This family walks into a talent agency - a mother, father, son, daughter and baby. The father says to the talent agent that they have an act. [A self-satisfied comedian says something controversial involving fecal matter and incest.] They call it The Aristocrats. No-one laughs.
Well that was a big pile of not funny. I fully understand the idea that comedy shouldn't have taboo, and that humour often arises from crossing any of our self-imposed social barriers, but I'd also like it to be, y'know, funny. Otherwise it's not comedy. It's just...talking.
90 minutes of my life I'm not getting back. Bastards.
Anyway, before I get too hung up on the waste of time that was The Aristocrats I just want to say that genuine content is atually coming on Tuesday. As ever my intention was to get it finished today and stick it up here but all I ended up doing was watching things and continually promising myself that I'd post just after the next episode. Too late to get it done now though. And what have I been watching that's kept me from excercising my brain by trying to write something entertaining? Well, I've been watching Numbthreers which is a programme of my favourite genre - x fights crime in their spare time. In this case the x is a mathematician. Whilst not as good as Players or Renegade it does feature one of the coolest visual devices of televisual history - Maths Vision.
Predator can bugger off, Maths Vision is way cooler than heat vision. Formulae appearing in chalk writing over what you are looking at beats the hell out of indistinct red and orange blurs. In my mind, that is how the inimitable Luke McKinney always sees the world. He's like the Predator of Science. (That's my subtle way of sending you to go read his stuff. Possibly the funniest writing on the Internet. Apart from AP2, natch.)
And speaking of science, I've also been watching The Big Bang Theory. An alrightish sitcom about geeks which features David from Roseanne and That Funny One Out Of 8 Simple Rules Who Isn't Katey Sagal. It's nothing special but there are a couple of good performances so I think I'll stick with it and see what happens.
Another day, another failed attempt at content. Nevermind. I'll just have to throw something up here that will hopefully leave everyone with a feeling of satisfaction and not the same feeling of wasted time I got from watching The Aristocrats.
I read several comic blogs. I enjoy it almost as much as reading comics. I do. And on rare occassions I enjoy it more. Today is one of those times. Before I get to what I want to talk about I just want to give you all a link to something that Kalinara wrote about the Greatest Green Lantern of all. Pretty, Fizzy Paradise is a fantastic blog that features on my Rolodex of Awesome over to the right there so take some time and go read. Even you non-comic chaps should go look if only for the fact that it's very well written. Now I place comic blogs into one four categories. These aren't entirely definitive and all of the blogs I read do stray into other categories but this is my loose classification system.
1) Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin. A category of it's own. Reading comic blogs without reading MSPR would be like studying Maths but without algebra. I don't know if he was the first or not but as far as I'm concerned, he's been retconned into being the first.
2) The Big Monkey Crew. Straight forwardly enough this category includes the guys who do the Big Monkey Podcast: Scip, Devon,Jon, Jon and Ben. They're like an Avengers or Justice League type blogging team.
3) The Awesome. These are the ones that that don't really fit into any of the other categories and as I said previosuly, all the blogs I read stray into awesome many times but I generally fit blogs like The ISB, Polite Dissent and Dave's Long Box.
4) Feminism. And this is where we find Pretty, Fizzy Paradise, Written World and Ami Angelwings' Super Cute Rants Of DOOOM XD for example. People who know me are no doubt familiar with my love/hate relationship with feminism (love the subject, hated my lecturers*) so it's not particularly surprising that I read and enjoy them.
Y'see, the category 4 blogs are just as entertaining as 1 through 3 but they also raise serious points that need addressing. It's good to excercise your mind once in a while and these blogs and bloggers seem to have taken to heart the lessons that all comics teach us every issue. (Well, most comics. OK, some comics.) Fighting the good fight. Righting wrongs. Standing up for principles. They inspire and educate.
Which neatly brings me on to what I really want to talk about tonight. Ami recently wrote an interesting guest column about the hypersexualisation of superheroines, making specific reference to the unbalanced sexiness of costumes. Something we can't deny happens at all. Now, this got me thinking and actually inspired me to see if I can contribute anything equally thought-provoking to the interweb.
It turns out I can't.
But what I can do is say that yeah, superheroines are annoyingly hypersexualised and what sucks the most about that is that it's got worse over time. You'd think that as society has progressed things would have become much better in this respect. Wrong. And I'll show you this in the only way that we can here at This Sentence No Verb: with everyone's favourite minor Thor villain.
