A successful summer simmers to an end

This summer was really great. I worked full-time as an intern at Walgreen's and after the 12 weeks there they continued to keep me on the schedule. This is excellent as I have been out of work.

Then on top of that my girlfriend won the Seventeen Magazine Pretty Amazing Girl Contest. Out of thousands of girls she stood out as an achiever, a beauty-face, and as a teen with "it-factor." Check out her blog, Zoe Damacela Apparel: http://zoedamacela.blogspot.com/ and buy the magazine, Seventeen, on newsstands as of last week (9/10/11).

Zoe Damacela, cover girl for Seventeen Magazine September 2011

I also got to catch up on some reading of comics. Some of the best were by Warren Ellis, such as Global Frequency which features a different artist for each issue. The one I really really enjoyed was Planetary. It's a love letter to comics all around, both past and present. The art is really fantastic, the storytelling is nicely paced and very smart. Overall, it was awesome. Planetary by Warren Ellis is a recommended must-read.

Now, I also read a bunch of other comics such as Crossed, by Garth Ennis and later by David Lapham. Then the Perhapnauts. Ultimate Fantastic Four is good too. Stray Bullets, Deadpool, Tom Strong, The Authority. Supergods was just the craziest shit. There are so many great comics out there and I believe that people underestimate the medium. There are stories that can only be told through comics in the same way that there are only stories that work in prose or on film. If you are a comics fan and have some knowledge of pop culture and various storytelling mediums then Planetary will please you to no end. It's really the comic that keeps on giving. And though it came out in 1999 it reads very fresh and has a timeless quality.

Farewell summer, until next year.

Summer Internship

I'm real excited to start my summer internship with Walgreen's and am glad to have the opportunity. Thanks InRoads! Thanks Walgreen's!

Damn you Gilbert Hernandez. (and Daniel Clowes)

Roughly 7 years ago I read the graphic novel Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. It was a great book but it was also Deeply disturbing. The downright oddness of the work was fun and visually stunning. However, it was so disturbing at the end has continued to, for lack of a better word, haunt me. Seriously, haunt. It's just so wrong and I won't spoil it for you. I implore you to find out yourself. I've recently rented the book from the library and I have yet to reopen it. I'll probably save it until I read the other stuff. It was real creepy.
The author Daniel Clowes is responsible for this unsettling work and others that were less messed up.

left to right: Daniel Clowes. Art Spieglemen and Alan Moore

Then I found Gilbert Hernandez. He is really, really into drawing women with large breasts. Paraphrasing from his book A High Soft Lisp , who would make art of beautiful women in distress? I'll tell you, he does. This stuff is sad and upsetting. I mean I get it, it's good books and art, but the characters all just have such a hard time. Chance in Hell was just so thoroughly crazy as are Luba, High Soft Lisp, Sloth....... Heck, they're all just so damn messed up.

This guy, this guy right here.

From Chance in Hell

I suppose that the stuff is more disturbing because it has real and believable characters. So you know, these guys are talented but they have some very nutty, crazy comics,

Oh lordy

In an episode of the Simpsons a while ago, and Principal Skinner says that he can't keep the children's attention without saying a technological word. Than he goes on saying, "Twitter, website, iPad."
And then....
There is this commercial that came out for something or other and it's a little R&B jingle about a girl in a dress. Well, it kind of becomes cringe-inducing at the lines:
"You're kind of like the ATM line. You make me want to Twitter that you're so fiiiine!"
Oh lordy.
First off, like an ATM line? What exactly does that mean? Men are lining up for their turn? Jeez. That's not a very nice thing to say about a girl. Then he's going Twitter how fine she is.
"Girrl, you look so fine, rock that dress in the day time."
Guh. It does not feel good to know that they are probably aiming square at my demographic. Could you see a group of ad men sitting around in a room putting together these lyrics?
"Yeah, Twitter that she's good looking, that works."
"But what should we compare her to?"
"How about a prostitute?"
"No, bad... An espresso machine?"
"I don't know, think, what do the kids like to use. I mean something that they line up for."
"Oh, oh iPod, the DMV, Facebook! Fuck, I just don't know."
"I got it, an ATM, a line for an ATM. An ATM line."
"Brilliant, send it to the in-house jingle guy and we'll have some bargain brand R&B guy sing it."
"Let's get some Korean grill."
----------------------------------
and then they made it and aired it.

The golden age of cigarette marketing

The government (always busy doing seriously important shit) decided that consumers of cigarettes are not savvy enough to understand the bold, plain font warning that: " 'Light' does not mean a safer cigarette." Now, this makes sense and all, there are some dumb people in the world, but it's 2011, and every single living creature knows that cigarettes are bad for you. Really. And if the education, and prevention and other stuff is not enough, we have pictures on the boxes of what will happen.

