What Comics Mean to Me, Part 1

About two years ago I went through a bad break-up. I mean it was really bad. I felt like a little kid lost in the mall looking for his parents, every face scary or strange... there was a big hole and I wanted to fill it so badly with something, anything, to distract me from the one thing I couldn't accept: she was gone. Looking back now, I realize I was being childish, selfish, generally awful-- and one of the only things that got me through that time was comics.


[Getty Images from The Guardian]

I needed an outlet, something to entertain my mind. Since then I have latched on to other passions: magic the gathering, writing, mythology, and generally anything that has to with magick. But I speak about this now to give you a context for my passion for comics. I didn't necessarily grow up with them like a lot of others did. I didn't spend my allowance on them, I didn't get caught up in the '90s craze. I was a kid then, but I still remember loving the X-Men on Fox Kids, playing the N64 Activision Spiderman game, occasionally seeing Bruce Timm's Batman series... no one ever told me to love comics, to follow the various teams, I just did, but none of that really mattered until two years ago when I finally started reading them for myself-- and I know people will hate me for saying this, but my gateway was the New 52.

A lot of people hate DC's relaunch, but I can only say I love it. I picked up several series randomly I guess. I don't remember why I chose them in particular. It could have been the art, stuff I read on the internet, like I said, I don't recall, but I got Snyder's Batman and his Swamp Thing, Azzarello's Wonder Woman, Lemire's Animal Man, John's Justice League and Aquaman, and a Superman comic. In the end, I think I chose right. I ended up dropping John's output and Superman, and stuck with Batman, Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing, and Animal Man. These were my favorites, and I have enjoyed them throughout their run.

Comics are gratifying-- they are a more pure form of art than most give them credit, perhaps in a way a lot of literature lovers will never understand. It isn't only the writer, but the artist, the inker, all these talents coming together to produce a moving image in your head. They can be more cinematic than books, something I struggle with in my writing because I think in images and feelings. They are perhaps more ancient, more inviolate. They are a spirit which grabs you, pulling you into its world... Grant Morrison's book, Supergods, mentions that the different artists interpretations of the character give a tapestry, a history, slaving over the spirit of Batman, Iron Man, or Spiderman, they hand over their soul to a budding image from the collective unconscious, giving it meaning, life, power, something which harkens back to oral tradition, where each storyteller gave his interpretation of a tale each time it was retold. Perhaps, these characters are pure enough, have affected enough lives that they are more real than any one person could ever be. We are birthing universes.

Recently, the PBS Idea Channel had a video on the same topic:



In fact, the author himself may be communicating with a higher authority if he writes from a subconscious state. If his words are clairvoyant enough, the spirit may go on to infect the masses around its original creator. Cultural figures like Superman or Batman have gone through many deviations over the years, and the same holds true for Harry Potter, who was originally created by just one author, but after his ascension in pop culture, thousands, if not millions, have used their own voice to portray him, especially across different medium. Is it possible that man did not create these cultural icons? What if, instead, they were particular powerful gods who wanted to be known in the lower spheres?

In The Secret History of the World, Mark Booth quotes Bob Dylan as saying that to change the age “‘you have to have power and dominion over the spirits. I had it once ... ‘ [Dylan] writes that such individuals are able to ‘... see into the heart of things, the truth of things—not metaphorically either—but really see, like seeing into metal and making it melt, see it for what it is with hard words and vicious insight’” (Booth 36). Booth says of this:

Note that he [Bob Dylan] emphasizes he is not talking metaphorically. He is talking directly and quite literally about a powerful, ancient wisdom, preserved in the secret societies, a wisdom in which the great artists, writers and thinkers who have forged our culture are steeped. At the heart of this wisdom is the belief that the deepest springs of our mental life are also the deepest springs of the physical world, because in the universe of the secret societies all chemistry is psycho-chemistry, and the ways in which the physical content of the universe responds to the human psyche are described by deeper and more powerful laws than the laws of material science (Booth 36)

There have been eight films produced from J.K. Rowling’s books, artwork by thousands of artists, and maybe most importantly, the fan fiction littered across the web. Sites like fanfiction.net and MuggleNet allow users to log on and create their own stories with their favorite pop culture properties. There is a wide range of romances (be they between Hermione and Harry, or Harry and Hagrid), rewritings of established books, and further sequels. Harry is not the singular point of one woman’s imagination anymore. He is a lightning rod of our collective dreams and fears. He can be anything to anyone, and his books are not “delimited by the individual who writes alone and silently” (Wisdom of the Mythtellers, 188).

Walter Ong’s ‘secondary orality’ lets the online community continue Harry’s adventures, though they may be apocryphal. We can compare this to the authoritative canon of the Bible, which was used to try and squash the writings of the Gnostics and other sects at the first Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. The internet, in its own perverse way, is the voice of humanity—it is so alien, so intangible and logical, but it is also more human than any one person could be. It is our collective emotions, prejudices, logos, and mythos; it is everything great about us, but also everything wrong with us.

Grant Morrison, in his book about super heroes, Super Gods, says characters like Superman and Batman did not exist in a:

Close continua with beginnings, middles, and ends; the fictional ‘universe’ [of DC and Marvel] ran on certain repeating rules but could essentially change and develop beyond the intention of its creators. It was an evolving, learning, cybernetic system that could reproduce itself into the future using new generations of creators who would be attracted like worker bees to serve and renew the universe (Morrison 117)

(His emphasis, not mine.) He goes onto to compare the characters to something like twelve-bar blues or a chord progression. Different writers could “play very different music. This meant interesting work could be done by writers and artists who knew what they were getting into and were happy to add their own little square to a vast patchwork quilt of stories that would outlast their lives” (Morrison 118).

Myths, memes, and serials are similar to the concept of ‘tulpas’ created by Tibetan masters (‘thought-beings’). They can possess an age, live past their creators, and become something bigger than any one man or woman. The characters we create and adore are like the gods of old. They descend from the astral spheres and inhabit a person, speak through them, become them. The voices inside their head are not their own, but the gods’ divine thoughts. Sean Kane relates that myth-telling, like all communication, is a performance. We dance with each other without realizing it. In this way, we are God pretending to be human, a rabbit, or a bush because in the end, it is all an act.