JYD Loves Hela (But not always her costume choices)
First off we'll start with a base. Now I'm not going to go all Kirby on you and throw out some Journey Into Mystery panel because that'd be too obvious and we've already seen enough of the Kirby style with the usual Hela posts. Here's Hela as she appeared during Simonson's Thor run.
Simonson and Buscema's The Mighty Thor Vol 1 #374
Clearly Kirby inspired we've got the classic death Goddess look with the cool hat, mad cape and black and green armour/bodysuit. This costume looks cool but I wouldn't say that it's sexualised. That's the costume of someone who's going kick your head in. Straight forward armour type stuff for the torso, leggings and boots with greaves. This is both practical and fashionable and is in fact what Hela should always look like. Some people have different ideas though. Let's jump forward to more recent comics.
Jurgens and JRjr's Thor Vol 2 #2
Right. Here the costume is in fact closer to the original Kirby look but there are one or two things that suggest things are changing. The costume itself isn't that bad but there seems to be more emphasis on the skintight spandex and less on the mad cape. I can live with that though, that's just an aesthetic choice. After all, it's not mandated that the main focus of her costume should be her freaking magical cape that makes her so phenomenally powerful. Ahem. I love JRjr's stuff, really I do but here Hela is starting to look a little...off. It can get worse though. Ready for a jump?
Rodi and Ribic's Loki #1
Whoa! This miniseries was great and the art is top quality but...dude! That's quite a departure! Good news is that we have the big cape back along with a Simonson style cowl but is a bustier and thigh length boot combination really a good choice for someone who spends 50% of her time in the frozen, snowy wasteland of Niffelheim? I don't care that her cloak grants her near immortality and immunity to poisons, diseases and conventional injury - she's going to get a chiil. Also, is that much bare skin sensible when you've got a hectic shipbuilding schedule to keep? Sure, it's made out of fingernails but there's got to be buckets of tar involved in any maritime construction. What we have here is utterly pointless sexualisation of a character. How has putting Hela in that get up added to the story? Would the narrative have suffered if she was in the Kirby costume? Showing us Hela's cleavage is just pandering to this notion that all women in comics have to look sexy for the fanboys. Thing is though, there has been worse. Steel yourselves for this one.
Oeming, Berman and Divito's Thor Vol 2 #84
Dude, not cool. DNC. Land now people. Land now. This is so shockingly upsetting that I don't know where to begin. Cape and Hat are there which is what we want to see but don't think you can fool us by going for a "Hey, it's nearly the same as the Kirby look with the black on top of the green!" vibe. We can see through the ploy (And I'm surprised that we can't see through the costume. Only one step away.) and we're not impressed. Again we have a bustier type affair so emphasis is focussed on breasts which is highlighted further by that weird strip of material that connects the torso to the...dog collar. I think that the worst thing though is that the black-on-green stuff looks like a thong, stockings and suspenders. Did Volla take the cloak down to the launderette and stop off on the way back at Ann Summers to pick up some...extras for the boss? I know that it is convention that in superhero fiction underwear is often worn on the outside but I didn't think it applied to that type of underwear. You'd expect someone to be dressed like that in Yes Mistress magazine - not in a comic. By doing things like that you're putting style over substance. Objectifying Hela does not make her "edgy" or "modernised" it just means you're not giving your female characters any kind of depth. They've just been reduced to eye candy.
Y'know, I was going to actually mention that there is something good in that panel from my point of view, and that's the clear referencing of the Hand of Glory but thinking about it, that just makes it worse. By giving us a look at one of Hela's obscure powers it shows that you know the character and just can't be bothered to use her properly.
Obviously I'm coming at this from my own fanboy entitlement perspective - if you do things like this to characters I love then I'm going to pick up on it. Thing is, you can apply this to any female character - Wonder Woman, Black Cat, Supergirl or whoever. Dial it back people. Characters in comics are there to be heroic or villainous regardless of gender and this should be the main concern. Don't sacrifice quality at the altar of the male gaze. If hypersexualisation doesn't serve the character or narrative then just don't do it.
Just don't.
*Also Vagina dentatain relation to Jaws. Jaws is not my subconscious fear of castration but my very conscious fear of massive sharks that would eat me.
After last night's entirely valid but funny-free post I resolved to actually entertain you with this evening's post and I was planning to write one of the funniest things that has ever been uploaded to the InformationSuperM62Corridor. That was the plan.
