Perhaps the largest alternative media and entertainment event is about to take place. In just over a week the Comic Con International will kick off, and well over 100,000 folks will descend on San Diego to revel in comics, movies, television, gaming, in everything that many consider the worst of pop culture.

The Con's celebration of diversity is on display with a The Black Panel ’08 immediately followed by the Black Entertainment Television Animation panel. Adding to the skin color diversity, there are four panels focusing on homosexuality in comics, as well as the

"Gays in Comics Mixer— Here’s your chance to mingle with other GLBT and open-minded fans and creators ..."

So if I don't attend this mixer does that mean I'm not open-minded? Just wondering ...

There is all kinds of diversity on display in the Comic Con schedule ... except, of course, diversity of thought. There are the two Christian events: Christian Comic Arts Society Networking event on Saturday and the Christian Comic Arts Society event on Sunday. Though I'd be willing to bet that the majority of the folks attending these events would be hard pressed to admit conservative leanings. Then again, it isn't as if there is a slew of conservatives in comics and entertainment. If all the conservatives at the Comic Con got together, we might fill a small table at Starbucks.

Any guesses on what approach the "Comic Arts Conference" will take in this session:

Guerilla Warfare and Sneak Attacks: The Politics of Representing War in Film and Comics of the 1950s— Rocco Versaci (Palomar College) discusses his book, This Book Contains Graphic Language: Comics as Literature, in which he champions comics as a legitimate literary artform and argues that comics as a marginalized medium have been uniquely suited to subvert dominant ideologies in ways impossible for more highly regarded media. In the 1940s and 1950s, when both the comics and film industries were hard at work representing war, comics—because they were considered a marginal entertainment media—were "freer" to deliver subversive and even incendiary political messages.

Wow. I wonder if Prof. Versaci realizes that the dominant ideology he thinks comics were out to subvert during the 40s was deeply opposed to Nazism. I sure hope he doesn't think opposing Nazism was something that needed opposition. I would not be surprised to learn that it was a bad thing to show Captain America and the Sub-Mariner kicking Nazi butt, given the recent spate of books in which some very well known authors and pundits have given WWII a revisionist spin, going so far as claiming that the Holocaust was Churchill's fault. Prof. Versaci must have missed the point of all the anti-nuclear war films that sprang up during the 50s. Does this guy really want to sell the idea that the original "Day the Earth Stood Still" was pro-nuclear war? I might have to suffer through this panel to find out.

Despite the fact that there will be little to warm a conservatives heart, I do hope to have some fun watching tens of thousands of left-liberals, and kids on their way to becoming left-liberals, wallow in pop culture madness. I'll do my best to blog from the events. Folks should know what it's like standing in a line over a mile long and 4 people wide.

And if you might be in attendance and are looking for a fellow conservative to commiserate with over a beer or coffee, drop me a line. It would be nice to know I'm not alone in that see of Lefty madness.

The first Hellboy movie ushered me into the world and Hellboy, Abe Sapien, Liz Sherman and the rest of the B.P.R.D. crew. I started reading the comics, and the novelizations. I put the direct-to-DVD animated features at the top of my Netflix list. I became a big fan of Mike Mignola's world. This world remains some of the best dark fantasy available. Hellboy II: The Golden Army ... eeehhh, not so much.

All the parts were in Golden Army: The cigar chomping, irreverent Hellboy. The subtle, intelligent Abe Sapien. The angst ridden Liz Sherman. They even added Johann Krauss, the German spirit 'living' in a modified deep sea diving outfit. The fantastical world existing just beyond the everyday world. It even included the Christian imagery included in the first Hellboy movie. Yet something in this movie didn't click for me. I think I figured it out after thinking about for a few days. It comes down to Hellboy's relationship with the B.P.R.D.

If you don't know the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (B.P.R.D.) is "a fictional organization in the comic book work of Mike Mignola, charged with protecting America and the world from the occult, paranormal and supernatural." It is a branch of the American government, and therein lies part of why I became a fan. Most comic stories that involve an American government bureaucracy show that bureaucracy as the enemy. Unless said bureau is providing handouts to "the disadvantaged", the American government is, more often than not, portrayed as the enemy. Hellboy made a supernatural version of the FBI and CIA, all rolled into one, the good guys.

The Golden Army changes all that. Not that Hellboy, Abe, Liz, Johann, et al end up fighting the bureau; they don't. However, the film's closing scene does drive home what I took as a political point that I don't think fits with the world created in the comics and novels, at least not the world I came to enjoy.

Maybe it will take a second viewing for me to understand why Del Toro and Mignola did what they did with this story. I will likely pick up the DVD when it comes out. I did have a good time at the theater. The film's is certainly quite a visual feast and the fight sequences are very well done. At this point, however, I feel like The Golden Army was something of a false gold, or perhaps a fool's gold.