Myth is everywhere. It is in the trees. In the rocks. In the rivers. In the sky, and especially in the comic book shop. It is alive, almost as if the polyphonic voices of nature (the spirits) were coming together to craft a story. Myth is not static. It changes every time someone retells it. This is similar to how memory works, in that each time a person relives a memory, they mismember it subtly. It morphs to fit the arch they believe themselves to be on and because of this, a myth will die away if it is no longer relevant to the group of people which it is associated, just like we bury a memory which no longer fits in with our story.

In contrast to characters being accepted as gods, Alison Lurie, in her article “Who is Peter Pan?” opines that instead of their works, writers are often compared to the higher authorities:

They create men and women and children who seem to us to be real. But unlike gods, these writers do not control the lives of their most famous creations. As time passes, their tales are told and retold. Writers and dramatists and film-makers kidnap famous characters like Romeo and Juliet, Sherlocke Holmes, and Superman; they change the characters’ ages and appearance, the progress and endings of their stories, and even their meanings (Lurie).

Like I discussed above, characters used in perpetuity by a host of different media and interpreters develop a life of their own. Did Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster foresee a modern Superman fighting Supergirl and the villains of Wildstorm inside the pages of the New 52? No, it would not only be improbable but impossible. Lurie brings up a good point—often when we perceive the author, we think of him or her as a god, but the the real question may be who is controlling who? Many authors will tell you there comes a point when their characters start to possess them. They cease to be writing about them. Their creations are now writing through them. Grant Morrison wonders in his aforementioned book “if ficto-scientists of the future might finally locate this theological point where a story becomes sufficiently complex to begin its own form of calculation, and even to become in some way self-aware. Perhaps that had already happened” (Morrison 119).



It was Bob Dylan who talked of the spirits’ (stories, images, and characters) ability to mesmerize an age and the artist himself. It is almost as if the great gods are worming their way into the lower celestial spheres by using clumsy talismans. Booth writes of the gods, “If you believe that ideas are more real than objects, as the ancients did, collective hallucinations are, of course, much easier to accept than if you believe in a matter-before-mind universe—in which case they are almost impossible to explain. In this history gods and spirits control the material world and exercise power over it” (Booth 59). Where before humanity was in direct communication with the gods, now they are distant, and the only way they can be contacted is through perverse means, and reading and writing are just a few of the ways.

Inside a book or comic, a person is free to commune with aspects of themselves that are hidden away or buried. Books, like any good talisman, have been burned for being evil. They can inspire great evil or great kindness. Literate society has not killed humanity’s great mythos, it has only changed or transformed it. It has moved toward the Occult, to the Orient, to serials and cultural icons, and finally to fantasy and outerspace. Myth and story, once recognized as a great societal linker, bringing together the young and the old and instructing on the proper ways of life, has died. It has moved into the hands of the few. Capitalism has led to the commoditization of our cultural icons, and it has done this without the masses realizing what they have lost.

These days, I continue to pick up Batman (along with Batman and ...), Soule's Swamp Thing (even better than Snyder's), Animal Man (though this month is its last issue), Wonder Woman, Superman and Wonder Woman (I love Charles Soule!), and some of the Forever Evil tie-ins. Books I have heard that are worth reading from DC include Lemire's Green Arrow, Soule's Red Lanterns, and Snyder's Superman Unchained-- and these three tend to be my favorite authors from DC. I have yet to delve into Marvel because as my uncle put it, you know what you are buying when you pick up a DC book, but apparently Bendis' X-Men series are pretty awesome, as well as Hawkeye, and a few others I read about on CBR and Bleeding Cool. These books don't even take into the account the great stuff going on in Vertigo, Image, Dark Horse, and a menagerie of other outlets-- it is a great time to be a comic book fan, especially with Vaughan's Saga.

Like I said at the beginning, comics mean a lot to me. They were another world I could hide away in during a dark time. I felt like I had nobody, like I could talk to nobody about the problems I had, the things I felt. But Batman was always there, in all his righteous rage and his tenaciousness. Swamp Thing and Animal were fighting against the rot. Wonder Woman was meeting her family for the first time. There is that feeling when I was leaving my home to grab a few books or novels from the local Hastings or Barnes and Noble-- it felt like everything was going to be okay for awhile, like I could manage the next few hours. I know things will not always go swimmingly, and bad things will always happen, but I know my friends will always be there, and I count these heroes as friends.

Daylight Savings Pain

Why do we still perform this old and terrible tradition? Fall back, Spring ahead!  And here I am just wanting to sleep another hour.  Why do we follow something which was only meant to be a joke in the first place?

Maybe it saved a little on coal during the first World War, but come on.  That ended in 1918.  Most recent studies show we actually use more energy during the months of DST.  That sucks.  In fact, it sucks even more than you or I think.  During the final month of DST, consumers spend an extra amount on car fuel, with most buyers getting their fuel at convenience stores, producing and extra $1 billion for oil industries.  This means it will probably never change!

This, despite the fact that traffic accidents tend to surge the Monday immediately following the DST changeover.  We live in a sad world, folks.  One in which monetary profits far outweigh the cost of human lives and safety.  Hell, Daylight Savings Time is simply bad for your health.  And the Fast Food industry likes it that way.

I could come up with a million reasons why I think this evil tradition should be straight up abolished.  But really, the only one that matters is I want my damn sleep.

Spider-Cents And PG-13 Pains

I was watching the new Spider-Man incarnation, The Amazing Spider-Man, the other day and I realized I have a difficult time getting into contemporary American cinema.  Maybe I’m getting old, but I can’t relate to the characters (who are, admittedly, younger than myself a lot of the time) or get into the drama of these stories.  I think it might be because the stories and characters take turns because they are expected, rather than earned.