Mike Sterling had beaten me to it. Unsurprising really - if Sims is the Batman of Blogging then Sterling is the Superman. Trying to write about Simonson's Thor after he's already put something on ThE iNtErnET is like trying to follow a 3 hour Prince gig when all you have is a comb, some paper and a mentally challenged backing singer called Bubba.
Seriously, I got nothin'. Today is one of those days where everyone is on fine form. Scip's destroying sanity with his post about Jean Loring and Jon is helping him, Devon is rocking our aesthetics and funny bones with his Sketch-A-Palooza and Kalinara is (deservedly) laying into Starman. Even my livejournal friends list contains the awesome, Philippos42 made the best used of the Strikethrough tag that I've ever seen. I could just about deal with that were it not for the fact that Leigh, Richard and T-Dawg have all finished theirownmeme that I originally got from Ami and as I predicted they're all far funnier than mine. Not only that but their selections of characters show that they're also well rounded indivuals and choose people other than robots and vikings.
T-Dawg and Katie are on their way round tonight for a few light ales so I don't even have much time to post something that can keep up with any of that. Dammit! I wanted to amuse people tonight! So I gave up. I decided that I'd break my 7 Days of Content pledge and just read some randomly collected comics.
Fortunately, one of them was an old Superman.
Yes Superman, all the fish look like Lois. I'm sure if just some of the fish looked like Lois then it'd all make perfect sense to you, but all of the fish? Madness!
Hey there people, how's it going? Y'all good? Well, even though I promised a week of content starting from tomorrow I have been tagged by Comic Bloggery's very own Supergirl AmiAngelwings so for the first time on This Sentence No Verb I bring you hardcore meme-on-meme action. I believe that in internet etiquette it is rude to ignore such a tagging so with no further ado - let's get it on!
First, select your ten fictional characters (from any medium) by whichever method you like best. Then answer the questions below.
Whichever method I like best? Hmm, I've always been a fan of the thinking and writing it down but maybe there is something to be said for an entirely random method of selecting characters. Of course, the logistics of randomly selecting 10 from every fictional character ever is a little beyond me. So let's stick with the thinking and writing thing.
1. Thor (The Mighty Thor) 2. Reno Raines (Renegade) 3. Mothra (Many films) 4. Ed-209 (Robocop) 5. Hans Gruber (Die Hard) 6. Jessie (Pokemon) 7. Quistis Trepe (FFVIII) 8. Oracle (BoP) 9. Columbo (Columbo) 10. Hela (The Mighty Thor)
1. Divide the list up by even and odd. Which group of five would make a better Five Man Band (like a Power Rangers team)? Who would you slot in each position: Leader, Lancer (second-in-command), Big Guy, Smart Guy, The Chick? If you think the team would be improved by swapping one character between the even and odd groups, which ones would you switch?
Team A: Thor Mothra Hans Gruber Quistis Trepe Columbo
Team B: Reno Raines Ed-209 Jessie Oracle Hela
A 5 man band? Well, looking at what I got there, I'd say that both teams have a pretty good chance of making a truly awesome band of 5, but that's because I have impeccable taste. Seriously. But I'm going to go with Team A just edging it over Team B. Both teams have a divine figure but A also has a kaiju. Plus Mothra always comes with those weird fairy princesses from Infant Island, so they have a number advantage too. #Mosura ya, mosura-a-a, dongan kasakuyan...
Now, let's assign those positions as teams! Go Team A!
Leader: Hans Gruber Lancer: Thor Big Guy: Mothra Smart Guy: Columbo The Chick: Quistis Trepe
OK, I know it's strange that the Viking God of Thunder isn't either the leader or big guy, but he was pipped to the positions by two people who were just slightly better at it. Well, one person and a giant phoenix-like moth, but you know what I mean.
Team B.....Present Arms!
Leader: Hela Lancer: Jessie Big Guy: Ed-209 Smart Guy: Oracle The Chick: Reno Raines
That was pretty easy. To be honest, Oracle would have made a great leader but this team is actually pretty lacking in brains so the Smart Guy has to be the smartest person in the DC universe. Yes, I said the smartest. Oracle is number 1, Lex number 2 and Michael Holt number 3. Batman, you only make number 4 ya grumpy old bastard. Anyway, now I come to rack the two teams up, Team A really does have a big advantage over Team B. So they get the prize!
If I had to swap any of the characters over it'd be Columbo for Hela. That way, Oracle can take her place as leader and Thor and Hela could be together as it plainly should be.
