Greetings, Warriors!!

There are two things that immediately spring to mind when I think about the Fester’s Quest game that came out for the NES back in the late eighties:

“Man, that was a great game!”

and

“$#*&@%#!!”

Released in 1989 by Sunsoft, Fester’s Quest was this little hidden gem of a game amongst the rest of the NES titles that came out that year.  Featuring an overhead layout (with a few scattered, first-person, dungeon crawl-like areas) and utilizing gameplay mechanics similar to the game Blaster Master, you controlled Uncle Fester as he ran around town trying to save it from and alien invasion.

While the gameplay was fun and the environment was visually stimulating, the game itself was quite – to put it mildly – challenging.

Between clunky movement and shooting mechanics, frequent and sometimes hard to avoid weapon degrade drops mixed in with the upgrade drops, and enemies that would pop up almost everywhere way too often, this game would frequently get very frustrating.  Yet, for some reason, I couldn’t stop playing it.  Thrown controllers aside (pun intended), I still enjoyed every minute of this game.  For me, at that young age, Fester’s Quest was different and inventive.  Plus, the fact that it was based on what was then a twenty-five year old, black and white television show impressed me.

Though I never actually owned Fester’s Quest, this cartridge has the distinction of being one of the few titles I rented repeatedly (well, as long as my parents had no problems paying for the rental and driving me to and from the rental place).  The first time I rented it, I remember picking up this title and the first Ducktales game.  I found myself enjoying both so much that I had a hard time choosing between the two to play.  I think the quirkiness and eccentricities of Fester’s Quest is what made it stand out for me, though, as well as what made it a constant on my video game rental list.

Before finishing this article, I decided to play it again just to see how it holds up.  It’s not as difficult as I remember, but it still can get frustrating as hell.  Part of the problem is the damn gun upgrades.  Until you upgrade to the best gun in the game, your projectiles tend to do some kind of wonky zig-zag or loop-de-loops as they head towards their target.  This can prove to be somewhat anger-inducing when you are in close quarters with some nasty alien varmints and your gun blasts keep getting stopped by the local shrubbery.  But you know what?  I still enjoyed the hell out of the game.  In fact, it took me at least an hour to get back to this article, I was having so much fun.

So, is Fester’s Quest as good as I remember?  Yup.  In fact, I’m going back to play it some more.

“$#*&@%#!!”

There goes another controller.

The Don is creepy and he’s kooky, he’s hairy like a wookiee, he’ll make you wanna pukee…

According to Merriam-Webster and other dictionaries, the definition of “art” is “a: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also: works so produced b (1): fine arts (2): one of the fine arts (3): a graphic art”. Sounds pretty abstract a concept, right? Left up to the individual? So, then, what you consider art is your opinion, and your opinion only. There are absolutely no facts about what art is.

I touched on the unique and beautiful art style of the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword in last week’s E3 article. Since then, new information has come out regarding the visuals, like in this article from Kotaku: “Skyward’s unique visual style, which looks like a halfway meeting between Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, was inspired by Miyamoto’s love of impressionism [art], and the skies in the game are a tribute to [French Post-Impressionist artist] Cézanne.” Wow! When I saw the screenshots linked in my previous article, I remarked that the game looked like a painting. I didn’t know at the time that this was because the graphics were inspired by paintings. Now, whenever someone whines about the art style, you can them an “uncultured pleb”!

This reminded me of Roger Ebert’s latest assertion in April that video games “can never be art”, despite his having no qualifications to speak on this topic since he doesn’t actually play video games. (I want to point out this link to Ebert’s blog freezes my browser every time I load it, so click at your own risk. It won’t factor into my article since it’s not relevant to art, but it’s not exactly getting on my good side here, either, Ebert.) In this article, he backtracked a little and said MAYBE games can be art, but never in our lifetime, and they’ll never, ever be “high (read: real) art”.

Other sites have already addressed Ebert’s crap-stirring topic over and over again, and make for entertaining reads, so I don’t need to go into that here. I’m quite fond of Cracked.com’s take on the whole debate, for the record. Oh, and don’t miss a response article from Ebert all the way back in 2007, in which he repeatedly and openly insults novelist Clive Barker for daring to disagree. The comments on these other articles also do a good job of raising up valid instances of video games as art. I know I’ve never cried at a funeral no matter how much I loved the deceased, but I definitely shed tears at the endings of Link’s Awakening, Secret of Mana, and Ocarina of Time, for example. To me, that is art. It does not have to be art to someone else. What art is is left entirely up to each and every individual.

Art begets art. There are professionally-rendered Mario statues and paintings of Princess Zelda. There’s Video Games Live, bringing game music to the orchestra pit…and orchestrated music IN video games is not an unheard-of occurrence. And now, we have The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which has an orchestrated soundtrack and is created to look like an Impressionist painting. Are statues, paintings, and orchestral performances no longer art if their source material is a video game, Ebert? Or are video games themselves art because of the creativity and imagination that goes into them per the dictionary definition, as well as elements normally associated with art, such as orchestrated music and art movement visuals?