I’ve come to notice a particular trend towards zero consequence in modern movies, and perhaps even more frequently in a lot of these Super Hero films.  Characters behave without recourse, and it ends up making these adventures ring false, and the deeds hollow.

The Peter Parker of The Amazing Spider-Man (not to be confused with the Peter Parker of the comic books of the same name) is the latest descendant of the Harry Potter-type. A your-parents-were-awesome-so-you-were-born-to-be-special wish fulfillment disguised as a character.  If it sounds like I don’t care for this modern iteration of a “hero”, it’s because I don’t.  He’s a whiny, needy, nothing and everything who is continually rewarded for his idiotic decisions and non-decisions alike.

Just your average (super good-looking, muscular, athletic, skateboarding, popular) nerd

He attacks police officers, afflicted scientists, and gets people he knows hurt and killed with such stunning frequency, you think he’d start to notice and straighten up.  But is he blamed or punished for this?  Not really.  The sole person who considers this emotionally unbalanced teen masquerading as a hero a true menace is treated as a villain.  No wonder kids want to be super heroes.

Notions of choice and accountability are rare in American cinema today.  I mean, the Ridley Scott-directed The Counselor was heavily about consequence, but it was also a convoluted mess almost no one saw.  Are audiences so desperate for escapism they’ll only watch movies with miniature drama, whose heroes all seem to represent the fulfillment of vague “chosen one” prophecies or children of greatness who can do no wrong?

Films seem to have long-since dropped the “will-they-or-won’t-they-survive” sort of drama, especially in today’s franchise-building efforts.  Was there anyone seriously concerned they would kill off Iron Man at the end of The Avengers?  No.  They had to invent an entirely original character, because they won’t even allow the movie’s antagonist a just demise.

"We'll let you go if you promise not to do it again."

I’ll give The Avengers credit in that you actually see people on the streets reacting to the carnage occurring around them.  Sure, it’s basically just a couple dozen or so people, but at least it doesn’t give the impression this is some vacated cityscape as in Man Of Steel.

Why are these movies so afraid of collateral damage?  It’s of thematic importance our heroes have something to fight for, and yet we rarely see it.  Without showing us the danger these scenarios ring completely hollow.  Do studios think we’re too squeamish to imagine our heroes might fail and our world will be dominated by these aliens?  Or do they think such thinking will eliminate the “fun factor” if we know innocent civilians are out amongst the chaos?

I once watched a film where a demigod opened up an interdimensional portal over New York, let loose a colossal monster which then began stomping cars and crushing buildings, and only a small mismatched band of heroes could hope to save everyone. 

It also had a decent run time

It was called Ghostbusters, and I would argue not too many people  would accuse it of being a dour or unfun movie.  In fact, not only is Ghostbusters widely considered  a classic genre film, it does so entirely without avoiding the subjects of consequence and collateral damage.  One could even say some of the movie’s best bits are derived  from these very themes.

I’ve noticed modern films have a surprising lack of violence, or rather, the lack of consequence to the violence.  When I was a child, we had G.I. Joe and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  These shows, respectively, were about a paramilitary force loaded to the teeth with the most advanced weaponry, and set of bipedal reptiles trained in the ancient and deadly art of ninjistu, the martial art of ninja assassins.

These are shows whose very concepts are unavoidably linked to violence.  But each one found a way around using what, in most circumstances, would be lethal force to defeat their adversaries (always bent on world domination).  The favorite fix-it for these shows was the change from weapons utilizing bullets to those of lasers.

 To be fair, the whole show is incredibly weird

The change in weaponry has a dual effect: firstly in that the weapon can pretty much magically change its use and level of damage and effect; and secondly that impressionable children may feel less apt to dig out their father’s laser gun and unwittingly zap someone to death.  Mostly, it’s for the latter.  In accordance with our culture’s strange rules, violence must be, in all its forms, shielded from the eyes of the youth.  This is why these television shows, and the many that preceded them and those that followed, used the same device to bring violent concepts safely into the hearts and minds of the youth.

Yeah, this is real

And how a comic book about lethal mutant ninja monsters who kill people

became a kid’s t-shirt and a catchphrase.

How does this relate to consequence?  I’m getting there.  See, the other thing shows about violent confrontation need is some level of of consequence.  Having heroes who can perform all manner of martial art gymnastics is good and well, but they’ll probably need to hit something if you want to keep kids watching.  But if our heroes are beating people mercilessly, won’t that encourage violent behavior in children? Enter the robots.

A robot feels nothing.  You can chop it apart, beat it, shoot it (with lasers), blow it up, mangle its innards, and it can still be shown on Saturday morning television to kids of all ages.  Loop hole granted.

When we’re talking about live-action films, we’re in the same boat.  But here, we’re also talking about a lot more money at stake.  Films are more commerce than art anymore, and anyone who disagrees can look at the sudden prevalence of PG-13 action films for proof.

Movies rarely receive the PG-13 rating by chance.  Much planning, editing, and giving up of artistic ground takes place before finally being granted this rating instead of a dreaded R rating.  Film studios recognize that kids under 17 will be turned away from R-rated films, and thus pressure filmmakers into making PG-13 movies and even frequently take finished films away from said filmmakers and edit them down.

Take the new RoboCop, a remake of one of the most famously violent movies ever made.  Iconic sequences from the original mostly involve vast amounts of blood and gore as the titled protagonist blasts round after round into corporate and streets scum, shredding their flesh apart in an amazing and also disgusting display of red violence.  

Probably not lasers doing that

In one particular sequence, a corporate upstart is horrifically killed when a test of one of the corporation’s new products goes wrong.  The big machine pumps hundreds of rounds into the poor man’s already dead and mutilated body, implicating not only the companies shocked executives as spectators, but also us, the audience at home.  We’re meant to be completely taken aback by what we’ve witnessed, similar to the titular character’s human demise early in the film.  