2. Gender-swap 2, 8 & 10. Which character would have the most change in their story arc? Which the least? Would any of these characters have to have a complete personality change to be believable as the opposite sex?
That's Reno, Oracle and Hela.
Even though Reno was assigned the position of "the chick" earlier I think his story arc would be massively changed. Hell, they'd have to change the words to the opening intro to "...but got the man she loved instead. Framed for murder now she prowls the badlands. An outlaw hunting outlaws. A bounty hunter. A Renegade."
Damn, that would be awesome. She could totally hook up with Bobby Sixkiller and Cheyenne would just be her best friend! Every week she'd be defending men and rescuing them! Imagine the sexual tension between her and Dutch Dixon! She could be called Rena Raines! I would so watch that programme.
Would there be a major story arc change had Barbara Gordon been Bob Gordon? Jesus! Well, if she had then maybe Alan Moore wouldn't have, well, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, you should check out some of the things that Philppos42 (The Reed Richards of comic blogging. Before he went crazy and started cloning Gods, natch.) has to say about the subject. Personally I always thought that the end of the Killing Joke was all about the panel we don't see - the one where Batman breaks the Joker's neck - the laughing stops mid guffaw but the sirens are still wailing. That's a much too serious topic for tonight though and is far better discussed by all the variousblogginggeniuses (genii?) out there who are not me. Back to the poor grammar and half-arsed jokes...
As for Hela...I don't want to think about her gender swapping. If she did, it might not affect her story arc too much (after all she is only a minor charcter) but it would certainly affect mine. I'd have some serious questions to ask myself about my sexuality. Let's move on shall we?
I don't think any would need a complete personality change to be believable as the opposite sex really. Maybe Hela. It would probably affect her rare heart-to-hearts with Skurge the Executioner. Heh, being able to write sentences like that is why I like comics so much. Also Punisher: War Journal, but more on that later this week.
3. Compare the matchups of 1 & 8 and 5 & 9. (Ignore canon sexual preferences for the moment.) Which couple would be more compatible? Which couple would be more plausible to people from either principal's home culture?
Thor/Oracle
Hans Gruber/Columbo
Wow.
Those are two godawful couples. Although, if you think of it as Oracle and Jake Olsen it might work. He's whiny enough to fit as Oracle's type. The only stain on her character is her shocking taste in men. Jason Bard? Nightwing?! Flirting with Azrael?! And didn't she also have a crush on Killer Moth? Damn Barbara, you can do so much better. Tim Drake would be my immediate suggestion but there are two main problems with that, 1) Dan Didio would probably have you killed and 2) It's probably illegal. But enough of my unwritten fan-fiction, I think that Thor/Oracle works marginally better because, well, can you really see Master-Criminal Hans Gruber getting on with Super-Cop Columbo? It would be a neverending game of one-upmanship that would leave them bitter and twisted. There's so much passion but they're just poison to each other.
Anyway...
Which couple would be more plausible to people from either principal's home culture? Even though Odin might be a little miffed that his son is getting it on with a mortal he'd probably deal with it. As for Hans and Columbo? Well, their relationship would be fine in Germany but a gay couple in America? They'd probably get burned to death by a passing group of Christian fundamentalists. Or something.
4. Your team is 3, 4 & 9. The mission consists of a social challenge, a mental challenge and a physical challenge. Which team member do you assign to each challenge?
Mothra, Ed-209 and Columbo.
Pshaw! Give me a tough one, please.
Social - Mothra Mental - Columbo Physical - ED-209
Next!
5. 7 becomes 1's boss for a week in some plausible fashion. How's their working relationship?
Quistis "Can't deal with the responsibility of being a teacher let alone a war leader" Trepe commanding the Odinson? Somehow, I don't think so. Thor would probably be a nice guy though, help her out and obey her commands even if he thinks their bad because he respects the chain of command but Quistis was intimidated by that whiny Squall chap so I can't see her stepping up and bossing the Thunderer around, regardless of that whole whip and PVC dress thing.
Anyway, there's only one mortal who commands Thor, and he's not with us any more. *sniff* I miss you Steve...
6. 2 finds him/her/itself inserted into 6's continuity. As far as anyone other than 2 or 6 is concerned, they've always been there. What role would 2 be presumed to have had in 6's story, and could they fit in without going wonky?
Reno and Jessie. Reno Raines in the Pokemon continuity?
