $35 altogether for the privilege of eating food that remained mediocre and still took way too long to arrive, while being filmed doing it. For those keeping score, that means that I violated two mildly-held principles – appearing on reality TV and eating at that particular restaurant again – and got to pay for it, too.

The restaurant itself limped along until the episode aired, lingered for a few more months, then finally closed. Not sure what that says about the Ramsay method in action. Apparently yelling at someone for a couple of days and buying them a new sign and awning doesn’t magically make a business come alive.

Who knew?

My first exposure to the work of veteran alternative cartoonist Carol Lay was in the early 90’s, while I was looking through the then meager comics selection at my college bookstore. There I found Twisted Sisters (Vol. 2), an anthology (edited by Diane Noomin) dedicated to giving wider exposure to the growing talent pool of female cartoonists. The book was chock full of amazing, eye-opening work, but Lay’s detached irony and take on traditional sci-fi genre ideas definitely made her stand apart from everything else in the already varied line-up.

It was an effective introduction to her work. Both stories – Clio’s Problem and God for a Day displayed Lay’s innate gift for grappling with the big, unanswered questions and bringing them down to eye level. Clio and God took one such big theme – specifically, the nature of God, here grafted onto a ‘what if?’ Bruce Almighty-ish kind of scenario. But what was really remarkable to me was how she played out the concept in two very different ways. Where Clio had a classic Twilight Zone bent to it (an influence Lay mentions in her bio), with a dead serious approach matched by moody, naturalistic drawing and anxious linework, God took a satirical approach, with deadpan humor and simplified, exaggerated illustrations and unfussy rendering.

In just eighteen pages, Lay effectively explored what is possibly the greatest philosophical question in all of human history, and did so in a vastly entertaining way. This magic trick, I realized, was not in spite of the opposed approaches, but because of them. By pitching one straight and one curve ball, she’d actually deepened the meaning in both stories. The difference in both the writing and drawing styles was remarkable – moreso for remaining identifiably the work a single artist. Lay single-handedly introduced to me the idea that an artist can and should vary tone for effect. She also served as a very major bridge for me into the possibilities of alternative comics, simply by engaging genre as art – a good decade in advance of the highly successful Flight anthologies.

Of course, this is not to say that Lay is a ‘genre’ cartoonist. She has over the years in her newsweekly Story Minute and WayLay strips created her own genre, and the flow between satire, allegory, autobiography, social commentary and what-have-you serves as a constant reminder that some of the best cartoonists around have never had their work sold in even the finest comic store. Like Jules Feiffer, Alison Bechdel, Matt Groening, Lynda Barry, Tony Millionare and many others, Lay has pushed the boundaries of her craft in the pages of urban newsweeklies, not comic books. When the book is finally written on the vast impact this undersung genre has had on the history of comics, Lay should expect a chapter of her own.

Most recently, Lay has turned her gifts to the diet/self-help genre, with The Big Skinny: How I Changed My Fattitude, a book that uses her ability to change moods to great effect, talking in tones both humorous and sad about her own lifelong struggles with weight and how she overcame them. She’s dealt with the issue before, most notably in her 1996 graphic novel Joy Ride, where the development of brain-swapping technology allows the lazy and obese to have their bodies remotely toned by the disciplined likes of Madonna. Having read The Big Skinny and then re-read Joy Ride together, it’s impressive how well they compliment each other – like the resonances between Clio and God. Seeing Lay’s personal themes presented in both memoir and fiction is the exact kind of rare insight I like as a reader.

The Big Skinny goes well beyond most diet books, offering a mix of memoir and tips on calorie counting and recipes that flows incredibly well. Lay also distinguishes her approach from many other diet authors by refusing to sugar-coat her plan, simply and clearly presenting a no-shortcuts, reasonable diet and exercise regimen as being the way to permanent weight loss and improved health and longevity. It’s also charming and lovely to look at, with Lay making great use of the full-color printing. The Big Skinny aims high at its target and hits it, and simultaneously becomes a powerful example of why comics should no longer be relegated to their traditional bookstore ‘Comics’ or ‘Humor’ ghettoes.

I can’t do Lay’s biographical details any better than she presents in The Big Skinny or at her own waylay.com or carollay.com sites. All the background that you might need to know for the following interview is that Lay is a child of the 50’s, a lifelong Californian with a decades-long dedication to the medium of her choice, who took a childhood suffused with classic television and a UCLA arts education and put them together in a way that has sustained her career for three-plus decades, in animation, storyboarding and, of course, comics.

Lay continues her weekly strip every Friday at salon.com.

NOTE: All images used in interview © copyright Carol Lay, except ‘Star Wars #6′ (© Lucasfilm LTD) and ‘Eating Raoul’ (© Kim Deitch).

***********************

BY DAVE KOPPERMAN

Imagine if you were a fan of, say, David Lynch. And you’re also a fan of, say, Stephen King. Two artists with very distinctive voices that deal in many of the same themes, but with a wholly opposed set of sensibilities. And then you find out that King’s next novel is going to be an adaptation of Mulholland Drive.

