A comic I did in Seattle about centering. To me the most important aspect of yoga practice.

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Eddie Campbell's BACCHUS

The best comic series that I've read recently was Eddie Campbell's Bacchus. I was introduced to Eddie Campbell's work in From Hell. Bacchus is based at the core upon Greek Mythology, Campbell updated the characters with one basic assumption: the gods aren't wholly immortal, they can die, they can age.
The action focuses on the aging god Dionysos going by his Roman name Bacchus. Bacchus has lost what the gods used as a fountain of youth. He has aged poorly because of his debauched life of booze and cigarettes. He looks like a weathered old sea captain, wearing a captain's cap and pea coat. He survives on wine and spirits. He won't touch food or water. He also won't touch ale. He has lost an eye due to a corkscrew accident with the abbot Dom Perignon. He is a drifter, and the series begins and ends with him in a jail cell. He is no longer the fair haired youth of Euripides' Bacchae. He is taunted and seems a weak, pathetic, old man. But as in Bacchae he is a savage force to be reckoned with.
Simpson is his faithful servant. Simpson was a classical literature professor, who met Bacchus years ago as he was leading a group of students on a tour of Greece. Simpson, though physically weak, has a great deal of power as a lawyer to the loud roaring god. Simpson is also the undead. He was taken to Hades due to a clerical error, by Hermes. He managed to escape though and serves as the twice born's only surviving worshiper.
Hermes initially tried to take Simpson back to the land of the dead but eventually made amends with Simpson after the situation was explained by Bacchus.
Hermes is one of the few living gods left. He hasn't aged as poorly as Bacchus, but he is no longer the mercurial messenger of his youth.
It is still his duty to cart away the dead, though Hades himself is dead. Hermes is still strong and virile, but is showing the signs of age. His brow has become gray and he is no longer so swift.

A god who has retained the knowledge of the fountain of youth is Joe Theseus. Though he was only a hero long ago, he has since become a god. He is at odds with Bacchus, not because of his good looks, but because he abandoned Ariadne after she helped him defeat the Minotaur. After leaving her on an island, the god Bacchus took her as his wife, but she eventually died. Joe Theseus is handsome and strong. He has a full head of hair, a beard, and is a financial whiz. He is the enemy of Bacchus. Joe Theseus has a wild card of an ally in the form of the Eyeball Kid.

The Eyeball Kid is one of the funniest characters from the whole series. He is the grandson of Argus Panoptes, the hundred eyed first son that Zeus had with a mortal. The Eyeball Kid has 9 partial pairs of eyes and the power to electrocute with his hands. He stole this power from Zeus and proceeded to kill all residents of Mount Olympus, before going on to kill the majority of the other gods.
There is no reasoning with the Eyeball Kid. Of all the insane characters in the Bacchus universe, he has the least grip on reality. He has gone crazy on power. The power of his immortality and the power of the lightning that he has in his hands. Joe Theseus may only be aligned with him due to the fact that he's afraid of what the Eyeball Kid is capable of.
I think that one of the reasons that I'm such a fan of Bacchus is Eddie Campbell's sense of humor. Though the characters are Greek, the humor is most certainly Scottish. I remember watching Craig Ferguson on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. This was in the years before he had his own show. His sense of humor was so irreverent. Sly but rowdy. His humor was a lot more rowdy on Conan's show. The humor in the world of Bacchus is much the same. You have to pay attention to get the jokes, but when you get them, they are so outrageously funny. I have reread sections and discovered new jokes that would never get past the censors. They are subtle but edgy. Some of the jokes when he was in prison almost made me blush. Though the jokes in Bacchus are profane, they are never obscene. That has a lot to do with the Scottish sense of humor. It is smooth and pleasant, yet coarse and worldly.






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Forrest J. Ackerman RIP 1916-2008

Forrest Ackerman did more for science fiction than anyone else in the 20th century. He guided numerous writers, helped organize the first conventions, and was even Ed Wood's agent. It would be impossible to list his many accomplishments relating to sci-fi, thus I will focus my tribute to him on two of his most notable accomplishments: Famous Monsters of Filmland and Vampirella. Both of these were were created by both Ackerman and James Warren.

A little backstory is needed to understand why these two magazines were so important to sci-fi. In 1954 the Comics Code Authority was founded, censoring what could be published in comic books. It was theorized by Fredric Wertham that violence and gore in comics had a causal link to juvenile delinquency. Much the same argument is taken with video games, rock and rap music today. For an explaination of my opinion of this argument see here. If media were able to influence society to commit horrendous acts, then there would be massive spikes in violence relating to the release of this media. There isn't... Of the millions of teens entertained by violent comics, video games, et cetera, there is only a very small minority that will actually be violent. This is because people that are prone to violence will be violent no matter what media they are exposed to. Hitler was a big fan of classical music, especially Wagner, yet no one argues that classical music causes violence and genocide, or that the opera Tristan und Isolde should be banned from performance. There could even be an argument that it could cause teen suicide, since that is what the two main characters do in the opera. Because of the Comics Code, many horror comics that were popular in the 1950s were banned. This includes Tales from the Crypt and the Vault of Terror.