I'd buy that for a dollar!
It'd be hard at first to crowbar him in there, no doubt James would be immensely jealous and Reno doesn't do all that well will dominant women but he'd be an asset to Team Rocket. Instead of Giovanni relying on JJ&M to concoct an elaborate plan to capture Ash's pokemon he'd just put a bounty on Pikachu's head for $1,000 and leave it at that.
Think of the fun you could have with the Team Rocket motto!
Jessie: Prepare for trouble! James: And make it double! Reno: I was a Pokemon Trainer and good at my job... Jessie: To protect the world from devastation! James: To unite all peoples within our nation! Reno: But I comitted the ultimate sin and testified against other Pokemon Trainers... Jessie: To denounce the evils of truth and love! James: To extend our reach to the stars above! Reno: ...Pokemon Trainers gone bad, Trainers that tried to kill me but got the Squirtle I loved instead. Jessie: Jessie! James: James! Reno: Reno! I mean Vince! Jessie: Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light! James: Surrender now, or prepare to fight! Meowth: Meowth! That's right! Reno: Can we go prowl the badlands now?
7. 3 and 5 get three wishes. The catch is that they have to agree on all three wishes before they get the benefits of any of them. What three wishes would they make?
3 wishes for Mothra and Hans Gruber? Not two people that I'd usually imagine teaming up, but it'd mean that to beat them, John McClane would have to team up with Godzilla.
I'll let that one sink in for a moment.
Having just come up with the greatest idea in film history for y'all, anything I say after this cannot live up to that moment of glory but I'll give it a whirl anyway.
The first wish would be Mothra's - maybe this incarnation she gets to actually see her daughter instead of her hatching just as she dies. And I think Hans would be OK with that. Hans would probably wish for John McClane to have used 2 more bullets to kill Marco. After that, they've got a third wish to share. Hans has got his money, Mothra has her baby/larva so what more do they need? A wish for supporting characters to get the full recognition they deserve when all the attention is usually lavished on the star of the piece? Yeah, why not.
8. 1 and 2 are brainwashed by a one-time artifact that works even on people immune to mind control to attack and kill 4. They keep their normal personality, skills and competence level, except any Code vs. Killing has been turned off. Can 4 survive? How?
Thor and Reno Raines are brainwashed into killing ED-209?
The last time Thor was brainwashed it took the combined might of Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch to bring him down, so much as I like ED-209 he hasn't got an altar boy in the Vatican's chance of getting out of there unmolested.
9. 6, 7, 9 & 10 must help an orphanage full of small and depressed children have a merry Christmas. Who does what, knowing that at the very least the kids will be expecting a visit from Santa?
Jessie, Quistis, Columbo and Hela.
Quistis would make a good Santa - she already wears red and she actually grew up in an orphanage so she's going to know exactly what the kids are going to want. Columbo would probably quite good at telling the poor little orphans entertaining stories and doing magic tricks (if I recall correctly he picked some up in an episode or two) and Jessie could let the orphans play with her pokemon. You'd have to make sure that Hela's job was something away from the kids though - if she ruffled little Mary's hair she might accidentally activate the Hand of Glory. Next thing you know, Niffelheim's population has increased by one, Naglfar's prow is bigger by 20 finger-and-toe-nails and you have a whole host of kiddiwinks freaking out over a rapidly decaying corpse. I don't know, she could probably make the decorations out of the souls of those vikings who died the straw death or something.
10. 3 and 8 are challenged to circumnavigate the Earth in eighty days or less, using only forms of transportation invented before 1900. Can they do it, or will they be fatally distracted by sidequests or their own personality conflicts?
That would be Mothra and Oracle.
Well, Mothra can fly around the world in about a day, so that's pretty easy. Sure, she might have to contend with Rodan and Jet Jaguar along the way but Mothra always takes Rodan and Oracle could probably rewire Jet Jaguar to help them out so I can't see any number of side quests holding them up. If Kataraina Armstrong started making trouble for Barbara, Mothra would just fry her with the Sun Strike Buster. Again, that's something I would quite like to see.
Hey! I managed to get through that last question without making a joke about wheelchair accessability in the 1900s! Go me!
Damn.
Anyway, that's the meme over with, but I believe that it is customary in these situations to "tag" people so I'm going to hit my homeboys in the BadPoo Massive and tag The Richard, MC Leigh and T-Dawg. No doubt what they write will be far funnier than this but I can't actually imagine them doing it. Nevertheless, the challenge is made. ---
You all notice how I subtly slipped in some linkblogging in that post there? I AM THE ANTMASTER!
