Sixth 5books (includes a preliminary review of the Kindle and reasons why I'm finishing fewer books of late)

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030) Servant of a Dark God by John Brown, finished July 21


Holy smokes.

I had known I was finishing way way way fewer books this year, but I had no idea it's been over a month since I last finished one. Insane.

And so before we get to Brown's book, a bit of italicized speculating on why I am finishing fewer books this year.

First, I'm not reading as much comics. Not because I'm not reading comics --- in fact, I've never been deeper into comics (more on this in a future post) --- but I'm not reading booklength comics.

Second, I'm borrowing Recession Cone's Kindle. This might sound like it would lead to more reading, but there are a couple things you don't know. A) I'm driving to work rather than walking these past five weeks. B) Lady Steed won't let me carry the Kindle with me. She thinks it'll get me mugged. C) Between the books RC had on it and the one's I've added, when I have the Kindle, I haven't made a decision about what I'm going to read in the same way I have when I've picked up a book.

Third, I am, to pick a couple tired metaphors, spread thin, stretched thin lately. I have multiple writing and editing projects I'm in the middle of (eg, the comics thing mentioned above, Monsters and Mormons, more more more) and so I haven't been reading for readings' sake much of late.

Fourth, uncertainty about our future is making my brain leak and I'mm having a hard time concentrating on books. Never imagined such a thing was possible.

Before we get into Servant of a Dark God (because I haven't delayed this enough already), the Kindle.

Reading Servant isn't giving it a fair shake because it's a pdf I received (but didn't get read in time) for the Whitney Awards last year. I've been anxious to read it and the Kindle finally gave me that chance.

Even with the pdf cramping the Kindle's style, it was still fine to read on. My main complaint is that the contrast isn't stark enough. When reading in bed, if Lady Steed got between the Kindle and the lamp, I couldn't easily read anymore.

(It won't surprise you, given what I said in italics, that I have also been reading other books on the Kindle. I promised RC I wouldn't buy any books, but that doesn't stop my from reading in Kindle's native format with the books he'd already purchased, notably Rogue CloneRogue Clone by Steven Kent. [Interestingly, both writers are Mormon and both have badguyish peoples (in the sense of a race or nationality) with nearly identical names: Mogat and Mokad. Isn't that interesting?] So I can vouch for the better experience it is reading something other than a pdf on the Kindle.)

Being not much of a gadget fiddler, I haven't screwed around much with the Kindle's settings and bookmarks, etc. I suppose I should. I'm trying to get excited about that. But I'm really more interested in using it to read. Which it's reasonably dandy at. I think I read with less retention on the Kindle since I can't flip pages back and forth with the ease I do in books, but whether or not that's a problem is too soon to say.

Anyway. John Brown's book.

Well written high fantasy. I don't read much high fantasy these days so when I say something like UTTERLY ORIGINAL! I might be wrong, but I thought it was. I had a couple beefs (eg, the protag's age seemed to change over the course of the book), but for a first novel, I was mostly impressed. Excellent world, excellent concepts, excellent action, excellent fun.

Another thing I found striking was that while the whole book was one cohesive tale, after it ended, with a deft turn, Brown revealed how it can also be viewed as a book-one in a series (which it is, natch: here's a pdf of its first three [unreleased] chapters).

Any other questions?

estimate close to a month



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029) Drink Me, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blog by James Goldberg, finished June 9


Well. If I had known you could get through a masters thesis navelgazing I might have done so ten years ago.

Having been in conversation with the author and (see book #28) reading a couple of his plays, I followed a link to one of his blogs and found his thesis in which he talks about his blogs (1 2 3). The paper is imminently readable although, as per its chapter four, I did skim several sections of it.

Rather than "reviewing" the book, I am, in response to all the self-quoting James did, I am now going to link to blog posts I have written which, in some way, respond to parts of his paper, thus continuing the conversation.