When you come down to is that what art is, is left entirely up to personal opinion. I will never consider a good 95% of modern abstract creations to be art. You took a paintbrush, dipped it in black paint, flicked it on a canvas, and named it “Despair”? I could do that in thirty seconds! Your work doesn’t belong in a museum that paid millions of dollars for it; it belongs at the thrift store. Or in the garbage. But the difference between Ebert and I is that he presents his opinion of video games as fact, while I make it very clear right now that my perception of abstract modern art is only one writer’s opinion. And, also unlike Ebert, I won’t tell you that you’re wrong to think otherwise, as he did game designer Kellee Santiago in his blog. (Though I might look at you funny if I find a print of “Despair” hanging in your house. Partly because I made it up. I’ve seen a painting in the Museum of Modern Art in Washington, DC that was virtually identical to my example, but I don’t remember the name.)

Oh, and let’s end on a high (high art?) note. This thread gives me hope for humanity: intrigued by the new Zelda title’s graphics, at least one gamer has taken a (renewed) interest in Cézanne’s work. I doubt this will be the last person to seek out classic art in the face of new art!

And that’s my opinion.

Next week, you’ll probably have to fend for yourselves, as I’ll be buried neck-deep in things outside the Internet. Enjoy a week off from me!

Greetings, Ghost Monsters!!

The 80s were an impressive decade as far as animation was concerned.  Television viewers were literally flooded with a wealth of animated programs of all shapes and sizes.  And practically anything that was on the pop culture radar got its own cartoon, from video games to sitcoms to musicians.  If you were a hot commodity, you would soon find yourself in two-dimensional, cel-shaded glory.

Animation was becoming more prominent in movie theaters as well.  Though the 70s showed that an occasional non-Disney cartoon could dip its toe in the theatrical realm, it wasn’t until the 80s that we would see it start to become much more mainstream.  From rock prodigy on display with Heavy Metal to after school favorites getting the feature film treatment like Transformers and G.I. Joe, cartoons were starting to gain a wider audience.

Speaking of theatrical releases, there is one animated movie that still stands out and resonates with me to this day – one that I am proud to own on DVD.  It’s not one of the more well-known titles to come out of the 80s, but I think it’s one of the best.  And with the recent news of a certain famous author’s memoirs finally being available to publish this year, I think remembering this film is more than apropos – The Adventures of Mark Twain.

This film opened in January 1986 to a very limited release (seven cities, to be exact).  It was directed by Will Vinton, who was best known for being the creator of Claymation (and within that art, The California Raisins).  Using the techniques he harnessed from honing his clay-playing craft, Vinton crafted an incredible clay-animated film that chronicled the final days of Mark Twain as he rides an airship to the stars in order to go out with the same comet he came in with.  Along the way, he acquires three stowaways – Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, and Huck Finn.  As they make to their way to Twain’s final destination, the ex-Clemens regales the children with stories taken from his own writings, as well as imparting lessons to the three before he leaves the world for good.

What stands out most about this putty-crafted spectacle is how mature it is for an animated feature.  With a combination of humor and dark subject matter (dark enough to be widely banned), Mark Twain presents itself honestly, showing both sides of the author’s conflicted psyche.  Through a series of vignettes framed by an overarching storyline, we get to see the humor that Twain saw in things, as well as the demons he bore witness to during his depression.  Mark Twain is a very deep film, exploring and celebrating one of America’s best authors by offering a fresh and creative manner for sharing his works, as well as offering a glimpse into his soul.

Despite the controversy the movie sports, I was fortunate enough to be able to see this in theaters.  Already in the process of learning about Twain in our sixth grade Gifted class, our instructor was able to take us on a field trip to our local theater to see this wonderful film.  How our little town was able to procure a print of the movie when it was very limited in its release, I haven’t a clue.  All I do remember is that some deal was worked out and a representative for the film actually came out as well to answer any questions we had.  I remember watching the movie afterwards and enjoying every minute of it.

It would be a long time before I would even get to see this film again, but it never fully left my mind.  The imagery and substance on display continued to resonate with me long after.  Then, in January of 2006 (just in time for its twentieth anniversary!), the movie was finally released to DVD.  I snatched it up immediately and watched it in the hopes that it still held up in comparison to what I remembered.

Sure enough, The Adventures of Mark Twain is every bit as moving and profound as I remember.  I still find myself laughing during the truly funny moments, and I still find myself deeply affected by the dark and creepy moments.  A shining tribute to a great author as well as a highlight in the art of Claymation, this movie still succeeds at resonating with me.

