Sunday, March 25, 2012

amber liquid



there's dust in the machine
cogs grinding to a halt.
too much foolishness,
plastic people with no grasp give me marching orders.
WATCH OUT! FALLING IQ'S AHEAD!
liquid.
i need liquid.
amber
the drink of Sinatra and the gods.
too warm
need snow.
and money...lots of money...

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Womanthology Is HERE

Kelly Thompson from ComicBookResources.com is one of the many ladies included in Womanthology, a collection of stories from some of the top women in the comics world. Gail Simone and several others are featured in this amazing book. For more information, click HERE. Be sure to follow Kelly on Twitter at @79SemiFinalist and follow ComicBookResources.com at @CBR.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Classic "Good Girl" Comics Covers

(Photo from SamuelsDesign.com)

With all the talk of how females are depicted in comics, I thought it would be timely to post this neat gallery of Golden Age romance comic covers featuring the "good girl." While not particularly controversial now, this and others like it were considered risque back in the day. For the full gallery, click HERE.

I'm Going To Kill Frank Leonard

Once again, I've taken up the challenge set by Chuck Wendig at his Terrible Minds blog. This time, we were tasked with a thousand-word piece that must include at least ten of the following words: 

Beast, brooch, cape, dinosaur, dove, fever, finger, flea,gate, insult, justice, mattress, moth, paradise, research, scream, seed,sparrow, tornado, university

Game on.

---------------------

I’m going to kill Frank Leonard.

It sounds harsh, I know, but there is cause. This won’t be pre-meditated murder. Oh no, sir. This is a case of justice being meted out. I’m going to kill Frank Leonard and anyone else who gets in my way.

But how should I go about it? Frank is in charge of the agricultural science research division at the university. I had thought about going in there and unloading a gun into him while he’s making one of his pompous speeches to a group of potential donors. I believe that would be passé, though. I mean, when’s the last time you heard about a school shooting? Probably yesterday, right? That doesn’t even raise an eyebrow anymore. And Frank deserves to have his death be more than just a blip on the radar, a two-minute hit on the evening news for some talking head to tut-tut over while asking if the Second Amendment should be overturned via their Question of the Day. No. I want Frank Leonard to scream my name as he dies and I want the world to know that he deserves it. He deserves to be put down like a rabid beast.

So, how to go about it then. A home invasion perhaps? Pick a day when his wife and son are gone, maybe to one of the boy’s soccer games that Frank never attends because he’s working. Always working. Always looking for money to prove to the school’s overlords that he is worthy of taking his share of their ill-gotten gains every two weeks. His office is in his bedroom. Maybe I can just walk through the front door, silently climb the stairs, walk into the room where he and his wife sleep, and proceed to beat him. Beat him until my fists are red and sticky with his blood.

Then I would tie him to his mattress and wait for him to wake up. Yes. He would need to be awake for what’s going to happen next. Once he awoke, I would tell Mr. Leonard—wait, I’m sorry, DOCTOR Leonard, you worked too hard to be called MISTER, didn’t you? I would tell DOCTOR Leonard why I was there and why he was going to die. Because he is, you see. There is not going to be any mercy for this piece of poor judgment on God’s part. Once I made it plain he would only be leaving this room courtesy of a body bag, I would break his left ring finger. It would be an ironic gesture, indicative of how he so easily broke the vows of his marriage to a wife he doesn’t deserve.

Next, I would introduce him to the blunt end of a claw hammer. I’m thinking a couple whacks on the ankle would have to hurt something terrible.A quick shot to the mouth, shattering all that fine dental work would be no picnic, either. I’m sure he would be begging for mercy, panicked tears gushing from his swollen eyes. There will be no mercy, though. Like I said, Frank Leonard is going to die and he’s going to die at my hands.