There had to be a way to get the kids the sci-fi/horror monsters that they craved. Lord knew that there was a market for the comics prior to their ban. In 1958 Forrest Ackerman created, with the publisher James Warren, Famous Monsters of Filmland. The reason that they were able to publish a magazine that featured terrifying monsters and horrific stories was because it was a magazine. The Comics Code only had jurisdiction over comic books. A little loophole gave Ackerman the ability to expose a new generation of kids to the horror movies that he so loved as a kid. The original Famous Monsters of Filmland ran for 25 years, covering numerous contemporary horror movies as well as the classics. The magazine also had short horror comics in them.

Ackerman weakened the Comics Code with the publication of Famous Monsters of Filmland, and also showed other publishers that there was a market for just such a magazine. Soon there were many others that were copying Warren Publishing's success hit, but none were as great as the original.

Sadly in the 1970s Famous Monsters began copying older articles and it became irrelevant in the world of horror. In 1983 it ended its run, only to be resurrected in 1993 with the help of Ackerman. The new Famous Monsters were never as great as the classic run. Classic Famous Monsters editions can still be found in used bookstores, but the really good ones from the 50s-60s are more difficult to find than the 70s magazines. The magazines from the 70s are still good though, and since they have many of the great articles from the 60s they're a pretty good read.

The Comics Code was weakened, but horror themed comics could still not be published. In 1969 Ackerman decided that the Comics Code was irrelevant and so he created Vampirella for Warren Publishing. Vampirella was first drawn by one of my personal artistic heroes, Frank Frazetta. Frazetta painted the covers for Vampirella and other artists drew the interiors. Vampirella differed from the traditional vampire in that she was from another planet, a planet completely inhabited by vampires. The name of the planet was Draculon. Vampirella was also different in the fact that she was a heroine who came to earth to punish evil vampires from her home planet who crashed on Earth and were running amok. This new science fiction version of a vampire was something that had never been seen before in vampire mythos. In the Vampirella comic there were several other horror stories along with the continuing story of Vampirella herself.
Forrest J. Ackerman was one of the great proponents of science fiction. He was an innovator who changed classical mythos. Anyone who enjoys sci-fi or horror owes a great debt to Forry for his advocacy and creations within these genres. His collection of science fiction and horror memorabilia was rivaled by none other. He was a great man and will be missed.

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Doonesbury SUV

This was the funniest Doonesbury that I've read in quite a while. I've been holding onto it for several years, unsure of why I was keeping it, then last night I dreamed of making it into a blog entry so here it is. It's a commentary on SUVs, at the time I was riding my bike exclusively.







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Anita Blake: Guilty Pleasures

The first time I encountered Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake was in the novel Obsidian Butterfly. This was 7 or 8 years ago and I was working my way through a lot of gothic literature. It didn't stick out in my mind among the countless other books. Then came the comic.
The comic books are great. They have made me want to check out the other books and proselytize for them. There are some things that I don't like about them, but there's a lot that I do like. Enough to make me want to write a post on them.
This is Anita. She is a vampire hunter and a resurrector of the dead. In the alternate reality of Anita Blake vampires live among us out of the coffin. Vampires are recognized as citizens of the USA, but are still fighting for their rights. There is a lot of discrimination towards the undead. I know what you're thinking "doesn't this sound like the world of Sookie Stackhouse?..." Somewhat, but the novel Guilty Pleasures was written in 1993, a full 8 years before the first Sookie Stackhouse book.
Zombies exist in this reality, but not in the same way as most of popular culture. Zombies are the reanimated dead, brought back to life by a resurrector. They have a very limited shelf life, and will return back to the land of the dead within a couple of weeks. During their second life they can help to solve crimes by recalling their memories of the first life. A good reanimator can coax the memories out of the zombie, and Anita is a good reanimator. The zombie's memories themselves also have a short shelf life, because zombies decline cognitively quickly. Zombies are resurrected from a form of gris-gris, voodoo, magic, etcetera.
Anita is a vampire hunter as well as a resurrector. Since vampires have rights, they cannot be hunted willy-nilly. Anita is hired by the police to hunt rogue vampires who have been killing humans. Vampires are allowed to exist as long as they feed off of willing donors, and there are quite a few fetishists willing to let vampires suckle off of them.