Not quite the same, ahem, impact

The remake completely sanitizes these moments by removing the gore, changing RoboCop’s “death” to a blocked out but colorful CGI explosion, and removing the violence of the original film’s lethal bullets by giving our hero a taser gun and making his enemies robots instead of humans.  Seeing a human body torn to shreds by an array of bullets is affecting.  Seeing non-blinking cyborgs with sparks bouncing off of them is quite a bit less so.  It may open the movie up to a broader audience, but it’s also a loss for the film’s integrity.  But worse, while we might suddenly be treated to a litany of ways to dispatch robots, and thus technically more violence, we are not shown or feeling the consequences of such violence.  We, the audience, are not asked to think about these acts, which may have a far more damnable effect.

If there is no consequence to violence, than what’s to stop an impressionable mind from committing it on another?  If all of the adversaries of one’s heroes are unfeeling combatants, why not begin assuming everyone who stands against you is equally unfeeling and undeserving of remorse?

Continuing on, the lack of consequence in choice in these more modern films may also have a damning effect in itself.  I return to the character of Peter Parker.  He causes his uncle to die.  He reveals his secret identity to his love interest. He reveals his secret identity to his love interest’s father.  He basically gets that guy killed.  What recourse does he suffer for these acts? Nothing.  He ends the film on good terms with his love interest, who’s father he had promised he’d leave her alone in a last dying wish scenario.  His bad behavior is rewarded throughout the entire film, while his primary antagonist, Dr. Connors (Lizard) is a man trying desperately to save lives and his own career but is treated as a vile enemy.  Something is off here.

 Yet he still gets the girl

I feel like I’m not being particularly constructive here.  I really could go on and on about other movies which deal with choice, consequence, and violence incredibly well.  But let me try and end this on a more conciliatory note.  I believe this new iteration can be turned around.  They can make it all built toward something so character-shaping and interesting it would make for a very good turnaround.  Something even Sam Raimi’s much better Spider-Man movies messed up.

Fans of the comics know exactly what I’m talking about.

New Transformers Age of Extinction trailer

Pretty sure this is going to be a load of crap, but hey, my love of Beast Wars still carries through. Hope this is awesome.

Aaron Paul in talks to reprise Jesse Pinkman

So reports Rolling Stone here. I am worried this thing is going to fall flat on its face. I love Breaking Bad. I want Breaking Bad to go down as one of the greatest TV shows ever, but I don't want it to be tainted by spin-off that's not as good. That would depress me, and part of me knows that is exactly what this will be. BB had a purpose, a vision, an idea that was at its center. As far as I can tell this does not.

New Matrix Prequel trilogy on the way?

According to Ain't It Cool News, it's a real possibility. Personally, I am okay with this, but I see franchises as a living canvas new creators can leave their mark on. Some kid out there grew up with the Matrix films. They influenced his tastes, sensibilities, changing his life in ways only he can see. I want this kid, now grown up, to have a go at a Matrix film. What did they mean to him and can he translate it to a new audience, maybe influencing a new child?

It's part of what makes Doctor Who so special. It's organic. It changes with the generations. It's like the oral tradition, changing with each storyteller, and it will only continue to grow, to shift, to transform.

I think, in the end, my favorite part of the Matrix franchise was the Animatrix shorts, specifically the ones dealing with the rise of the machines. They were philosophical and interesting, harking back to the greatness of the first in the series. Apparently the new films would have nothing to do with these, which is okay.

Hipsters getting beard transplants

It's from the New York Post, so take it with a grain of salt. Here's the article written by Natalie O'Neill:

It’s shear madness! Brooklyn’s hipster beard craze has grown so popular that men in New York are rushing to doctors for “facial hair transplants” — surgery that helps make beards look thicker and less patchy, sources said.

Stubble-challenged guys are forking over up to $8,500 for the beard-boosting procedure, which has spiked in popularity in recent months, plastic surgeons told The Post.

“Brooklyn is probably the nucleus of the trend, it’s the hipster ‘look’ guys want. If you have a spotty beard, and you let it grow out, it looks sloppy, ” said Dr. Jeffrey Epstein, a Midtown-based plastic surgeon.

“[Clients] want full beards because it’s a masculine look. Beards are an important male identifier,” he added.

Epstein performs two or three beard implants per week — up from just a handful each year a couple years ago, he said.

The specific hipster-inspired style — a lumberjack-meets-roadie hybrid — was made popular in neighborhoods such as Williamsburg, Bushwick and Park Slope, doctors and patients said.

One happy patient is Danny, 27, whose beard used to be so patchy, he was forced to “fill it in” with an eyebrow pencil, he said.

Two years ago, he paid $8,500 for the surgery, which he considers a fashion statement.

“I have a baby face but now I’m able to look older. My fashion statement is a little edgy, and I do like the ‘rugged look,’” he said,

He added, “It’s one of the best investments I’ve ever made.”

During the procedure, doctors remove hair from other body parts, including the head and chest, before implanting it in the face.

New beards grow back normally and can be shaved.

The hair-raising trend is also popular with female-to-male transgenders, Hasidic Jews, and guys who simply aren’t very hairy, doctors said.

“It’s the style. It’s just more common now to see scruff than ten years ago,” said Dr. Yael Halaas, a Midtown plastic surgeon, who performs the procedure.

“We’ve been getting a lot more calls about it,” she said.

A 39-year-old New Yorker, who works in catering industry, got a beard transplant to make him feel younger, DNAinfo.com reported.

“I had contemplated [getting a beard transplant] for approximately eight months,” he said, “Knowing the results, I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time deciding,” he said.

Star Wars Clone Wars season 6 trailer launches

First, I love Star Wars music.

Second, this launches on Netflix on March 7th.

New Godzilla trailer is awesome!

I love Brian Cranston. I love disaster movies. I love this.
It's coming out May 16th. This and Guardians of the Galaxy are my most anticipated movies of 2014. Is it really 2014? I never thought I would make it to this year in 2000-- I am living science fiction.

Haven't you any romance in your soul?

Same Love of Mario/Bowser

The truth of this is disgusting. They are the same person. There is no doubt in my mind.


from MercWorks.

The Joker and the Occult

Bale's Batman. Property of Warner Brothers.