In America, "pissed" doesn't mean drunk (in which I overdo the linkery)

That much delayed Sunstone story, the horrifying one that I hope my students don’t hear (in which I, ah, am really really truthful)

What a way to start the month.... (more thonesty)

Post #300 in which we celebrate me by sharing humorous facts (in which I outnavelgaze the best of them and am simultaneously hilarious, a feat never before accomplished)

The Sin of Saint Onan (in which I sully another blog by being thobnoxious in my discussion of blogs as ephemera)

Okay. That's enough. Some good ones, a bad one. Should do it.

Your turn.


couple hours



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028) Out of the Mount (tentative title) edited by Davey Morrison, finished June 8


Because I'm involved in the publication of this book, everything I say may be fairly interpreted as puffery. But with that introduction, this is a great collection dealing with Mormon issues like faith, doubt, following, agency, love. Great stuff.

After you read your copy, come back with your five favorites. It'll be hard to choose I assure you, but here are mine:

"On Being a Priest" by Eric & Mary Emma Heaps
"Book of Mormon Story" by James Goldberg
"Gaia" by Eric Samuelsen
"Prodigal Son" by James Goldberg
"Little Happy Secrets" by Melissa Leilani Larson

Although I can look at that list and be totally satisfied, it still left out plenty of excellent work.

I love reading short plays and you should too, daddyo. Buy your own copy this September.

a week



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027) Madman Boogaloo! by Mike Allred, Mike Baron, Bernie Mireault, Steve Rude; finished June 2


Like most crossovers, this isn’t that great. (Sorry.) It’s really just an opportunity for creators to cross-pollinate their audiences. So how did these crossovers affect me, as a Madman fan?

The Nexus story did not sell me on the characters. In part because I don’t dig future superheroes, but also because Nexus isn’t my friend.

The Jam, like Nexus, is a not-my-friend character trapped in a subpar story, but this character I’m left interested in. I would read more Jam.

ggtt

under two weeks, but only, at most, forty minutes of reading



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026) The Education of Robert Nifkin by Daniel Pinkwater, finished May 22


Do you know Daniel Pinkwater? You should. His YA novels are delirious warpings of reality that boggle the mind. Which is what makes this book so hard to grasp.

See, this book is firmly in the school of realism yet, at the same time, it contains elements and characters so heightened into absurdity that calling this book realism is blatant lying. Yet, for all its wackiness, this still feels like a realistic look at 1950s Chicago high-school life.

What I find most charming about this book is its first page:

St. Leon's College
Parnassus on Hudson, New York

Admission Application, Page 4

64. Characterize, in essay form, your high-school ex-
perience. You may use additional sheets of paper
as needed.

Then the next 164 pages are his answer to that question.

So, the question begged is this: Will he be admitted?

I do not know. I cannot even hope to guess.


four days



Previously in 2010 . . . . :

• First Five • Second Five • Third Five • Fourth Five • Fifthe Five •

025) True Grit by Charles Portis, finished May 21
024) Old Man's War by John Scalzi, finished May 15
023) Pandora's Nightmare: Horror Unleashed, finished May 13
022) Anthem by Ayn Rand, finished May 11
021) Look! It's Jesus!: Amazing Holy Visions in Everyday Life by Harry Choron and Sandra Choron, finished May 9
020) Travels in the Scriptorium: A Novel by Paul Auster, finished May 5
019) Suburban Folklore by Steven Walters, finished May 4
018) The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall, finished April 30
017) Gracie: A Love Story by George Burns by George Burns, finished April 20
016) The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley, finished April 15
015) Dispensation: Latter-Day Fiction edited by Angela Hallstrom, finished March 24
014) The Best American Comics 2009 edited by Charles Burns, finished March 22
013) Icon: A Hero's Welcome by Dwayne McDuffie and MD Bright, finished March 17 012) There's Treasure Everywhere by Bill Watterson, finished March 15
011) Static Shock: Rebirth of the Cool. Finished right at midnight between March 13 and 14
010) Teen Titans: Year One by Amy Wolfram et al, finished March 7
009) The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, Book One by Bill Watterson, finished March 6
008) Apparition & Late Fictions: A Novella and Stories by Thomas Lynch, finished March 5
007) Stone Rabbit #1: BC Mambo by Erik Craddock, finished March 2
006) The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen, finished February 23
005) Missile Mouse 2 by Jake Parker (MS POLICY), finished February 5
004) Heroes of the Fallen by David J. West, finished February 4
003) Still Life in Milford by Thomas Lynch, finished January 19
002) Rapunzel's Revenge by Hales Shannon Dean and Nathan, finished January 16
001) Mormoniana by Mormon Artists Group, finished January 13

Normally, if I only give myself 15 minutes to drive to work, I'll be late

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Today I went from asleep to school in 12 minutes.