While he’s offering me anything and everything to remain upon this mortal coil, I’ll slip out of the room, stroll downstairs (I’m going to be in a great mood and happy people stroll), and head to the garage. I’ll find the red plastic gasoline canister and walk (stroll) back upstairs. I’m going to show him the gas and take the matches out of my pocket and his eyes will bulge from his beaten, lumpy head. He knows. Oh, he knows. Then, I’ll—

You know what? No. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to kill him in his home and then burn the house down. His wife and little boy don’t deserve that. They already live with this little piss ant of a man; why add insult to injury? Why, indeed.

So how, then? Wait in the backseat of his faggoty hybrid until he leaves his office and when he gets buckled in, stick an ice pick into his brain stem, Mafia style? Walk up to him when he’s out in one of the ag department’s trial fields, checking seed growth, and bludgeon him to death with that claw hammer?

I know you’re asking, “Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?”Not at all, my friend, not at all. I want to get caught. I want to share with the world why Frank Leonard had to die and had to die in the most painful,degrading way possible. And now, having thought about it, those last ideas won’t do at all. Don’t want to send Dr. Leonard to paradise relatively unscathed, do we?

It’s a dilemma. A crisis of spirit. I want Frank to die. I want him to die painfully, his last long, drawn-out moments in this reality to be spent in a hell of agony, regret, and humiliation. But, I don’t want anyone else to suffer the emotional trauma of seeing me give him what he so richly deserves. They won’t understand. His co-workers and friends and family…they simply won’t understand why Frank is being erased from his life in such a gruesome manner.

There is no perfect world and I can’t have everything I want. If it were a perfect world, Frank Leonard wouldn’t be in the position he’s in, only minutes away from eternal judgment. It has to be done and if some people are psychically scarred in the process, that is just some unfortunate collateral damage that Frank will be responsible for. Another mark in the ledger against a man who deserves the fate about to befall him.

I’ve decided.

“Hi, Mrs. Leonard! Dr. Leonard will see you now. He’s been really—

“Oh my God. Is that a gun?!”

Write Words, Win Stuff

 
Wanna be a writer & junk? Here are some contests via our friends at Writer's Digest. You'll notice some of them are already closed, but there are still some good ones open, including the one at the top there which offers a top prize of three large. Enter. Do it.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Nazis Not Fans of Superman (circa 1940)

(Photo from ComicBookResources.com)

Despite his recent declaration that he is no longer an American citizen but a citizen of the world (not sure if that carried over to the New 52), Superman is right up there with Captain America as a representative of the Red, White & Blue. Prior to American involvement in World War II, Supe's creators worked up a comic showing how the Man of Tomorrow would end the war, which ended up being Superman capturing Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin single-handedly and taking them to Geneva to stand trial.

While that bit of history is indisputable, there has been some question over the years as to whether or not the Nazis actually provide an official response. Thanks to our friends at ComicBookResources.com, we know they did. Here's all the saga including the Nazis' anti-semitic comeback.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Fly Away

Writer Chuck Wendig laid forth the following challenge at his Terrible Minds blog and I accepted. Please enjoy the following. And enjoy Mr. Wendig. He is a man who wants, nay demands, writers to be better at their craft.

---------------------------

“Hey. Tony.”

“Yeah, Frank.”

“I’m floating.”

“Huh. So you are.”

It was true. Frank was floating about an inch off the couch they had been sharing for the last, oh, 15 hours or so, watching Monty Python, playing video games (if the zombie apocalypse were to come, Frank and Tony would be experts in culling the mindless killers, assuming the guns were in the shape of Playstation controllers), and smoking a ridiculous amount of weed. Despite the amount of THC coursing through their respective systems, Frank actually was floating, a fact causing no small amount of hilarity within the minds of the two friends.

The first hour of Frank’s barely-measurable exile from the earth’s surface was spent attempting to discover why the proud junior college dropout was now hovering above the indented and sweat-moistened section of the couch he had spent the last several hours, and truth be told years, firmly attached to. Tony took a card from the deck sitting next to the couch (when food/beer/weed supplies were low, the drawer of the low card had to get up and restock) and slid it between Frank and the couch. The card met no resistance. Tony giggled.

“You’re not touching the couch.”

“No shit. I’m floating. That’s what floating means.”

“I know, but it’s weird.”