Well, the terms "light", "mild" and other phrases that apparently caused smokers to think, "oh, well these have gotta be healthy, see? Light." So legislation was passed for cigarettes to no longer be marketed using such words. But how would the various types of tobaccos within a single brand be able to stand apart? Colors and cool names are now the non-misleading types. And do I love the names. Marlboro alone has blues, reds, greens, (formely milds, regular, and menthol). But they didn't stop there, now they have Blend No. 27, 72's, and two types of special blends whose only difference is the graphic on the box. Not to mention the menthol versions of these types. Why did they do this? To confuse the average consumer? How many different types will smokers have to try until they find their brand. Camels blue or red? Non-menthol Newports? Turkish Gold, Turkish Silver, Red,  mediums, smooth, ultra (formally ultra lights), gold and a thousand other variations. Why? Because, this is the golden age of cigarette marketing.

wanting acceptance (UIC)

I wish I wish that I could be, At a serious University

I've got my credits ready for transfer, and filled out the application answers

payed the 50 dollar processing fee

I really want to go to UIC

Dr. Strangelove

Ok, so I thought that the cover art looked like some sort of hipster band concert flyer. And my roommate said that Peter Sellers is awesome in it. It's a very dark comedy and Sellers plays 3 characters: the president, Col. Mandrake, and the titular Dr. Strangelove (a quirky ex-nazi, german in a wheelchair fighting his right hand). There's even a young James Earl Jones, if James Earl Jones was ever young. So the basic plot is that a high ranking nut in the military sends a bunch of bombers to bomb the crap out of Soviet Russia during the Cold War. The dark comedy borders on absurdity as the president attempts to stop the attack and learns of the Russian's "Doomsday Device" which is their failsafe. If attacked the device detonates and the world basically ends, the device cannot be disarmed. All the while Mandrake is attempting to get the code to stop the bombing from the crazed man who called for the attack. For a movie made in 1964 it was really, really fresh and I really enjoyed it.

Mandrake

the President

Dr. Strangelove

So Libya is in a bad way. If Obama's address is anything to go by,we will be kinda policing it and kind of not. You know, the political hokey pokey, establishing a no fly zone and not deploying troops. It looks bad and I just hope that people survive and that as few people as possible get hurt. However, I also hope that Gadhafi will be forced to tone down the outfits.

Looking all high and shit.

Recently, while watching PeeWee's Playhouse for the first time in nearly two decades I remembered the puppet band and how much I liked them, especially Chicky Baby, she was so cool. I watch it recently and I realize that Chicky Baby is a one-eyed bird, Cool Cat is a Persian with glasses on, not too wierd right? But dirty dog? He is the canine version of a jazz musician/smack addict, look at his eyes, jesus.

dirty, Dirty Dog

That's about it for today.

Fables, Air and The Sandman

I really enjoy a lot of Vertigo titles that have been out. I've loved reading comics since I was a tiny kid. I remember the TMNT comic I was reading at the hospital when my sister was born, Then there was the incident when I was about 5. I went to a friends house and we were playing and he said, "I'm gonna lock you in the 

shed." I was not for this so I threw a lock at his head. I got in trouble, my mom came to pick me up and she had comics, that I could not read. I remember this vividly for some reason, especially the cover to Archie, with Jugghead eating a sandwich of course. The periodical store that sold comics in Hangtown (Placerville, CA) was a magical old building with a creeky floorboard and a unique woodsy smell. A shelf in the middle held the titles of the day: X-men 2099, X-Factor, Gen 13. I even think there was a Terminator comic. My dad also owned Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the World which I wish were the textbooks for schools around the world.

Currently I'm reading Fables by Bill Willingham. An awesomne book about exhiled Fable characters from their Fable homeland. There are 13 or 14 trade paperbacks out and every Chicago Public Library has a few of them. I love the storytelling and the use of characters that we all know and love. However, seeing them outside of the context of their particular fable is another fun treat. It's just so cool. I would recommend starting  on book #4 March of the Wooden Soldiers. The first 3 are all stand alone books that introduce the characters. However, each book has a quick character intro in the first pages so it's not entirely necessary to read the first 3. They are fun too but for some reason harder to get at the library, though I've been able to rent them 2 time because of persistence. Do read Fables.

Air is another great title though severely underrated. The series got cancelled and as such only has 4 trade paperbacks. Unfortunately #3 is not that great. However, the underlying story and ideas used are wonderful. The inclusion of world events, history and the supernatural are all used to great effect. Air is a title that will be missed. I also like Unwritten and I really hope that it doesn't get cancelled too.

Furthermore the Sandman books by Neil Gaiman have long been a favorite of mine after stealing #5 from my high school library.The sandman is Morpheus, Dream of the Endless. An incarnation of dreaming that has taken a human form. He has brothers and sisters in the form of Destiny, Death, Despar, Destruction, Delusion and the pan-sexual desire. This series was written back in 1988 through 1996. The stories are sometimes wild, or slow burning, intense thrillers. Sometimes they are scary or whimsical. My favorite character is the dream lords's nightmare creation, the Corinthean. Who will, I shit you not, eat your eyeballs. Why? Because, he's got mouths for eyes.

The sandman is super emo

Now, I'm super excited too because this months Chicago "one book" library thing is Gaiman's Neverwhere and as a result he will be coming to town to tour around. I am definitely going to one of those things if not more. He'll be doing lectures and presentations and whatnot. So that's really cool. 

So do try to check out some of the titles that I've mentioned, it's for you own good.

Beaver Boys + Taco Bell

There's a new commercial for taco bell shrimp tacos (blegh). There are these two guys who are obviously related to the beaver boys (above). They "crash parties around the world, for shrimp." Hmmmmm

(maniacal laughter)

Ok so I like minecraft a lot right now, try it I be you will.