#donttrythisathome

Beautiful spam!

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It's been a while since I posted a spam letter, but the new religious version of the Nigerian businessman trope seems to have reached its apotheosis, so I had to share:

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

From Mrs. Sheila Johnson
reply-to sheilajohn64@aol.com
date Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 10:43 AM
subject God Bless You !!

Dear Beloved in Christ,

It is by the grace of God that I received Christ, having known the truth,I had no choice than to do what is lawful and right in the sight of God for eternal life and in the sight of man for witness of God & his mercies and glory upon my life.

I am Mrs.Sheila Johnson the wife of Mr Harold Johnson, my husband worked with the Chevron/Texaco in Kenya for twenty years before he died in the year 2007.

We were married for ten years without a child. My Husband died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days.

Before his death we were both born again Christians.

Since his death I decided not to re-marry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against.When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of US$3.5M. (Three Million Five Hundred Thousand U.S.Dollars), with a Bank in Europe.Presently,this money is still with the Bank and the management just wrote me as the beneficiary to come forward to sign for the release of this money or rather issue a letter of authorization to somebody to receive it on my behalf if I can not come over.

Presently, I'm in a hospital in Kenya where I have been undergoing treatment for esophageal cancer.I have since lost my ability to talk and my doctors have told me that I have only a few weeks to live. It is my last wish to see this money distributed to charity organizations anywhere in the World.Because relatives and friends have plundered so much of my wealth since my illness, I cannot live with the agony of entrusting this huge responsibility to any of them.

Please, I beg you in the name of God to help me Stand and collect the Funds from the Bank.

I want a person that is God fearing that will use this money to fund churches,orphanages and widows propagating the word of God and to ensure that the house of God is maintained.

The Bible made us to understand that blessed is the hand that giveth.I took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money and my husband's relatives are not Christians and I don't want my husband's hard earned money to be misused by unbelievers. I don't want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly manner.

Hence the reason for taking this bold decision, I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going and I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord.

Exodus{14 VS14}says that the lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace. I don't need any telephone communication in this regard because of my soundless voice and presence of my husband's relatives around me always. I don't want them to know about this development. With God all things are possible.

As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of my attorney who is in Europe as he will be the one to assist you in laying claims for this funds.

Kindly send your reply to my private email address which is as follows:
sheilajohn64@aol.com

Your Sister in Christ,
Mrs.Sheila Johnson.

I haven't even seen Inception yet and already it has changed the way I dream

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Last night I was escorted through my dreams by the cast of Inception and I looked for hints and proof that I was in my dreams or out of my dreams etc. It did not make for refreshing sleep.

Not sure if seeing the movie will help or hurt.

This svithe is (also) totally gay

(actually, it's probably more gay than the original one)
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I'm writing this before Church but I rather doubt that anything will happen during, say, from 10:20-10:30 that will make me change anything. But more on that in a moment.

Two Tuesdays ago, our ward cohosted a meeting at our building with the Coalition of Welcoming Congregations, group that "brings together religious leaders, LGBT people of faith and their allies from a wide range of religious traditions in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area to form a progressive, effective and media-savvy voice on matters relating to sexuality and religion, homophobia, and the enfranchisement of LGBT people within society as a whole" (a little wordy, but that's how they describe themselves and I'm all for letting people describe themselves). I didn't make it to the meeting, sadly, but I hear it was well attended (75-100 people) and a happy and healthy discourse was held. Which makes me very happy. With all the unpleasant rhetoric spinning around in all directions, it's nice to hear that people can still be civil and then eat cookies afterward and have a dandy time getting to know each other and finding common ground (which two things are generally the same thing). This is a large part of the Mormon tradition and it would be nice if our PR better reflected that.

