Coming right on the heels of Bash Batman Week, GLBF! is now soliciting glorifications of tough-guy Green Lantern Guy Gardner. In this whole city I think the only place you can find Guy in a comic book is my collection of the four Blue Beetle TPB volumes, in which he guest stars three times in a span of 25 issues.


A wonderful character moment from issue #1, one of just many exhibited during the series' run.


This has absolutely nothing to do with glorifying Guy, but I simply could not resist including one of the absolutely greatest scenes in the entire series, from issue #14.


Here we have Guy glorifying himself...


And here's him beating up the Ultra-Humanite with his bare hands.


Capping off his guest appearance in the issue, we have Guy both being nicely nostalgic about his ol' buddy Ted Kord and being blunt about being blunt.
And finally...

Issue #25 is one of my all-time favorite comic book issues ever, and I think this may be my single favorite page in the entire series--when reading the issue for the first time, I jumped up and squealed like a girl when I reached this page. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. Combining maximum doses of Win, Pwnage, Awesomesauce and Cuteness, this is Guy Gardner at his glorious best.

TODAY'S BOOK: "Left-Handed Shortstop", by Patricia Reilly Giff ((c) 1989)

Labels: picture

That's it. Seriously. And that's not even the worst Bond Girl name--that honor goes to Xenia Onatopp. As one Internet commentator said, "What's next? Xanadu Missionaryposition?"

TODAY'S BOOK: "A Circle of Children", by Mary MacCracken ((c) 1973)

Labels: bait 'n' switch

"A pretty good idea." -- USS Internet
"A very good story." -- ravenfan10
"Cool story!" -- catspee
"Great stuff!" -- night wire (fellow fanfic writer)
"I now crown you the King of Suspense... Thank you for a strong case of the goosebumps." -- BAColeNC (49-year-old NaNoWriMo winner)
"You have my approval." -- PsychicMaster (FF.net user)
"That is so so so good!" -- Pollimigo
"Good stuff." -- silky (24-year-old Connecticut coast guard)
"This is a really awesome story!" -- Ravenisawesome
"This is by far the most interesting TT story I've ever read... Holy mother of cheese that's awesome... You. Rock. Out. Loud." -- blackbird15
"Kind of reminds me of As I Lay Dying by Faulkner... Reading this story is like watching a new episode." -- SteveM
"I like... no, I love this story!" -- TeenTitans4Ever (13 year old)
"Keep it up!" -- pachylad142857 (Singaporean)
"I....... I......... I can't say anything!! Except, this is FRICKING AWSOME!!!!!!!!!! I want more!!!!!! Pleaseohpleaseohplease!!!!!!!!!!" -- BBs clone (13 year old)
"I take my hat off to you, sir. I've never found a single fanfiction with so much emotion and power crammed into it. Bittersweet and full of both great humor and dark moments." -- Tatterdemalion

It's so nice to receive praise for one's first foray into fanfiction. :-)


TODAY'S BOOK: "Finn Family Moomintroll", by Tove Jansson ((c) 1948)

Labels: biographical

The snowmen are even drawn in a Watterson-y style. Plus, we also know he has a rich fantasy life because the issue is devoted to him talking to an imaginary Uncle Ben (Ben Hobbes Parker?). Later on in The Amazing Spider-Man #536 (November '06), he also carries on a conversation with his younger self (pictured: a snippet).


Bonus!

GLBF! is having another Bash Batman Week, and I've decided to chip in this time with a little vignette from The Batman Adventures #25 (Nov. 1994). Cheers!

TODAY'S BOOK: "Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red", by Harry Kemelman ((c) 1973)

Labels: picture, random

Here's the first example published here of my work in the Illustrator segment of my Computer Graphics course. The assignment was to use linked pictures and layer masks, among other things, to create an advertisement. As usual, tweaks abounded.