Tomorrow on This Sentence No Verb: Becaue one person demanded it, Thor: Property Developer!
Hey there y'all, how's it going? Sorry it's been a while since I rapped at you, but there's been a whole bunch of things - thought I was moving out (I'm not) so had to get the house all sorted and do a bit of packing, been on shit shifts at work, preparing for an interview for a promotion (I got it), entertaining Kiwis - y'know the sort of stuff.
Anyway, I've been pretty lax at updating this here blog but I was thinking about it today and whilst these shifts at work are draining me something chronic at the moment they stop being so crap as of this Friday. I was also thinking that when I've set myself targets in the past on this thing I've pretty much met them so I'm going to use that ability right now because it's less likely I'll let this place drift if I commit in writing.
As of this Saturday I promise I will deliver a whole week of content. 7 days of consecutive posting. I have a couple of things that I want to hit y'all with (including, but not limited to an all new 30 Things and some more Animal Cruelty) but maybe not enough fully formed ideas for a whole week so I wouldn't mind a suggestion or two. So suggest already.
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I also want to recommend that people head on over to Facedown In The Gutters too. Yes, I've plugged it before but you have to understand that it is a wonderful, funderful place of joy and happiness. If blogs were God's laboratories then F.I.T.G. would be the factory where puppies and kittens come from. Also dinosaurs. Go visit!
I don't know whether it says more about the media, modern religion or me that I was struggling to decide whether or not to use the phrase "God's laboratories" or "Dr Moreau-style creature vats" in that last paragraph. Huh.
This post isn't just a vague promise and a link though! No sir! I thought I'd just give you all a treat of pure awesomeness too! For your visual pleasure I present Wonder Woman kicking serious amounts of ass.
Okay, she might not be a certaindeath-Goddess but she is up there. Plus, that clip also features Hawkgirl's Kill Bill look which was an inspired costume change. Inspired I tells ya!
First off just thought I'd let you know that unbelievably on time I've actually put up a new Blog Of The Week! This week, I'm suggesting you all go and take a look at Doctor Scott's Polite Dissent. Here you can get top notch medical analysis of comics from a real life genuine doctor. Seriously. Through reading Polite Dissent I've discovered that intubation is wrong 99 times out of 100 in comic books and being psychic causes nosebleeds more often than not. There's some pretty in-depth analysis and explanation here as well as reviews of each episode of House, old PSAs, sadly defunct medical comics, plenty of Hawk and Dove action and a pretty useful little archive of comic book drugs. Also of note are the advent calendars, which naturally aren't going to be making an appearance ATM but if you look now and bookmark it, by the time you get to Christmas you'll have your very own internet based Yuletide joy a mere click away. Huzzah! Go read!
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Nothing really of value to share myself this evening, although I have started work on something a little bit longer for this weekend. I managed to meet my 4 post target for last week and I'll try and do the same this week. It'd be great to drop some high class science on y'all like has been happening over at Ami's this week but when you see other people writing something with such meaning and thought it makes you feel like, well, the Snapper Carr to their JusticeLeague.
So until I finally get round to writing that "Why Hela Is So Patently Awesome" post which might actually contain some thoughtful insights and meaningful content* I'll stick to what I do best. Providing you with a plateful of awesome. Here's Superman throwing a whale at an island.
Animal cruelty provided by Superman #278
Oh, and did you order a side dish of radical to go with that?
Batman rugby tackling a lion. Because he can.
Catch you on the flipsideboyees.
*Not guaranteed to contain thoughtful insights or meaningful content. May contain a whole bunch of vikings flipping out.
How's it going? It's been a while since I rapped at you so I'm going to hit you with an update.
I was quite impressed with my 3 post schedule last week, so I'm going to give it another whirl and see if I can make it 4 this week. Unfortunately, inspiration has yet to strike so you'll have to make do with this whole stream of consciousness/themeless update. Sorry. No-one's making you read it though. You could always check out T-Dog's musings on the return of the cold war. I can see that Richard has updated his too with some of Shuiab's knowledge from the local paper and Leigh has...oh no, my mistake. Still nothing new.