To read an account of the meeting from someone who, you know, was actually there, try Carol Lynn Pearson's

Which brings us to the last ten minutes of tomorrow's sacrament meeting. Our stake's newest high councilor is coming to speak. I've met him only once, but he seems like a very cool guy. He's also openly gay and has some of the speech mannerisms and gestures of one of my very favorite gay Mormons^* (I hate the words I'm using --- I sound as bad as white people who collect black friends).

For all I know, he may well be the only HIV-positive openly gay man who doesn't mind speaking about his "sordid past" who is serving as a high councilor in the entire LDS Church anywhere in the world. Frankly, I would not be surprised if that is the case.

(And forgetting for a moment that I like the guy, maybe we should consider the awesome weight he bears in being a symbol. And a variable symbol at that. I imagine he gets as much hate flung on him as love.)

I'm not interested in making large How Things Should Be-type proclamations, nor am I much interested in predicting the future.

But I will say that we Saints are commanded to be bearers of Christ's love. And I am happy to see examples of that love all around me.

And I don't care if that's totally gay.

last week's svithe

Twenty Minutes Till Ten Years

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The twenty minutes is how long I have till summer school's over for the day. Following that moment (and the requisite drive home), we will move into full Tenth Anniversary Mode.

Lady Steed and I were married ten years ago today in the Oakland Temple. Photos of us then reveal a couple of very very young people. Deleriously young.

Today we are ten. So we're going to pop two hundred dollars on dinner and four hundred dollars on a chair so I guess we're finally grownups.

Or would be, if we could afford such extravagance.

But after this night thrusts us into bankrupcy, we will still have each other.

And we'll do just fine.

I love you, Lady Steed.

One thing on Johannes Mehserle and Oscar Grant

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Mehserle claims that he thought he was pulling aiming and shooting his taser.

If tasers and guns are really that identical, that a trained police officer can grab the wrong one in the heat of the moment and not know the difference, then that puts everyone in danger and must be fixed.

Independence Day has come and gone

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And, as you undoubtedly know, that means less than a month remains until Coast Guard Day, the day on which decent human beings traditionally give me gifts. Ever since the Obama guy started encroaching on my Coast Guard Day turf, things have been a little sparse around here, but I have faith that the gift-giving will pick back up soon.

For those of you looking for suggestions as to what Thutopians like to receive on their personalized armed-services holiday, I have taken the liberty of scouring my Amazon wishlist for ideas.

1. Any book by Tom Holt. Because Tolkers says he's the same as me and that makes me very very nervous.

2. Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon. Because no one had the good sense to give it to me for Father's Day. Not even me. And I would have, had I thought of it.

3. David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism. Because I don't read nearly enough nonfiction and I've heard much too much about how awesome this book is.

4. The Complete Essex County or The Complete Bone. Because both these comics are awesome and neither of them have I finished reading.

5. Written In Chalk. Let me explain. It's a Buddy and Julie Miller album. With Kershisnik cover art. It's the best of visual and the best of aural having a baby.

6. Jukebox by Cat Power. Hard to narrow things down to just one hot indie chick, you know?

7. United States Coast Guard Flag. Just to help us all remember those other guys whose day I stole.

Music, Crappy

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I don't know if you know this, but AM music stations still exist. I was just listening to one this afternoon and it was playing "Cracklin' Rosie." Sound quality was crappy, but awesome song, right?

Then, as another powerline faded and befuzzed the song, I thought of those kids I mock who walk around with their cellphone speakers cranked up. Crappy quality speakers blaring crappy quality mp3s.

But is their crappy music more or less crappy then AM radio under a powerline while antenna's sitting unscrewed in the garage?

I don't feel that I can judge objectively, but I suspect neither more crappy nor less crappy.

Just different crappy.