Jack Kirby was, coincidentally, nicknamed “The King of Comics.” Over the course of his sixty-year career, there isn’t a comics genre that he didn’t work in – from romance, to war, to horror, etc. – but his real claim to fame is as the man who visually and to a large degree thematically defined Super Heroes. He created or co-created so many famous characters that a partial listing will have to do: The Fantastic Four. The Hulk. Captain America. The X-Men. The SIlver Surfer.

He brought an unmatched visual dynamism and stunning design flair to comics, but he was never satisfied being ‘just an artist.’ After a decade of tremendous success collaborating with Stan Lee at Marvel, Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzburg, as Lee was named Stanely Lieber) left Marvel for complete creative control over his work at Marvel’s chief competitor, DC Comics. There he wrote, drew and edited a string of books, where the cosmic themes he’d been developing at Marvel really bore fruit, with a saga known collectively as ‘The Fourth World Saga,’ where immortal gods on twinned worlds waged endless battle over control of transcendental knowledge – known as ‘The Source’ – and the power to control all sentient beings in the universe – known as ‘The Anti-Life Equation.’ Characters named Orion, son of Darksied, and the Black Racer, and Kalibak, and Granny Goodness and Scott Free (who escaped life in the terrible orphanages on the planet Apokolips) and…

…well, you get the point. Big, crazy cosmic themes. Fuck – these comics weren’t just cosmic. They were Kozmic.

Anyway, the Fourth World stalled, most likely because while Kirby was a seemingly endless font of mind-bending ideas, his scripting – the dialogue and captions in comics – was tough sledding for most readers. So Kirby went back to Marvel, with the same complete creative control that DC had offered.

And then the weird thing happened.

In 1976, Marvel got the comic rights to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. And Kirby was the one who got the gig. Well, I won it off of eBay, it came yesterday, and I read it, and….

…?

…!

I honestly have no idea what to make of it. I feel the need to go out to a bar and get drunk and accost random strangers with questions and comments about it. I need to commiserate on this strange, dream-like object that I’ve finally held and read.

The main thing about it that comes to mind – apart from being the weirdest mix of elements I can think of – is the topic of adaptation from one media to another that most genre fans are constantly wrestling with.

It makes me wonder:

- at what point does a work pass its sell-by-date for adaptation? The film was first put into production in 1964 and released in 1968, but the comic came out in 1976.

- even those who don’t like the film would have to acknowledge Kubrick as a singular cinematic artist. Kirby certainly holds the same title in comics. Can masters of two similar but fundamentally separate media have anything to say to each other in a situation like this?

- I’d have to imagine that Kirby was a fan of the film. But he definitely took liberties in his adaptation – some minor misinterpretations and changes in plot (which are understandable, given the film’s impenetrability), and a wildly different tone overall. Where the film is famous for hours and hours of silence, KIrby’s adaptation is captioned to death and full of invented conversations and hyperbolic dialogue. I’m not even sure how I feel about it. But it is an odd choice.

- When a work has the odd development history of something like 2001, is an adaptation into yet another media – even one that misses the spirit of the original work, like I feel Kirby did – really any kind of miscarriage? After all, the screenplay was a stitched together blend of a few Arthur C. Clarke stories, and developed those ideas further, and at the same time was being written as a novel by Clarke, which in turn has major differences from the film. It’s kind of like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – sure, the radio is the original, but more people are familiar with the books or the TV show that the idea of authorial voice and intent gets somewhat lost.

I know I’m rambling, and I apologize. It’s just SUCH a strange comic. Beautifully drawn – and I mean BEAUTIFULLY drawn – and I’d even say that the scripting is surprisingly readable.

But…

….?!

Maybe you’re swinging by the store to pick up some bread. Or picking up dry cleaning. Or meeting a friend for lunch. There’s plenty of parking, yet your path is blocked by Slow Parking Lot Walkers.
I’m not talking about someone who’s slow because he has a bad knee (or any condition that slows down) . I mean the average parking lot walker who strolls (or waddles) in front of your car, without looking.
C’mon, I think, Let’s go! Ikimasho!* The store closes in five hours, ya know!
I have two conflicting theories about Slow Parking Lot Walkers:

1. They are evil, selfish boors who think they’re more important than anyone else. They like to annoy mild-mannered innocents like myself.
2. Since they’re approaching the store, they’re preoccupied with what they need there (Okay, I need a can of coffee, burger buns, Sloppy Joe Mix…) and/or what’s going to happen when they get home (…when the food’s simmering I can pay the bills and go over the checkbook etc…) to the point that they aren’t paying attention to their surroundings.

My second theory is the most likely. My evidence?
When I park my car (after wishing childishly hateful things on the Slow Parking Lot Walkers,) I think things like Did I forget anything on the shopping list? Should I get fresh butter? Do I have enough soda**? Do I want to cook dinner or just pop something in the microwave- shoot- gotta check my online statement to make sure… as I stroll to the store, slowly, not watching where I’m going.

*Japanese for “let’s go!” and probably not correctly used in this context.
**Actually Tropicana or Minute Maid light lemonade.