The year was 2009, in Dendermonde, Belgium. A man with white face make-up, blackened eyes, and dyed red hair wandered into a day care center. His goal was mass hysteria, and brandishing his weapon, he set to accomplish his task.

After all was said and done, the man, "Kim D", had murdered two baby boys, a woman, and injured 13 others in a "frenzied knife attack". A knife, small axe, and fake pistol were later confiscated, as well as a piece of paper with the address of another creche, perhaps what was intended as his next target. He was wearing body armor, similar to James Holmes almost three years later in Colorado.

"You see this kind of thing on TV and you think it's bad," a resident told Reuters. "You don't realize, but now when it happens in your own street, so close to us." The killer was later identified as Kim De Gelder, an unemployed Belgian from Sinaai. He was high on drugs and alcohol, and according to his attorney, had heard voices in his head. "In further media reports, De Gelder reportedly watched The Dark Knight an unusually high number of times ("film obsession"), appears to have quoted the character Harvey Dent at the start of the attack, and committed the attacks on the one-year anniversary of Heath Ledger's death" (Wikipedia).

"It’s a combination of reading all the comic books I could that were relevant to the script and then just closing my eyes and meditating on it," he says. "I sat around in a hotel room in London for about a month, locked myself away, formed a little diary and experimented with voices — it was important to try to find a somewhat iconic voice and laugh. I ended up landing more in the realm of a psychopath — someone with very little to no conscience towards his acts. He’s just an absolute sociopath, a cold-blooded, mass-murdering clown, and Chris has given me free rein. Which is fun, because there are no real boundaries to what The Joker would say or do. Nothing intimidates him, and everything is a big joke" - Heath Ledger (Empire Online)

Reading Ledger's account of how he created the Joker, it certainly seems like he was communicating with something beyond the realm of corporeal existence.

The process sounds terrifying. I imagine a man in a T-shirt and jeans. He is writing in a notebook, alone in a stale hotel room smelling of sweat, old candy wrappers and empty soda cans littering the floor and desk, bed unkempt in the center, with the light of the lamp harsh on his frame. The actor would later report having trouble sleeping, which would eventually lead to his death by overdose. I can't help but think that his role as the Joker may have contributed to that mental state.

On the 22nd of January, 2008, Heath Ledger was found unconscious in his bed at 421 Broome Street in the hip Soho neighborhood in Manhattan. The EMTs arrived seven minutes later, but were unable to revive him. At 3:36 pm, Heath Ledger was pronounced dead in his apartment. The autopsy produced toxicological analysis report declared that "Mr Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine. [...] We have concluded that the manner of death is accident, resulting from the abuse of prescription medications." Ledger had complained of being unable to sleep to his co-star, Christopher Plummer, and his ex, Michelle Williams confirmed this in an interview. The Joker's avatar was dead.

A year after Ledger's death, another man dressed as the character, US army specialist Christopher Lanum, would be shot dead as he pointed a shotgun at police. "Lanum's girlfriend [...] told investigators that the soldier idolised the Joker," it was reported in The Guardian. He was a suspect in the stabbing of another soldier just a few hours earlier, and in another case, this time in 2010 in Ireland, Christopher Clancey, who was also wearing clothes similar to Heath's, "filled six large jerry cans with petrol" and poured their contents through a broken window at his school. He had bought the 100 liters of gas from nearby stations days prior and had been storing the fluid outside the school. Clancey lit the fuel ablaze, taping it on his phone, and sent the destruction to his friends. "I am glad I did it," he told reporters, "because the people will realize they can't treat students as sub-human." The resulting damage was over $1 million.

Heath's character was no longer only affecting his creator, but also those who had come to see him as a hero.

S S S

About 20 minutes into TDKR's midnight showing in Aurora, Colorado in 2012, a man opened fire. He was armed with AR-15 assault rifle, a Remington 870 shotgun, two .40-caliber Glock handguns and covered in a suit of armor many had assumed was cosplay. It was the worst mass shooting in the United States' history. Children, teenagers, and even a baby were feared among the casualties. 12 dead. 58 wounded. Many others reported irritated eyes because of the tear gas he had opened his assault with. The man, James Holmes, was from San Diego and attending school in Denver for a PHD in neuroscience. He surrendered willfully to the police when they arrived on the scene. When asked his name, he replied, "The Joker, enemy of Batman."

The Joker...

Police rushed to his Aurora home. Ascending up the stairs wearing protective gear, the shooter had rigged his 850-square-foot, third-floor apartment with chemicals and explosives. An official later noted that Holmes' death-trap "seemed to mirror a chaotic state of mind." Waist-high trip wires were set up across the living room, one strategically placed against the front door. If a visitor had accidentally set the trap off, 30 live grenades would have exploded under their feet. Holmes' had improvised these particular bombs, filling empty jars with "explosive liquids and .223-and-.40-caliber bullets" which were connected to "'control box' in the kitchen" (LA Times).

The impending blast would have probably also ignited 10 gallons of gasoline which were nearby. At least that's what appears was Holmes' intention. "Overall," the official noted, "[...] if the devices [...] had gone off, the fireball alone would have blown up and consumed the entire third floor of the apartment building." Five buildings were soon evacuated. Many Batman-related paraphernalia decorated Holmes' flat. A Batman poster and mask were discovered on the scene. More booby traps were placed in another room, and connected to a lethal combination of acids. Because of the danger, evidence such as a computer and chemical compounds were carefully taken away. People wishing to collect their belongings from the evacuated area were told to hold off until the grounds could be fully secured.

This attack was reminiscent of the chaos The Joker championed in The Dark Knight, especially his followers' killing of Rachel Dawes and mutilation of Harvey Dent.



However, there was a strange inconsistency in Holmes: why did he warn the police that his home was booby trapped? Why did he so easily surrender? If Holmes' goal was the total over-running of senses through death and destruction, he apparently had had a last minute change of heart.