TODAY'S BOOK: "The Da Vinci Code", by Dan Brown ((c) 2003)

Labels: graphics

TODAY'S BOOK: "Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Farm", by Betty MacDonald ((c) 1954)

Labels: cartoon

Labels: photo

TODAY'S BOOK: "Goldwyn: A Biography", by A. Scott Berg ((c) 1989)

Labels: baseball

"'Why do you have two noses?'
My family is pretty active I guess, going on trips during school vacations and so on. But usually I don't go with them, I would estimate 90% of the time. Exercise is not in my vocabulary. My life's ambition is to become an Inert Gas.
Does a madman know if he's insane? Does he even think about it? This question has been bugging me for ages on the off-chance that I am mad too.
My Dad went to YU; I'm going to Y Me.
Saw some creatively-built succahs today--they were built on curved balconies, so the walls were curved too. Fascinating.
.smelborp suoires tog evah uoy ,gnikniht tuohtiw siht daer nac uoy fI
Simchas Torah is tomorrow night, and I'll dance for a few hours in shul. Fun fun fun! But then school will start again on Monday with a massive gemara test. Not fun at all.
And finally, I conclude on this note: it's a Lard Hock Knife.

TODAY'S BOOK: 'Burglars Can't be Choosers', by Lawrence Block ((c) 1977)

TODAY'S MOVIE: 'Pirates of the Caribbean', from Disney (2003)

WWWW2?: Attila the Hun.

TODAY'S WEBSITE: www.bkesher.co.il This is probably of marginal interest to you--heck, it's probably of no interest to you whatsoever--but I figure this is just as good a time as any to mention my own school's website. (I'm in the 12th grade of Sha'alei Torah, the local high school-yeshiva.)"
--5th post, 10/12/06

Labels: reprint

Fanart compilations are quite common on YouTube. Often they're full of crap (like most of the above video) or original show/comic art (most of the rest). Sometimes some real gems do make it in (2:28--2:37). But for the first time ever, one of my drawings has been included--for 5 seconds (2:58--3:02). I, uh, think I should be flattered. Right?
On another note, the ISS has granted me access to their inner workings and my first ever personal e-mail account, as well as a place on their links list. That I'm definitely flattered about.

TODAY'S BOOK: "The Collected Letters of a Nobody Including Mr. Pooter's Advice to his Son", by Keith Waterhouse ((c) 1986)

Labels: video

And so here we are, the last of the poster mockups. This is my favorite, both because of the subject material and the creativity it drew out of me in the process of making it. You've seen one of the Neogenix before on a couple of occasions, but so far the rest are paper-and-pencil instead of pixelated. The names are from two previous stories of mine (unpublished and unfinished, natch), "Clicky Dark"--a boy and his friends playing sports; original, right?--and "The Torah Tigers", an all-Jewish worst-to-first Little League baseball team. "Neogenix", in case you're wondering, tells of 36 genetically created superpeople blasted into space before they could develop into maturity.
Oh, and props to the Fabrica de Herois site for helping in the creation of the centerpiece image (left to right: Popsicle, Toolbox, Burn).

TODAY'S BOOK: "Crazy--But True!", by Jonathan Clements ((c) 1974)

Labels: graphics

Yep, those sure are some big boulders.

TODAY'S BOOK: "Flowers for Algernon", by Daniel Keyes ((c) 1966)

Labels: bait 'n' switch

"You're not my friends. I'm your babysitter."
"It was a very scary sock puppet!"
"My only regret is that I couldn't give your father a son."
"I... DON'T... HURT... KIDS!"
"You up and infected him with Stupid."
"You see what this is? This a Stupid Detector. And it's working."
"I throw the fight, we split it?"
"Pants, then a pay phone. Pay phone is optional."
"Love this country."
"Then the redneck trucker gave me free pants."
"Now you show me this."
"...Are you trying to win me over? Because you kind of suck at it."
"Did the shadowy genius mastermind behind the world's greatest heroes just fail to recruit a sixteen-year-old boy?"
"There's something wrong with you."
"Not only is that not the weirdest story the government guy heard, it's not even the weirdest story in El Paso County."
"What do you mean we won't damage nature? Nature's about to damage me!"
"Did he just say 'lollygagging'?"
"What's a ruffian?"
"Okay, fine. If I'm woven into... something, that would be good to discern. Go ahead and discern."
"No, you don't understand. I'm not crazy. I just hear voices in my head!"
"I'm not letting anybody hurt a baby."
"Good, nice, panic the bad guy."
"Oh, right, I still suck at fighting."