The Adultery Svithe

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This week in most Mormon adult Sunday Schools worldwide the topic is David and Bathsheba. Which, as a story, I am so over. It's kinda been done to death, imho, so I'm not anxious to dig back in to it.

But it comes at a time when I am becoming increasingly aware that in America generally, probably the world generally, probably history generally, adultery has been constant and common. Given the data I've seen lately, I would suspect that the majority of marriages throughout history have been tainted by adultery at least once.

Now, I'm not saying this to give you permission to find a David or a Bathsheba of your very own, but simply as an observation of likely fact.

I suppose it's not that surprising. Humans are mostly animals after all, and like all animals our ultimate priority is propagation by any means necessary. And so all sorts of seed gets sown in all sorts of fields. C'est la vie.

But what's the lesson to be drawn if you (as, I suspect, is true of the vast majority of married couples both now and historically) desire to remain true?

Here's an obvious one: Don't assume your own unassailable morality. (That's pretty much good advice in any situation.)

Here's another: Don't suppose that the world at large is anxious to help you meet your goals (another generalizable notion).

Or, to state them both positively, With Work You May Be Good and Find Your Resources For Good Within.

And that's without bringing the divine explicitly into the equation.

Any way, have a good week. Don't screw around on your spouse.

Love, Theric.

last week's svithe

Electronics

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Instead of a bunch of different gadgets, I would like to buy just one device with the following specs:

Big enough screen to watch movies on
Portable so that can be done in bed
Run MS Word (included)
Run Adobe CS (included)
Do basic video and audio editing
Carry all my books around with me
Use e-ink so a single charge can last weeks
Hold at least 45 cubic feet of frozen food
Shave my face completely clean in under a minute
Autobackup to the cloud
Texting and email no matter where I am
Have a physical presense that's aesthetically pleasing
Wash dishes using less water than when I do them by hand
Pedometer and accelerometer
Have respectable fidelity when playing music
Wireless

And if we could keep it under 2k, that would be awesome.

kthnxbye

xkqgulzjvyuiop

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Hey, Wired Googlers.

FTR, I too thought they just made it up.

(Can't hurt to be sure, right?)

Was the best innovation of 2009 a throwback to our lost past? -or- Why DC's Wednesday Comics were so darn great

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Note: This was originally written for Fantasy Magazine many months ago, but then they changed all their plans for writing about comics and so they no longer need it. So I'm throwing it up here and on Fob Comics instead. We'll call this apropos rather than horribly too late because the comics under discussion were just collected in hardcover and released on the first of this month.

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Was the best innovation of 2009 a throwback to our lost past? 

-or-

Why DC's Wednesday Comics were so darn great

I recall reading the daily comics as Bill Watterson's Calvin lamented the state of the modern comic strip. Watterson himself used all his power to fight for a full half page on Sundays at the end of his run and those strips still seem revolutionary. But really, he was just hearkening back to the era of Grand Art in the newspapers' funny pages.

Our modern Sunday sheet doesn't have any great panoramic views such as Nemo in Slumberland nor do we have much left in the way of grand adventure ala Hal Foster or Chester Gould. Most papers are crammed full of joke stgrips. And, sure, Pearls Before Swine is brilliant, but a hilarious eight-panel (crammed into so small a space only the simplest line drawings read) is only one sliver of Sundaycomics' heritage. But we haven't room anymore for the grand or the beautiful.

Enter Wednesday Comics.

For twelve weeks in mid 2009, DC released not-full-sized-but-still-good-sized broadsheets and handed full pages over to writer/artist teams to tell a story over twelve episodes and the results were generally pretty good. Good enough that my only regret is that each story was only and exactly twelve episodes long, and at the end of those twelve weeks, Wednesday Comics was over.

While one advantage of newspaper comics is their endless nature, my own nature as a reader prefers beginnings and endings. But if a few of Wednesday Comics' stories had ended at nine weeks and others at fifteen and as one dropped out another took its place and WC had become an institution --- how cool would that have been? 