Holmes' face was covered in a red towel as he was led into the Arapahoe Detention Center. His hair and clothing were already red. It was clothing which had been hidden from the movie goers under a suit of ballistic gear. His legs were shackled. His hands were cuffed behind him. "He's spitting at everything," one of the inmates later told a reporter. "He was spitting at the door and spitting at the guards. [...] Dude was acting crazy." Holmes was locked in solitary confinement and put on suicide watch. His actions had off-put some of the prisoners, to say the least. Many talked of killing him. Holmes ate his meal in the morning, however, a breakfast of grits and sausage. His windows were blocked with tape. "Let’s just say he hasn’t shown any remorse," one of the jail's employees reported, "He thinks he's acting in a movie."

And madness was sweeping across the nation. A Maine man turned himself in a day after seeing the The Dark Knight Rises, telling the authorities that he was on his way to kill a former employer. After searching his car, police found an "AK-47 assault weapon, four handguns, ammunition and news clippings about the mass shooting that left 12 people dead early Friday" (Yahoo News). In New Jersey, 100 were evacuated from the Edgewater Multiplex after an emergency exist was opened. A man had stood up, walked outside through the door and spoke to another person, then went back in. After the authorities arrived and the opener refused to step forward, the showing was ended. Another was canceled in Norwalk, California when a male raised his cell phone up and shouted, "Does anyone have a gun? [...] I should go off like in Colorado." Shots were heard outside another theater in Florida. There were no casualties in the incident.

The country was going crazy.

The famous director Peter Bogdanovich blamed modern entertainment, writing that "violence on the screen has increased tenfold. It's almost pornographic. In fact, it is pornographic. Video games are violent, too. It's all out of control. I can see where it would drive somebody crazy," and America's gun laws, "Anytime there's a massacre, which is almost yearly now, we say, 'Well, it's not the guns. Guns don't kill people. People kill people' and all that bullshit from the NRA. Politicians are afraid to touch it because of the right wing. And nothing ever changes. We're living in the Wild West." The shooting has sparked an increase in gun sales across the nation. Buyers claimed, when prompted, that it was for protection from future shootings. Meanwhile, unrest in Anaheim has gone, for the most part, unreported by the press. Echoes of the Joker's speech from TDK about 'everything going as planned' comes to mind.

During his first court appearance the Monday after the shooting, Holmes looked despondant. Off-color humor was attempted in the press, many writing how the "Joker wasn't laughing now," but other observers noted his creepy appearance. Holmes stared down with tired eyes. He never said a word, his droopy head falling back and forth when spoken to. An appearance of remorse sometimes fluttered across his troubled face. However, it would quickly return to indifference, as if he didn't know what he had done. Later in the week, Holmes would ask a guard how the movie ended. A witness told a reporter of the event, "He was trying to look like he was sincerely curious. Like he had no idea why there was anything wrong with what he was saying. It was sick ... I think he’s trying real hard to act crazy.”


Smirking face of James Holmes, taken years earlier.


Death is not only a theme of Nolan's Batman franchise, but a specter that swirls around it like so many bats on the movies' logos. Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight hit a new macabre high. Not only because of his grungy, hilarious, terrifying, and sexy performance, but also because we were watching a dead man. The spirit of chaos, the trickster spirit, had performed his greatest joke. He had killed off the soul who had communed with him so closely, making the world awe at Ledger's walking corpse. It is a Faustian fable. When a person strolls too close to perfection, he is going to get burned.

Ledger's Joker was the perfect representation of sexy madness. Like the Bacchanalia in ancient Greece, he was a spirit to be communed with, begging you to let go of society's made-up rules and embrace the insanity within. He taunted the 'rule-makers', pleading with Gotham's citizens to opt out of their constructed game, and did this by pointing out the absurdity of it all, a theme epitomized in the Joker's talk with Dent in the hospital. "I'm like a dog chasing its tail," he said, "I don't know what I would do if I caught it!" It is this thirst for new order from unorder that is also symbolized with the likes of Tyler Durden and "Breaking Bad"'s Walter White. White, for his part, shows us another man literally sick to death of the modern world. Eventually, his evil acts spread like a disease, poisoning the whole community. One wonders if Nolan's Batman series hasn't had a similar result. Several actors and workers involved with the movies' production were accidentally killed violently, and it was around the time of the second film's launch that Bale was arrested for attacking his mother and sister. And now this.

At the 2008 opening of the The Dark Knight, I remember being in awe of Heath Ledger. It was late in the night, the veil between the worlds was less perceptible, and even when I watch it today, I relish the nuance of his performance. The way he inflects his voices, raises certain syllables into a whine but others into a rabid growl. His stances-- the way he sucks his lips, being "young, alive, and evil" as one reviewer put it. He fascinated a generation, but he is also dangerous, particularly to unstable minds.

The Joker killings in Belgium. The case of Christopher Lanum in the States. His image is so iconic that it has been adopted as an iconoclastic pog against authority. When I imagine Ledger's performance, I can't help but think of a bubbling, black ooze that is sliding under our streets, under our houses, in places we can't see but is always there, waiting to be discovered if we look too closely. He is tempting. An evil spirit who beckons us with duplicitous promises. In previous blogs, I have mentioned the Joker's link to Dionysus' mass hysteria. Dionysus is the god of masks, acting, drunkenness, and rebelling. He was the call of the wild to ancient Greece's patriarchy, bringing chaos to Pentheus, Orpheus, and countless helpless animals.

There was something in Ledger's performance that was utterly primordial, as if the ancient spirit of Bacchus was flowing through him to entertain a new millennium of mad people. Certain sites link him directly to the Anti-Christ. Our culture is in love with death. It permeates our movies, our political actions, even the clothing we wear. It is a symptom of a society that is not only unaware of its lunatic subconscious but denying it even exists, and it is societies like these which are ruled by the masculine left brain... mass killings, wars, racism, sexism, debauchery... We are so controlled, so tightly wound, that when we snap, we really snap. Hear it? That snapping? It's the sound of the Joker's cackling laugh. See that 1000 point drop in the DOW? See the failing EU? The US's crumbling infrastructure, wars, and economy? It's a house of cards that the Joker wants to kick, letting them fall across the earth.