That's not the only thing that you can check out though. Something I recommend to anyone is one of the blogs linked to on the Rolodex of Awesome over there - The Absorbascon. The Absorbascon was the first blog I ever commented on (that didn't belong to someone I already knew) and as such it holds a special place in my heart. Not just for sentimental reasons but because it's probably the smartest comics blog in the world. Sure, you can always get your comic blog staples of out of context panels as well as an obsession with an obscure comic book character there but you can also find complex mathematics and literary theory. Sure, he may prefer the barbaric "civilisation" of Thanagar to that of the interstellar utopia that is Rann but nobody's perfect. Anyway, I was just going to finish off by letting you people know that over there it's Martian Manhunter week. Go read.
Great H'Ronmeer! More? I don't know if I've got any more info to share with all y'all or not, J'onn.
*snaps fingers*
Wait a minute! Of course I have more to share with you! You probably haven't noticed, but there's a funky new addition to that section on the right there. I've now included a link to the official JYD Blog Of The Week. It's here where I can easily plug something from the Rolodex of Awesomeness in a vain attempt to get you bastards (who aren't Leigh) to enjoy the wonderful fannishness (Is that even a word? - Ed) of the world of comics. There'll always be a link to the blog as well as a quote taken from it too so you can see the literary genius contained within. This week's BOTW is Jon Carey's Facedown In The Gutters. Not only is he one of the dulcet voices that you hear on the Big Monkey Podcast but he's also a master of the written word. Weirdly, he is also one of the few American bloggers that has an authentic trans-Atlantic vibe going on. I've seen him use the word "bloody" and even more impressively "The Gunners" entirely correctly. Not just in the right context but in the right way - it doesn't seem forced or out of place. Maybe he's some kind of half-breed like Gillian Anderson. Anyway, a particularly noteworthy post to get an idea of how funny he is is this one. So I implore you, in the name of supporting people who can actually write well on the interweb, go and read. Even though some of the jokes may be outside of your frame of reference you will laugh. I guarantee it.
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That's not all I got though. This Sentence No Verb isn't solely supposed to be here for me to talk about comics, there are other interests too. And after my success in discovering the masterful game of CurveBall I have once again decided to turn my attention to the wonderful world of free internet games. Perfect for when you have nothing to do on the InformationSuperCanal but are too hungover to read. This evening I present for your gaming pleasure a game I chose to play based solely on the name. And here (in the style of a certain infamous 1990s computer games magazine) is where you have science dropped on you. Boyees.
It's nuclear! It's an eagle! It's nuclear and it's an eagle! It's Nuclear Eagle!
How can you not see the allure of a game so beautifully named?
The premise of the game is pretty simple. You play a giant nuclear powered eagle of death taking revenge on the cruel human world that has tormented its kind for years. It may sound slightly Friends Of The Earth but with the whole mutilation and destruction angle I see it more as an Enemy Of Mankind kind of thing. There are worlds on this, country and city. Whilst out and about in the country, your goal as an Atomic Avian is to look after your young. A wonderful message about nature. Of course, being a Radioactive Raptor your young are about the size of a Suzuki Swift so mice and voles can't sate their hunger. The best way to keep your Neutron Newborn (Can we stop with this please? - Ed.) fully fed is by providing them with a meal of suitable size. People sized.
Feeding helpless civilians to my hungry young.
As the game progresses the people get nastier, they start taking potshots at you and your babies and pretty soon the place is swarming with police, SWAT teams, tanks and helicopter gunships. It's kind of like Grand Theft Auto. But with giant monsters.
Using your mighty talons you can not only grab bystanders and carry them to their doom but you can also fling vehicles around for mighty explosions, sending dozens of people hurtling through the air. To get more points you rack up combos by throwing humans onto cars (they stick there!) and destroying the vehicle. The more vehicles the people hit before finally landing in nest or hitting the ground grants you a bigger combo and more points. You'll soon get the hang of it. It's all about torturing them for as long as possible. Their terrified screams only add to this pleasure.
Combos aren't so important in the country, but the city level is a kind of time attack mode where you have to rack up as many points in the allotted time as possible by wrecking their shit. Nothing is more satisfying than blowing up a tank by throwing a civilian covered SWAT van at it.
I drop a police car on a SWAT van and some civilians. Oh, how I laughed.
It's simple, you only need a mouse to play and it's good old fashioned high-score getting fun. Truly, Nuclear Eagle is the Carnage game of Champions. You too can know what it feels like to be a Feathered Fiend of Fusion. (Right. That's it. I'm stopping it here. - Ed.)
Take that, Ratzi!