But they didn't and so it goes. Here's to hoping that, at the very least, WC was successful enough to justify a second twelve-week run next year. Because the grand scope of a single story splayed over one large piece of paper is a thing of beauty and something worth experiencing again, for the first time.

Now for brief reviews of all the stories.

Batman - story by Brian Azzarello with art by Eduardo Risso

No fantasy here. This is a straight Batman story, with the knight of the night in pure detective mode. It's a fine story, but reading on, one is left to wonder, with all the DC characters to choose from, why would anyone pick Batman? (Or Superman for that matter.) With DC's universe of underdeveloped and deliriously fun tertiary characters to choose from, why pick a character everyone knows, and tell a workaday story about him? It doesn't make much sense. Even if it is a good story.

Kamandi - story by Dave Gibbons with art by Ryan Sook

From my own reading, I am only really familiar with Jack Kirby's work from the end of his life --- when he was merely a shell of the Jack Kirby who created the modern superhero.

Kamandi however is a character of Kirby's from the early '70s, and the energy and strength of Sook's art and the wild adventure of Gibbons's story helps me understand what the big deal with Kirby has always been about. This is the best Kirby story I've ever read, even if Kirby did not directly touch it.

Kamandi lives in a distant future where humans are all but destroyed (he is, after all, "The Last Boy on Earth") and sentient anthropomorphic animals battle across the demolished American landscape. The villains here (as in two more WC stories to come) are a band of apes who intend to rule the entire landscape. They have kidnapped the king of the tigers, a friend of Kamandi's, and are planning to execute him. Naturally, the heroic human rides to the rescue, uniting tigers and dogs and lions on his way.

While in many respects a straightforward postapocalyptic adventure, Kamandi uses quiet moments between the violence and explosions to explore concepts like loneliness and loyalty and family and morality. A couple surprising turns and genuine rapport between the characters makes this tale a real winner. I wouldn't be surprised to see Kamandi resurrected again as this story inspires other artists.

Superman - story by John Arcudi with art by Lee Bermejo

For a moment, Superman almost becomes exactly who Lex Luthor has always said he is: an alien with no real ties to Earth.

During an attack from other, more monstrous aliens, a comment from one fills him with insecurity regarding his status as an adopted Earthling, So Supes heads home to Ma and Pa Kent in hope of regaining his bearing.

Though merely a simple and classic Superman tale (told in an overwrought visual style not well matched to newsprint), this story does reveal what Wednesday Comics' form can do best: Art done large.

Deadman - story by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck with art by Dave Bullock

Deadman's afterlife heroics done large. Even suddenly alive again, Deadman looks like a corpse (which is fine, I suppose, since, much as you know a dead Superman will someday return to life, a living Deadman will necessarily return to death), but alive or dead, he abandons himself to doing the right thing, no matter what it may be. And entangeld in a web of demon-evil hijinks, he is level-headed enough to see that even attractive evils are evil.

The ugly demons --- the ones that distract the reader from the pretty ones --- are truly hideous. And the monstrous hell Bullock creates is one of the greatest creations in all of WednesdayComics. And, curious among this set of deliberately ended comics, Deadman leaves us with something of a cliffhanger.

Green Lantern - story by Kurt Busiek with art by Joe Quiñones

A mashup of Cartoon Network and Mad Men, the thrust is not on the alien invasion, but on the bromance between Green Lantern Hal Jordan and an old astronaut friend. The story is highly professional and manipulative, but it's too effective (and thus charming and lovable and even moving) to really hold its machinations against it. It makes you smile? It makes you tear up? Well, even if it was manipulative, we all want that experience from time to time.

Metamorpho - story by Neil Gaiman with art by Michael Allred

Gaiman has long claimed that he writes his scripts to match the strengths of the artist he is working with, but never has that been more clear than here. Mike Allred's pop sensibilities rule every square millimeter of all twelve pages, with his wife Laura Allred's colors blinding us with that rapid cheerfulness the Allreds are masters of. It's not till near the end of the run, when Metamorpho works his way through the Periodic Table of the Elements (looking like a board game --- another Allredian conceit for sure), that the brilliant wordplay finally reveals that Gaiman had a hand in this at all. His genius for goofing off finally shines though Allred's genius for goofing off, and this pastiche of '60s silliness hits its highest point. What this world needs more of, it is clear, are more more more Gaiman/Allred collaborations. 