I think the excitement for The Dark Knight can be officially changed from buzz to full fledged roar.

The Democrat Times of New York is reporting that some theaters "are scheduling 6 a.m. screenings for those who can’t get in at midnight or 3 in the morning."

At one theater, the Imax showings are sold out for the 1st week.

This movie is going to be huge.

Peter Travers writes, at Rolling Stone, "If there's a movement to get [Heath Ledger] the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976's Network, sign me up." I've been telling folks for weeks the same thing based on what I've seen in the trailers. It is a sad thing that Mr. Ledger left us so early in his career.

Isn't that a much better headline spin on US Airways cost cutting measure, which is to remove entertainment systems in order to save some $10 million annually could be a positive development in air travel.

As much as I enjoy Jet Blue's inflight satellite TV, there is an over-reliance on those little TV screens to pass the time while flying. Given that families, on average, spend more than 4 hours a day with the television on, it isn't that big a hardship to spend a few hours without it while flying.

But then I'm someone who has no television service in the home. So ... there ya go.

So what are we to make about all the conservatives abandoning their evil greedy, homophobic, warmongering, racist, sexist ways in order to cast their vote for Sen. Barry Obama? Absolutely nothing, I say. The San Francisco Chronicle, on the other hand, thinks this is big news.

On Monday, July 7th, the Gay Bay's paper of record had an article about "prominent" conservatives who are supporting Sen. Barry Obama for President. Why?

Roger Kimball, commenting on Thomas Sowell's excellent article on the Obamacon phenomenon, put it best:

"It’s partly sour grapes–John McCain is not the dream candidate, ergo some conservatives are planning–or say they are planning–to vote for someone who is closer to a conservative nightmare. And it’s partly wishful thinking. Conservatives point out  that Obama has been moving toward the center in his recent speeches, but it is (at best) a fantasy to  believe that what a man says is more important than what he does, and Obama has done plenty to belie his recent centrist noises."

Sour grapes, wishful thinking and fantasy. That about sums it up almost all support Sen. B.H. Obama has, given how wishy-washy he when he does speak.

BTW, don't hold your breath waiting for San Fran Nan's hometown paper to provide a report titled, "Why some liberals are backing McCain."

If only ...

What would happen if a rift in time transported American WWII heroes fighting in 1943 into New York, circa 2008? That is the question asked in Marvel’s second tier summer event titled Avengers / Invaders (the 1^st tier being Marvel’s Secret Invasion), written by Jim Krueger and Alex Ross. The answer, it seems, is the heroes wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Americans enforcing the law and Nazis.

In Avengers / Invaders #1 readers are introduced to Captain America and Bucky, the Human Torch and Toro, and Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner - comics Golden Age “Invaders”. These five superheroes, working with the American military and British superheroes, Spitfire and Union Jack, are in the midst of a raid on Monte Carrino, an Italian monastery that is now a Nazi stronghold, where Hitler is engaged in occult research. As they storm the monastery Capt. America, Bucky, Human Torch, Toro, Namor and one of the American soldiers are enveloped in a green cloud. When the air clears these six are in 2008 Manhattan, where the Thunderbolts, enforcers for the “Superhuman Registration Act” (read: Patriot Act), are fighting “vigilante” superheroes. The connections with Nazis is obvious. Right?

The dialog that greest this blast from the past is not anything close to “who?”, “what?”, “how”, etc.. Instead readers get, “Spiderman is an unregistered superman. Get in our way … and I’ll bring the whole American government down on you!” (emphasis added). To which, Capt. America responds, “I think we’re being lied to … Nothing changes.” In other words, they were fighting Nazis in Italy, now they are fighting Nazis in New York. Much fisticuffs ensues, wherein Nazi and fascist is the common epithet against the American government.

The issue closes with a splash page showing Iron Man dropping his head, muttering “Steve”, before numerous video screens showing Capt. America’s heroic image. Marvel’s Civil War, it seems, is getting a do-over.

  Issue #2 opens with the Iron Man led Avengers taking off from the S.H.I.E.L.D. hellicarrier to bring in the time displaced Invaders. If you didn’t get it from the first issue, Capt. America’s cry when they attack the Avengers surely drives the point home. This series is hinging on the idea that the American government are today’s version of the WWII Axis.

I can’t say I read a lot of comics, but those that I have read I have not seen Nazi and fascist used so readily. Namor calls Ares a Nazi, Capt. America calls Iron Man a fascist, the Human Torch thinks it all a Nazi trap, and, after all but Namor are captured by the Avengers and brought back to the hellicarrier, Bucky refers to S.H.I.E.L.D. medical personnel as Nazis. Readers get it. Marvel and Dynamite Comics The Invaders think Nazis run America in 2008.