“Fucking duh.”

Tony proceeded to shove Frank off the couch. Frank landed on the floor, or rather an inch above it, appearing to have actually crashed to the filthy carpet, but was instead still floating ever-so-slightly over it.

“What the fuck, dude?!”

“I wanted to see if you would hit the floor,” Tony said, tears forming from his barely-controlled attempt to conceal his laughter. “You didn’t.”

“Felt like I did. That hurt.”

Tony pondered. “So you didn’t actually touch the floor, but it felt like you touched the floor. Has it occurred to you that maybe the rest of your skin is invisible? That maybe you have, like, invisible flab or something?”

“You slid the card under my ass, remember?” Frank asked, still looking wounded from his fall. “It wouldn’t have slid under me if it was ‘invisible flab.’”

At the moment Frank said “invisible flab,” both pairs of eyes immediately lit up. They looked at one another, exlaiming, “Band name!” (It was an inside joke the pair shared. Other band names included “Shitty Cupcake,” “Batman’s Nipples,” “Couch Fart,” and “Drug Mules for Sister Sara.” The irony being neither could play an instrument and Tony couldn’t actually spell the word "guitar.")

After laughing maniacally over the new musical moniker, the two lapsed into silence. Nearly five minutes had passed when Tony spoke.

“Alright, man. I want to you really think about this. Open your mind and shit and, like, really focus on this. OK?”

“Sure, man,” Frank said, sounding hopeful.

“OK. Now. Has it occurred to you that you’re only floating because your mind is telling you you’re floating? What if you told your mind ‘Hey, dude. I’m done floating. Now let me get back on the couch so I can smoke a bowl and get back to the Parrot Sketch?’”

Frank thought about that. He took Tony’s concept, inhaled deeply, taking in the aroma, and then put it in his mouth, swished it around for a good 20 seconds to really release the flavor, paused for a moment, and then spit it into something that looked like a small ashtray.

“I told my mind to knock the shit off,” Frank said, dejected. “And I’m still floating. Dude, what if I fly away? Will I float into the sun? I don’t want to fly into the sun. I’ve got too much to accomplish on Earth.”

A man, or at least a man-shaped being, strolled into the room shared by the now-deeply depressed duo. He was nude, in the sense he was wearing no clothes, but Tony noticed immediately he had no genitalia. Despite his assurances to anyone within earshot at any given time that he was a real man and loved the pussy, Tony was actually gay. It would be two years later at a late-night round of fantasy gaming at his local comic book shop that he would act on those feelings with a young mage named Aaron who preferred to be called “Monkor the Mightily Equipped,” especially during what he referred to as “Naked D in D.” (Don’t ask what D in D means. Seriously. Fine, it means “Dick in Derrière.” Happy?)

“Who are you?” Frank asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” said the being, smiling. “I’m going to eat you.”

Silence.

“Wait. Did you say you were going to eat him?” Tony asked, starting to giggle.

“Yep. Had to slap a force field around him for a couple hours to get the germs off and there were a lot. Now, I’m going to eat him.”

Before another word could be spoken, the being’s mouth opened impossibly wide as he leaned over and quickly devoured Frank. Tony, torn between screaming in horror and laughing hysterically, settled on looking at the space his best friend since age seven recently occupied. He finally managed to tear his gaze away from the piece of floor Frank had been sitting on (hovering above) to look at the being.

“Am I n-next?” Tony stammered, true panic setting on him for the first time.

“No,” the being said. “Eating two of you? That’s just weird. And gross. Yes, weird and gross.”

Tony shook violently and woke up. He turned to his left and there was Frank, sucking on a 52 oz. fountain drink from the local convenience store and watching Monty Python. Michael Palin was dressed in an outfit obviously purchased from LL Bean and singing about his occupation as a professional woodsman. Tony felt a sense of relief that was better than any bud he had ever smoked. Ever.

Frank noticed Tony staring at him and spoke.

“Hey. Tony.”

“Yeah, Frank.”

“I’m floating.”

“Huh. So you are.”