Teen Titans - story by Eddie Berganza with art by Sean Galloway

One of the weaker stories and one of the harder to access without a decent background in DCology. It's a typical comic-book monstrosity with switchbacks and hidden identities and amnesia and time travel and sudden reveals and, yawn, so on. And, like Superman before it, a little too gray and brown for newsprint.

Strange Adventures - story and art by Paul Pope and José Villarrubia

Adam Strange is one of the strangest characters DC has produced, and Paul Pope, coming off a string of successes in the strange, is well suited to tackle Adam as he cavorts with his metalbikini-clad love against an army of bad-tempered blue monkeys. Curiously, the story is not weakened --- or even destrangified --- by the sudden return of Adam to Earth where he is --- gasp! --- old and boring.

Pope's wiggly lines bring Strange's world to life in a way a more traditional, cleaner line never could have. He moves Strange from the realm of the strange curiosity, to the realm of the strangely real.

Supergirl - story by Jimmy Palmiotti with art by Amanda Conner

This is the silly one. Others may have aimed for silly, but this one is silly. But, even though the original 1959 Supergirl was silly, she was treated by her creators with contempt. It's clear Palmiotti and Conner love their Supergirl, even if she is stuck chasing a silly superdog and a silly supercat as they engage in silly misadventures.

But though this silly Supergirl is lovingly presented, she's not apt to make feminists proud. She asks for help solving her problem from a young man, then her problem is explained to her by an old man, and her problem is finally solved by a dog and a cat. 

In the end, although Supergirl saves a plane filled with people, she never really acts --- she is only acted upon. And that makes her a dull hero.

Also, she is very silly.

Metal Men - story by Dan DiDio with art by José Luis García-López and Kevin Nowlan

The Metal Men are and have always been goofy. And DiDio plays that goofiness to the hilt with punny titles and campy dialogue, and the artists do their part to make the characters and their world as haha as possible. And that devotion to humor pays off when a genuine menace threatens to destroy them all. Having laughed with the Metal Men, we can't bear to see them die! A simple story well played.

Wonder Woman - story and art by Ben Caldwell

While Wonder Woman seems as prone to the ordinary as Batman and Superman, Caldwell instead brings us an origin story of a young Diana, navigating her physical dreams of our world, that is structured like a classic folk tale. He lays it out in a more complicated and daring style, then draws it in a style so European I kept checking to see if maybe, I don't know, Nicolas de Crécy was doing the art.

The melding colors and complex painterly style don't always read well on newsprint (definitely don't try reading this in bed with only a small bedside lamp as your companion), but the artistic ambition of this Wonder Woman is to be lauded.

Sgt. Rock - story by Adam Kubert with art by Joe Kubert

Another story without any fantastic elements, the classic Nazi fighter gets roughed up but holds his ground. This looks and tastes much like the original, which seems compliment enough.

The Flash - story by Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher with art by Karl Kerschl.

The first few weeks, this page was split in half, between a Flash story and an Iris story. Two views of the same relationship, one from his perspective, one from hers. His told in a classic superhero look, hers approximating classic mid-century newspaper stories of strong women.

The Iris half of the tale was abandoned however. My suspicion is that the writers found it too difficult to maintain her half of the story while Flash is multiplying himself and fighting gorillas. He's just way cooler, right?

But I think that decision was a tragedy. The counterpoint of a normal human's p-o-v offered a sense of reality to an otherwise far over-the-top story. Too bad they stopped thinking the human experience merited half their time.