Namor escapes vowing to return “with more Allies then you can imagine.” In the closing panels we see Wolverine, part of the New Avengers (six heroes that refused to obey the Patriot Act “Superhuman Registration Act”), barking out the Invaders battlecry, which they would yell before fighting Nazi soldiers, “Okay Axis, Here we come.” Hmmm … Axis … Allies … do think they’re trying to tell us something?

Issue #3 has Prince Namor fighting King Namor for rule in Atlantis. The New Avengers gather at the Lincoln Memorial in order to start their own plan to return the Invaders to their proper timeline, and Bucky frees Capt. America from the S.H.I.E.L.D. holding cell, but not from the hellicarrier.

In between the Namor/New Avenger scenes and the Bucky/Capt. America scenes, readers are allowed a breather as we follow the one normal soldier who came through the time warp with the heroes. Paul Anselm is his name and he has sought out and found himself in Manhattan, so he can talk to himself to find out what’s happened since 1943. This is may be the only interesting part of the story, if Krueger and Ross do anything with it, other than drive home the point that they seem to think America is Nazi Germany.

Avengers / Invaders is a 12 issue mini-series (does that qualify as a maxi-series?) so I do hold out some hope that something comes of this story. If the books continue with the ‘Nazi / fascist’ America meme, I will be sorely disappointed, but not in the least bit surprised.

If you’ve read this entire post, then you may wonder why I would spend good money on this stuff. One reason is the Alex Ross painted cover art. I’ve been a fan of cover work since Justice, though I can’t say he does good panels. The Justice panels often had too much going on and were very hard to follow.

A second reason as to why I’m reading this rather than Secret Invasion is that it is limited to 12 monthly titles, rather than 6 issues with seemingly endless tie-ins.

And finally, I want to see how the radical left thinks. Alex Ross is responsible for one of the most heinous depictions of Pres. Bush that I know of. How an artist goes from this to this:

I’ll never know, but President Bush at Lady Libety's throat does seem to summarize the first three Avengers / Invaders books rather well.

The sick wastes of human flesh that pass for Islamo-Nazi terrorists will use anything and everything they can to kill us.

Brave Israeli security personnel show the right way to deal with these scumbags, as seen in the video at this link.


This says everything that needs to be said about the enemy  we face.

Main Scream Media is loath to use any term that might associate Islamism with any past fascistic movements. Would the editors from NYTimes, LATimes, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, etc. understand reality if they were loaded aboard a plane chartered and bound for Algeria and forced to live with what they cannot see? Or would their ignorance remain invincible in the face of harsh reality?

David Pryce-Jones, at National Review Online, gives few brief paragraphs about "Boualem Sansal, a former Algerian civil servant ... and author of [five] novels". In an interview with French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, Mr. Sansal laid out a strong case for why Islamism, in my opinion, can be described as Islamo-Nazism:

The more he researched his novel [Le Village de l’Allemand, or The Village of the German], Sansal tells us, the more he saw “a substantial similarity between Nazism and the political order that prevails in Algeria.” Both are one-party states, with militarization, brainwashing, the falsification of history, the exaltation of the race, the tendency to claim victimhood and to assert that there is a conspiracy against the nation. There is glorification of the leader, an omnipresent police, mass organizations, religious indoctrination. Xenophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism, he adds, have been elevated to the status of dogmas. We all know, he sums up, that “the line separating Nazism from Islamism is a thin one.”

Let us pray that we don't have to live with this horror in America before the Left-wing media understands what is so obvious.

Could there be lines for The Dark Knight that we haven't seen since the Star Wars movies?

Who is to say, but 3 weeks before the movie is released, Fandango is reporting that several of the 7/17 midnight showings are sold out. And some theaters may be adding a 3:00 AM showing.

The story of two homes. One is owned by a true environmentalist. The other by a selfish busy-body. Who owns what? The answer is here.

The four-bedroom home was planned so that “every room has a relationship with something in the landscape that’s different from the room next door. Each of the rooms feels like a slightly different place.” The resulting single-story house is a paragon of environmental planning.

The passive-solar house is built of honey-colored native limestone and positioned to absorb winter sunlight, warming the interior walkways and walls of the 4,000-square-foot residence.

Geothermal heat pumps circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground. These waters pass through a heat exchange system that keeps the home warm in winter and cool in summer. A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof urns; wastewater from sinks, toilets, and showers cascades into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is then used to irrigate the landscaping around the four-bedroom home, (which) uses indigenous grasses, shrubs, and flowers to complete the exterior treatment of the home. ... This house consumes 25% of the energy of an average American home.

That homeowner must really care about the environment. What about this one?

This 20-room, 8-bathroom house consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year. The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, this house devoured nearly 221,000 kWh, more than 20 times the national average. ... Also, natural gas bills for this house and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year. In total, this house had nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for 2006.