It is interesting to note that the only card in the deck without hierarchy is the Joker. He is outside the system, willing to take on any role (i.e. mask) that he needs to defeat the enemy. Nolan's communicated with something evil, that's for sure. It was a finely tuned metaphor for the cracks on the dam's edifice, and the plaster used to cover it up. TDKR showed that this was only a temporary solution and delaying the inevitable: madness would eventually reign, flowing from the torn up dam and pouring across the streets of Gotham. TDKR has one literally burst.

The only thing standing in Dionysus' way was Apollo, the god of laws, numbers, and language. They were also rumored to be one in the same. Apollo, who lived in Delphi three-fourths of the year, would fly north for the other fourth. In his stead, Dionysus would rule. In other words, madness would overtake logic for a part of the year. Our modern culture has, at-large, forgotten this. We live in a world where men are expected to be rational 100 percent of the time. Maybe that's why it's the males who are the ones who snap these days while in ancient Greece it was the women. One can see The Dark Knight as a modern representation of this eternal struggle between the id (The Joker, Bacchus) and the ego (Batman, Apollo). The id, the Mother, is a sense of wildness and wholeness. The ego, harbored in the left brain and represented by masculine entities, is the place where language, mathematics skills, and laws are formed. It is individualistic, where 'I' is. The Mother's right brain is untamed, where sublime art is created, and where the community is king.

Most actors commune with otherworldly entities to play their roles. I posit that each personality trait is a spirit which exists within and without us. A typical person will communicate with one dominant entity, while actors are aware (subconsciously or not) that there are many, many more. If, like Heath Ledger, the actor starts communicating with a demon, there can be repercussions. It seems to me that Ledger accidentally performed ancient magic which summoned a dangerous spirit, releasing him to the masses. It was a spirit that had always lived inside him, buried but never forgotten, that emerged in his performance. And that spirit threw him aside when he no longer needed him. Not only that, but because it would be really funny in a dark humor sort of way. The Joker, this evil prickling in the back of our minds, is asserting his reemergence in the modern world. To be clear, this is one way to look at the world. The polar opposite, a pragmatic material universe, is another way. As are all myths.

Mass hysteria. Death. These are things that the Joker would get a kick out of.

Now the film franchise will have the ever-lasting burden of not only Ledger's death, but also the murder of the poor people inside that Colorado movie theater, and because of Holmes, we will never be able to look at the Joker the same way again either. This is not a symptom of the character's potency, but our society's attraction to him. We admire the Joker because there is something about him that we wish we could be. Leonard Shlain would make the link between the left brain's controlling ego and the need in society for a balancing madness. The more controlled the ego, the more uncontrolled the id. Thus, there is not something wrong with the Joker for existing, there is something wrong with us, our society. The people who paid for it with their lives were the people who loved him the most.

If the demonic spirit of the Joker is alive, surfing the paranoia and desires of our collective unconscious, he is getting his greatest laugh. Not only are the masses still knee-slapping and getting a thrill out of his dead puppet, Ledger, but now they are literally dying at his amphitheater alter. See them line up and perish in the name of pop chaos! In this regard, it may interest you what the mad author of one of the Joker's most iconic stories, "The Killing Joke", has to say on magic. In another example, Moore writes that "the way that people immerse themselves in alcohol, in drugs, in television, in any of the addictions that our culture throws up, can be seen as a deliberate attempt to destroy any connection between themselves and the responsibility of accepting and owning a higher Self and then having to maintain it.” The trickster is cackling in the night, making children afraid of the glow of the movie screen. He beckons them to him. He tempts them with anarchy, destruction, anonymousness. Yes, he is the 'man' that wants to watch the world burn.

What is it about our modern society that would drive a young man to throw his life away and shoot a bunch of others? As an economics minor, I think it has to do with incentives. Our culture idolizes the rich, famous, and successful. By killing a bunch of people, Holmes could achieve something his PHD degree never could do, earn national attention. Some on the internet were calling for his identity to remain a secret as to dissuade similar massacres. This is clearly a crap-shoot. In our age, this secrecy is almost impossible. However, what if we look at it from the other end-- there is something in our society that wants to admire men like Holmes. It's a sickness, a disease, like the one Walter White suffers. What is causing that feeling in men today? It is a question we should all be asking ourselves in the face of this new tragedy. My thoughts are with the families of the victims.

Celebrities in a mirror universe, and Nebraska

Here's the link to the pic and the original comments on reddit.

Madonna looks like a Lovecraft horror-monster living in a small Maine town... or a Jim Henson muppet. Either way, it's quite disturbing. Tom Cruise, I can see this being a reality for whatever reason. he looks like he should live down the street from me.

See? Celebrities really are like us.



I also watched Nebraska last night. It romanticizes the upper West-Midwest, and it starts in Billings, Montana, where I spent most of my life (3rd to 12th grade and many summers). I loved the little details Alexander Payne added: the bobcat insignia in their house, the many shots of the rims in the background and the Crowne Plaza, the mention of the Albertsons on King Avenue (totally how people would talk there), the train noises, the refineries. You could practically smell the sugar-beet air. Though all their license plates should have began with a '3'. Not sure why that was overlooked. The black and white added to the starkness of it, and even Forte and Dern's wide-eyed stares. They look like dudes who would live here.





I saw Payne on the Colbert Report. I thought it was one of the rare interviews where Colbert comes off badly, but the director said he basically resented the middle of the country being called 'fly-over states', and that no one questions Woody Allen why he sets most of his films in New York City. Either way, happy to see the love for a part of the country few see. There are a lot of old timers here, middle-aged people living dead end lives, and much of it is wasting away-- those old farms and ranches, big family reunions with 10 siblings, that's the truth. I live in Bozeman, Montana now-- the culture is different here, more hip, youthful, less real. Billings is grittier, downright unattractive in a lot of places. You have to respect that, but the follies of youth you know? And to be honest, it has never been like the rest of the upper Midwest-West. Billings has always been growing, and now the Bakken is accelerating that change into a bigger city. It is the meeting of the East and West. You can tell by the accent. Baaaaag. My friend from Florida even says I say VAGUE weird. Well, you say caramel and groceries weird, Sarah.