The Demon and Catwoman - story by Walter Simonson with art by Brian Stelfreeze

Unfortunately disjointed, this ambitious-seeming but ultimately overly simple story may be the best proof that Wednesday Comics should have been made ongoing. Simonson simply bit off too much with this story and wrapping it up in twelve weeks resulted in something much less that what might have been. The iambic pentameter-spewing demon fighting his centuries-dead nemesis while Catwoman struggles not to be a pawn --- the story had potential. Would it had been given the weeks necessary to fully unfold. Twenty weeks maybe. By then it would have been surrounded by all new stories, and, upon ending, replaced itself by some new and marvelous and perhaps even forgotten character.

Hawkman - story and art by Kyle Baker

The sepia-toned heightened reality of Baker's Hawkman is the perfect final page. Pure superhero and purely ridiculous. Let's start with aliens! Then let's have dinosaurs! And then sea monsters! But, amazingly, it all pulls together. Village Voice got it right when, choosing this story as one of the best comics of 2009, they wrote "slashing and comically arrogant Hawkman . . . proved it's often secondary heroes who are ripest for artistic extravagance." 

Exactly.

Bring us another twelve weeks next year, DC. 

Or, even better, bring us fifty-two.

School lunch

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Everyone knows that schools save pennies and screw our kids by calling potato chips a serving of vegetables so they can meet the federal guidelines for a healthy lunch without actually having to prepare anything healthful. But now a new innovation is coming in the further save pennies and screw children.

But first, some good news.

Have you seen the Sun Chips ads for their new compostable bags? Made of corn, they biodegrade in a matter of weeks. The same compostable "plastic" is also appearing in disposable drinking glasses, etc.

Back to the bad news. Sun Chips, delicious as they are, shouldn't be a serving of vegetables. And they haven't been because they cost more than frfrozen french fries. But now with a bag made from corn they count as TWO servings of vegetables and are, thus, a cheaper veggie delivery system.

And if you serve a kid his milk not in a cardboard box but a corn-made cup? Dairy and veggie. Baddabing.

I work in the school and I understand the budget crunch, but this loopholery takes us to a new level of disturbing.

Kids shouldn't be expected to eat the bag.

(And the fact that they just toss their green beans in the trash as well ain't no kind of excuse.)

Compelled to be humble (a svithe)

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Being humble is not my forte. Or, rather, pretending to be less awesome than I am has never been my forte. Which is not how I define humility, though, in my observation, that is the most commonly used definition of the word.

Humility (in my definition) is keeping one's by-virtue-of-being-a-child-of-god awesomeness in perspective. Or, in other words, most people are at least a little awesome some of the time and --- strikes me as likely --- the parents of all this awesome must be awesomer still.

None of which is what I mean to be writing. As per the title, circumstances are compelling me to be humble. Which leads closely to my second definition of humility: placing one's awesomeness higher than such things as faith hope and charity. This is a crime I am quite adept at, as hinted in that initial hyperlink.

And therefore, the vital question posed for me is what's most important.

What is most important.

last week's svithe

Muzzled

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In order to avoid offending any more people and thus causing them to lock themselves in their bathrooms for months at a time, from now on, Thutopia will only republish LOLcats vetted by a panel of persnickety marms and email forwards sent to me by members of said panel.

Suck on a pansy (they're totally nontoxic)

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So what with all the cadmiumwear at McDonald's and Walmart, and with my recent learning that the flower foxgloves are totally toxic (not to mention hydrangeas and calla lilies, both of which grow in our very yard), I am starting to become concerned for the Children of America. Ergo, this list of safe things to suck.

Pansies.
Golden scepters (20kt min).
Fish (fresh, not from Louisiana).
Marble angels (available free at most public cemeteries).
Hermetically sealed Frenchmen.
Celery.
But especially pansies.

Looking Forward to the 57th State

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thanks to recession cone for the tip

Little Happy Secrets

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I just read this play and even though I won't get to see this production, I still feel it's worthy to contribute towards. Amazing.

Feedback, please.

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Do not use Google. Do not sleep on it. Do not read the other comments before commenting yourself.

Now:

Look at these two book-cover images. (There are two because the second image will probably replace the one in the current cover.)

Imagine you're walking through the bookstore or browsing an online bookstore.

What sort of plays do you expect to be inside a book with this cover?

Thanks for your help.

-th-