What an Energy Hog! Would anyone listen to this homeowner pontificate on environmental matters? Uh... sadly, yes, people would not only listen to this pig, but they'd give him awards praising his work on the behalf of the environment.


Maybe we should heed this sage advice, eh?

I  am not surprised by the Main Scream Media's antipathy toward the American military. By in large, reporters are products of their environment; indoctrinated educated by anti-military instructors, from Grade School to Graduate School, they carry an anti-military bias into the working world. I'm not surprised, but I am greatly dismayed.

A perfect example of a reporters anti-military bias is a Fox News story that greeted me when I opened my  internet home page this morning. The headline screamed "Ex-Husband: Army Said Pregnant Soldier Found Dead in Hotel Was AWOL". The story concerns the tragic case of an Army Spc. Megan Lynn Touma, who was discovered dead in a hotel room. The story's second and third paragraphs are completely groundless charges by the Specialist's ex-husband implicating the US Army in the death and in some kind of cover-up.

"She was left in the room for two days, and the Army said she was AWOL. They didn't even bother to go check on her in the motel where she stayed. I mean the Army knows that she stayed in that hotel," El Sayed Touma [the ex-husband] said."

Other than inflaming anti-military (and anti-American) emotion, what is the purpose of this quote? It adds nothing to the story. Any soldier that does not report when so ordered is noted in personnel records as "Absent Without Leave", or AWOL. Including in this report a quote from an ex-husband that implies the Army "left" Spc. Touma for two days is a mendacious lie. Reporting the soldier AWOL is standard procedure; it'd 'dog bites man' portion of this story. Including the ex-husbands quote, however, puts a very different spin on the events.

I'm very sorry that Spc. Touma's family lost a loved one. I'm also very sorry that Fox News has decided to turn the tragedy into an attack against the America's military. This is utterly disgraceful.

There I was standing a Barnes & Noble, browsing the Science Fiction & Fantasy section, wondering if there was anything worth my hard earned dollars. From off to my left a guy asks me how to get the interstate. Before my brain kicks into gear and I can give a witty New Englander type, “Ya cahn’t get theh from heah.” answer, the directions spill from my mouth. He thanks me, then, after a few moments he asks me where my SF&F tastes lie.

 

It’s not often someone asks me what authors I enjoy reading. And it’s not often that I give this question much more than a passing thought. I pause for a few moments and tell the gentleman that I tend toward the likes of Neil Gaiman, Tim Powers and James Blaylock among many others. I explain that my tastes these days run toward Dark Fantasy, which probably arise from my interest in the Horror genre.

All this is in way of introduction to what I’m currently reading, which is Caitlan R. Kiernan’s novel, Threshold, a compelling blend of Southern Gothic and H.P. Lovecraft.

Kiernan has a fascinating way with language. There is a bit of Hemingway in her work, combined with an ability to mash words for color together that moves her description from a bland palate to something new and intriguing. Kiernan’s skill with the written word draws readers into her story’s setting and sets her head and shoulders above others working in the horror genre.

As much as I’ve enjoyed Threshold, I couldn’t help but get irritated when I hit the following passage. It comes as one of our characters drives from Alabama to Florida. He’s on a two lane highway on his way to an unincorporated part of Okaloosa County in the Florida panhandle.

“There’s country music blaring from the radio, nothing but country and gospel stations this far south, and so he’s going with the lesser of two evils, a twangy stream of Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, but at least it’s something to keep him company.” (emphasis added)

 

Country music is the “lesser" and Gospel is, by definition, the "greater" of two evils? Is this the character’s viewpoint or the writer’s? Does it matter? Do Kiernan’s fans think she doesn’t harbor this perspective toward things Southern and Christian? I’d be surprised if they didn’t, especially given her ‘let’s kill Republican meteorologists because of hot weather’ attempt at humor on her blog:

“When I went to bed at about 2:25 am, the thermostat was still hovering stubbornly in the high 80s. This sort of heat can drive you to murder your beloved. Or cut off another toe. Or alphabetize all your CDs in reverse order, Z-A.  … They say this is the last day of the heatwave. But they were wrong yesterday, and I say meteorologists are going to have to bleed and suffer and die, in vast numbers, to appease Helios. We'll take the meteorologists who don't plan to vote Obama first.” (emphasis added)

 

Hmmm....

Was no other way to write the novel’s passage, quoted above, that would not have involved insulting probably more than 75% of the American population? Maybe not. Did this convey the sense that this character despised the part of America he grew up in (Birmingham, AL) and those he grew up with? Absolutely. So on that score Ms. Kiernan succeeded in her chosen profession. However, the passage left me with a bad taste in my mouth, wondering whether or not Ms. Kiernan liked growing up on Athens, GA, and how much she respects folks like me as her reader.

 

And finally, I hope that guy found his way to the interstate. I usually have a pretty good sense of direction; I’m just not always the best on giving directions.