Occasional Thoughts

Thoughts. I do have them.

On my vacation from my blog I sought corporate sponsors for Friends of Lulu's annual Lulu Awards. This is not much different than selling Girl Scout cookies, except there are no cookies, and if you fail, the really bad Christmas tree with the three branches is going to be in the pageant.

Do not want:

Do want:

The biggest DC news to come out of MegaCon, as far as I'm concerned, is that there was an audience member in the DCU Countdown To Crisis Panel dressed like Jay Garrick. You get rid of the Speed Force, this fellow's coming after you with that metal salad bowl on his head.Just in case you thought the furor over Spider-Man's OMD/BND has settled...well...

No.


I was particularly impressed by the poster who said he posted to religious websites about "One More Day" even though he was an atheist. Love of Mary Jane apparently trumps religious persuasion. Now that's something we can all get behind. It's like buying the world a Coke.


Lisa Fortuner provides guidelines for writers of international characters, courtesy of "The Mainstream Comics Industry":

"However, the Mainstream Comics Industry advises against researching another culture and creating a well-rounded original character based on actual facts, because this could result in your readers thinking of foreign nations as places with a rich history and culture populated by a variety of individual thinkers who are worthy of respect as human beings. This leads to the audience raising their standards and refusing to pay for books that don’t adhere to that standard. "

But Lisa, if you just think of those characters as Legacy Heroes, and give them a chance instead of tearing them down because of supposed inaccuracies and "uninspired characterization" (my God, as if there really is such a thing), maybe they can blossom.

(runs)

Which reminds me...

Remember Faith from JLA?


What the hell happened to her?

See, when I worked on JLA, Faith was created to "kill two birds with one stone" by virtue of her Latin-American heritage. So you got a Woman (big W, trademarked) and an International Character.

Ask Morrison if he's going to use Faith in Final Crisis. Maybe she can be in one of those epic George Perez-like crowd scenes that get turned into a poster with a numbered identification index. She could be right behind Fire's shoulder. Boy, that Fire, I'll tell ya -- she's one hot Brazilian. Get it?


You know, I was really cool with the Yellow Lanterns. To me, that made all sorts of sense.

But now there are Red Lanterns...


So according to this Newsarama article, the Red Lanterns spew "their red energy of hate."

And the first of these Lanterns is named, appropriately, "Atrocitus." George Lucas School Of Naming. Atrocitus used to hang out with Evilicus in middle school.

I don't get it, weren't the Yellow Lanterns supposed to be the bad guys? And the really important question -- the action figures, are they coming out soon?

Where Geoff Johns gets his writing inspiration:


Video: "Asian Christopher Walken"



Bonus points if you understand the meaning behind the "Miss Saigon" T-shirt he's wearing.

It fascinates me that Asian stereotypes are still acceptable in entertainment. I dunno, is Fu Manchu offensive?


Another thing that seems still acceptable in entertainment is homophobia. I just caught the movie Wild Hogs on cable the other day -- you know, sat through as much as I could of that dreck. The movie was obsessed with jokes about homosexuality. I mean, one after another. All of them of the "being thought gay is the absolute most humiliating thing ever!" variety.


"Oh, no, we're all naked in the watering hole and now there are boys swimming in it! Don't get too close to my naked body! And look, now the naked gay cop that's been stalking us is going to jump in the watering hole too! What a freak! WE aren't freaks like that. We are real guys."

In the scene, John Travolta's character plays the most homophobic guy of the bunch.


Well, that's all I've got. Back to the grind.