EDIT: I know the story necessitated it, but who would buy a truck in Nebraska when you could go home to Montana? No sales tax, bro. Though I have heard if you can prove you're a resident of Montana, you can get out of other state's sales taxes... oh whatever, it's a movie, Nick.

Bugz Bunny rap, because I mentioned it

Who says the bunny can't rap? You're buggin'.

Space Jam 2 is a thing that is happening

Seriously, it's actually probably happening.

Will the Monstars return? Will Bugz' girlfriend? Will this be the best movie of the year, ala how Angels was in the Outfield was for whenever that movie came out? The answer to the last question is clear: yes, obviously. This movie is going to redefine sequels-- it will be the Empire Strikes Back on steroids. It will be perfection (mind penetration), and I can't wait. I don't give a damn about Lebron... this is the looney gang's show.

And when is Disney going to buy them up? I don't care that they are basically mascots for an entire company, Disney, get on that. You own Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, the Muppets, and your own collection of movies, you got to get on this Looney Toons noise before you really miss out on the big bucks... no, for seriously, like for seriously.

This was LITERALLY my face when I heard the news.

Yeah. I just got back from the hospital.

EDIT: And now I shall weep.

New Godzilla poster for remake

This is one of my most anticipated films of the year behind Guardians of the Galaxy. The trailers have been amazing.

Hear Rocket Raccoon's voice

I have to admit I am pumped for this film and have watched the trailer several times already. I love the idea of a romp through space, filled with humor and crazy characters-- an 80's space opera with a modern blockbuster budget. It could be the closest thing to a SAGA movie we ever get.

Here's the raccoon's voice:

My opinion? I like it. If you've seen the A-Team remake, you know Cooper can be a lot of fun in these kind of roles. Like I said, I am excited.

Welcome, me.

Hi. My name is Brenton, though out of misguided nostalgia for a bygone era of gaming and a time when the InterNet was all about anonymity, I still go by the moniker of Kain or Kain424.

I met Nick through work and have been invited to join in a little meandering of my own here on his blog. I happily accept. You'll be hearing more from me for sure.

One of MCR's last recorded songs revealed

This band is one of my guilty pleasures. I have loved everyone of their album save their first. Their songs are emotional, dramatic, some might overly so, but that's what I liked about them-- they were a emo-power-ballad band. It was amazing and belong on stage. They even acknowledged it in some ways with the Black Parade. Man, I love these guys, even if I moved on, for the most part, from this kind of music. I still miss you MCR. Come back.

To refresh my memory on their break up over a year ago, I asked yahoo answers. The top answer was this:

Athina PoisonGirl answered 7 months ago

''The decision appears to be the result of a change in Mr. Way’s feelings about performing rather than any differences, creative or otherwise, among the band’s members.

Mr. Way made a point of saying what the reasons were not.

“I can assure you,” he wrote, “there was no divorce, argument, failure, accident, villain, or knife in the back that caused this, again this was no one’s fault, and it had been quietly in the works, whether we knew it or not, long before any sensationalism, scandal, or rumor.”

Instead, he attributes the breakup to an understanding the group had when it was formed in 2001 – a “fail-safe” or “doomsday device,” as he called it, which would detonate “should certain events occur or cease occurring.”

Those events appear to be a realization, which came to Mr. Way during a performance in Asbury Park, N.J., on May 19, 2012, that it was simply time to stop. After experiencing what he described as “a strange anxiety jetting through me that I can only imagine is the sixth sense one feels before their last moments alive,” he went onstage and found himself, for what he said was the first time, detached from the performance – more taken with how blue and vast the ocean looked than with the large audience.

“I perform, semi-automatically, and something is wrong,” he wrote. “I am acting. I never act onstage, even when it appears that I am, even when I’m hamming it up or delivering a soliloquy. Suddenly, I have become highly self-aware, almost as if waking from a dream. I began to move faster, more frantic, reckless – trying to shake it off – but all it began to create was silence. The amps, the cheers, all began to fade.

“All that what left was the voice inside, and I could hear it clearly. It didn’t have to yell — it whispered, and said to me briefly, plainly, and kindly – what it had to say.

“What it said was between me and the voice.” Source: The New York Times

The lead singer, Gerard Way, also writes the popular Umbrella Academy graphic novels, and My Chem has a greatest hits album coming out in May which this song will lead.

New Guardians of the Galaxy Pics

Getting pumped about this movie. I recently saw Thor 2 and enjoyed it quite a bit. I like the cosmic side of the Marvel universe and am excited for it to be explored.

Man in Godzilla suit destroying CITY

And here I thought Godzilla was an actual giant lizard.

On a side note, I am looking forward to the new American film Godzilla.

It looks properly Apocalyptic.

Jennifer Lawrence in Black and White

Big debate has been unfolding in my life recently: J-Law or Amy Adams? I know what side I fall on.

Newscaster from Dallas on openly gay player

One part of this hit me the hardest. Some people want to take government out of our lives but feel comfortable with it in our bedrooms, he says. I agree, that never made sense to me either-- I am no Repub or Demo, I lean Libertarian. You could also say the same about Dems. They want the government out of the bedroom, away from drugs, away from abortion, but they want it to regulate everything else to do with out personal lives. The only thing that makes philosophical sense to me is Libertarianism. Freedom should be our greatest concern because it gives us the right to live our lives the way we want to. If that isn't Godly I don't know what is. He kicked us out of the Garden for not obeying him. That wasn't a bad thing. I am not religious, but God gave us the change to choose our own fates without his interference. That is terrifying but beautiful.

VSauce 3 features wicked Ninja Turtles belt

I want this thing.

Have a seat... and listen

Have a seat...





Digging these beats... The whole album is sick...

Music Vid - Feb 09 - Glitch Hop