Phillip is one such donor. He is a stripper at Guilty Pleasures, a male vampire strip club. He is addicted to the bite and willingly submits to a wide variety of vampires, hence the scars. He is the main romantic interest of Anita in Guilty Pleasures.





Jean-Claude is another romantic interest of Anita's. Jean-Claude, however, is a vampire. He is also the owner of guilty pleasures. It was he who advised the police to contact Anita to help them solve a series of vampire murders around which the plot of the book revolves. Jean-Claude is in the habit of calling Anita "ma petite", which seems kind of cheesy to me. It seems like a vampire cliche that an old vampire should speak with a Louisiana accent and be a French/Southern gentleman. I know that prior to Anne Rice this wasn't the case, but since she appeared on the scene it has been so overdone. Jean-Claude is an old vampire, but not nearly the oldest.


Nikolaos is the oldest vampire in the city although she inhabits the body of a preteen girl. Another problem that I have with the comic is that 'Nikolaos' is actually the Greek name that 'Nicholas' is based on. It comes from 'nike ho laos' victory of the people. It is a male name, but used on a female. I think this is because Ms. Hamilton didn't know this and simply was trying for an old sounding name.
Nonetheless, Nikolaos is a force to be reckoned with.








To me, a cool thing about Anita is that she is obsessed with penguins. There is this fearless vampire killer who can resurrect the dead, and she wears penguin shirts with a bed covered in stuffed penguins...stuffed animals that is. It is also pretty cool that she is easily the shortest character in the books, save Nikolaos, the preteen girl who is a thousand years old.

The last part of the alternate reality of Anita Blake's that I think is so cool is the ghouls. Instead of having ghouls that are tied to a master vampire, ghouls are demon beasts that have a resurrector for their master. Ghouls are created when a reanimator dies and is resurrected. Ghouls generally live in cemetaries and rip apart any living thing that they encounter. They cannot live in cemeteries that are consecrated. It is possible that a resurrector that is reanimated will have as many ghouls as zombies that he resurrected in his lifetime.
Overall I love the Anita Blake comics and cannot wait for the Laughing Corpse cycle to be released in graphic novel format.

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New posts in the pipes, hopefully just from the clean pipes

There are two new entries I'm planning, the first will be done in the imminent future.

This first posting will be a critique of the Marvel comics series Anita Blake : Vampire hunter. I will discuss the ways in which the book followed traditional mythos allowing for the newer motifs. It will be in depth and you will come to understand my enjoyment





The second I have been working on fine" Due to the subject matter this one may be prosponed, I think I may have to do my tribute to Forrest J. Ackerman on the anniversary of his death, but that is along way off.

Here's some clips of Vampirella to tide you over until the Ackerman blog is ready. I really want to do him some honor




I hope to see you soon on these.





















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Chick Tracts: my dirty little secret

I abhor fundamental Christianity, which is why I am so conflicted when it comes to Chick Tracts. For the uninitiated: Chick Tracts are small comics, booklets in a strip format that focus on the founder Jack Chick's extremely rigid boundaries of Christianity. They explain the problems with being anything other than a fundamental Christian. I am conflicted because I don't appreciate the rhetoric, but find humor in the propaganda. Some of them are also quite funny. I was reminded of my love of these ridiculous comics since I've been on my Kali binge. I recalled a Chick Tract entitled The Traitor. It is about how Kali worship and Hinduism in general lead to
evil acts.











Another of the many issues targeted by Jack Chick is rock'n'roll music. One of the Tracts that he wrote on the topic of rock'n'roll was Angels?











The premise of Angels? is one of a Christian Rock band The Green Angels that falls under the influence of a shady manager named Lou Siffer (Lucifer?). In the end it comes out that all rock music including Christian rock is the work of the devil.

The Absolute classic of the series is Dark Dungeons. It explains how role playing games lead the innocent into a coven. Personally I've always known that D&D is the gateway to Devout Satanism. Never mind all the debunking that has gone on since the 1980s.











I enjoy reading these greatly and received several as tips at a burger joint I was working at, perhaps it was Jack Chick's Kali that I first encountered. I don't agree with anything in them, but am somehow addicted to the cheesiness of the strips. I have almost gone into a Christian Bookstore (which is itself terrifying to me) to buy a wad of tracks to relish the glory of their trashiness.

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OOPS SHAnti SHAnti SHAnti

I Screwed up. I said in my last post that the first time I encountered Kali was from Batman. It was not Kali, it was a demon that had similar attributes. The Batman demon has facial hair, and Kali was never depicted as a bearded woman.

from Detective Comics 603, 8/89 $0.75

Perhaps the first time then that I encountered her was in BE HERE NOW.

Ram Dass, 1971 $13.13

Coming Soon: my commentary on my drastic haircut w/ pics. Plus a post on Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter



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