Labels: random

Two hundred and fifty quarter of a thousand quarter coin metal rock stone stoned drugs pharmacy lab doctor professor science testing one two three counting Count Dracula vampire bat batty crazy craze fad passing Passover holiday weekend Saturday Sabbath sabbatical job Job suffering pain wounds blood red vermilion million millionaire money greenbacks wetbacks immigrants migrant workers farms wheat sheafs arrows archery archer fish spitting expectoration expectation Great Expectations Dickens like the dickens simile metaphor meteor meteoric flaming fire hot burning charred blackened reputation representative Congress progress moving forward momentum memento memory brains gray matter gray hairs aging old antique valuable priceless worthless shifty workshift overtime halftime show showy flashy glittery gold Golden Gophers Groundhog Day golf putt putter about drive will won't not against the grain rice China the East sunrise sun star celebrity shallow pool water wet dripping faucet knob knot Don Knotts Ron Howard child star children teenagers adolescence rebellion Rebels Yankees Bronx Brooklyn Dodgers 1955 'fifty-five fifty times five two hundred and fifty.

TODAY'S BOOK: "90 Minutes at Entebbe", by William Stevenson ((c) 1976)

Labels: free association

A little bit of YouTube just died, and a little piece of my pre-adulthood died along with it.
Back in early 2006, I was a freshman member of IMDb. On one of my trawls along the "Teen Titans" Message Board soon after its cancellation, I came across an interesting thread: "Watch these videos."
It was the first time I ever heard of "YouTube", or the term "AMV". It certainly wasn't the last.
Yes, indeed, there was a time when one guy could say to the other, "The other day I was on this site, www dot youtube dot com, you ever hear of it...?", and to top it off, the other guy could shake his head in genuine ignorance. Those were the days. When I wanted to go through all the videos that had the "Teen Titans" keyword, I only had to go back 65 pages. These days, 65 pages with that keyword will take you back one month, two on the outside. Those were the days...
Anyway, in that thread were links to six Teen Titans AMVs. One was set to a romance song--"Iris", I think. I didn't watch that.
That left five.
One was set to Avril Lavigne's "Slipped Away"--the first YouTube video I ever watched.

One was set to the original Bonnie Tyler version of "Holding Out for a Hero".

One was set to a Jump5 cover and remix of "We Are Family".

One was set to Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger"--and it immediately became my #1 favorite song of all time.

And the last one? The Goo Goo Dolls' "Better Days".

Why no video of that? Fair question. Well, recently a certain message has been popping up around YouTube. Videos missing sound. Links that go nowhere.
Hackers? No, it's the fun-spoiling almighty WMG. They're just a soulless corporation. They don't care that I might scream "NOOOOO!" at my computer screen in agonized frustration as a result of their actions.
Since that long-ago day, I've been keeping a playlist of my favorite TT AMVs in Internet Explorer's Favorites menu--combinations of good songs with good movie editing. Those five formed the core. Over the years, there have been several that got removed for one reason or another. But none had lasted as long and went as far back as this.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go browse through YouTube again.

TODAY'S BOOK: "The Mouse That Roared", by Leonard Wibbereley ((c) 1955)

Labels: wakka wakka

Damn it all, Raffy, why don't you contact me? What did I ever do to you? What??

TODAY'S BOOK: "The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues", by Ellen Raskin ((c) 1975)

Labels: :(, picture