And now, I leave you with the truly disturbing scene that caused its ban, yet still manages to communicate an incredible wealth of intellectual depth:

The Don is but a thought.

Greetings, Boglins!

I have to admit that I’m a wee bit off this week.  I feel a little disjointed, so to that end my thoughts are kind of a jumble.  I have ideas, but not enough to flesh them out to carry full articles on their own.

But never fear, my fellow Spwugnerians!  I can actually make this work for me.  In fact, it allows me to do the kind of articles I’ve found myself rather enjoying as of late.  So I bring you another installment of random bits that I affectionately refer to this week as “Bleeps, Sweeps, and Creeps”:

Iron Man 2

Got to see this over the weekend with DKM Marlink and a few other friends.  First, we watched the first film at my house, all the while making snide remarks about how Terrence Howard was going to be replaced later that evening when we got to the theater.  First film still holds up remarkably well.  It has to be one of my favorites, despite the weak third act.  As for the sequel?  Wow.  More of the same, and I mean that in a good way.  Downey Jr. proves once again that the talent is actually his and not from the drugs he lived in for years.  Cheadle was a great substitute for Howard in the role of James Rhodes.  Just a fun flick all over.  My only complaints were that the middle started to feel like it was plodding along (same complaint I had for The Dark Knight).  Plus, Mickey Rourke’s character kinda shows up in a blazing show-down, then takes a back seat for most of the film until the end.  Despite both flaws, the movie got back on its feet by the third act, which was a vast improvement over the first film.  Those who haven’t seen it – stay until after the end credits.  Just like Nick Fury’s spoiled surprise cameo at the end of the first Iron Man, there’s a cool little surprise at the end of this one (SPOILER ALERT: It’s Batroc the Leaper!*)

Farscape

I picked up the complete box set to the hit Sci-Fi (not SyFy) series Farscape about a month ago, and I’ve been pouring myself into it furiously.  I’m almost finished with the first season, and I’m impressed with just how well this show still holds up.  There’s definitely a reason why it was my favorite TV show during its run.  I’m falling in love with these characters all over again (I plan to ask them to marry me next week).  One of the things I like so much about the show is how much it captures the essence of what made the original Star Trek so great – a perfect mixture of straight-up action with episodes of weird crap happening to our main cast with a dash of some light sexiness.  Best feature on the DVD set so far?  Commentary by the creators and the two main cast members on an episode where they spend the entire running time explaining just why the episode is so abysmal.

Super Mario Bros. Galaxy 2

It’s almost here!  Are you ready?  Did you play the first one?  Weren’t the frikkin’ purple coin challenges hard?  How long has it been since you last played the first one?  Do you even remember whether or not you own a Wii?

Corkscrewed Over

Busch Gardens in Virginia, also known as Busch Gardens Europe, also known as The Belgians Were Bored With Just Being Known For Waffles So They Bought the Largest Brewery in America and This Park Got Thrown In For Free, also known as The Park That Had a Really Cool 3-D Ride in Ireland When Not Compared to Anything in Florida but Decided to Ditch it For a Non-3-D Borefest That Could Double as an Extended Promo for British Airways.

That’s a Reynolds Wrap!

Burt Reynolds has been cast as an ex-spy in the incredibly awesome TV series Burn Notice.  My greatest hope is that his cover name is Turd Fergeson.  And he wears a big cowboy hat.  ‘Cuz it’s funny.

Speaking of wrapping up…

The Don’s RADAR appears to be jammed.  Halle Berry.

*It’s totally not Batroc the Leaper!

Hallo again, you Spwuggy kids, you!

The three of you who read this column probably noticed the lack of updates last week. The short version is, when the temperature in the computer room is over 85°F, I don’t risk overheating the system by turning it on. Luckily, the responsible central air unit has been fixed, and we’re now back in business!

Let’s get right down to it with a newish feature I’d been wanting to implement since I first started writing for Spwug: MORE PURTY PICKCHURS. If my focus here is supposedly on webcomics, shouldn’t this column be more visual too? I kept putting it off because I had no working tablet or scanner. Finally, I had enough of waiting and started drawing in Photoshop.

After an hour of very painful hand-crabbing from gripping an ancient, unresponsive mouse, I remembered why I had put off drawing on the computer. But it was too late to stop, and you can now reap the dubious rewards of my agonizing labour! Everyone loves MS Paint-style pictures, right? So, let’s get started.

There’s a little television show called Stargate Universe. I doubt anyone here has heard of it. It’s not like geeks ever come to Spwug or anything. But if you have heard of this TV series that I understand is “science fiction”, you probably know that it’s not doing too well compared to its predecessors in the Stargate franchise. Fan and critic complaints range from too much drama, to not enough action, to “Syfy Channel sucks” (a very valid complaint), to excessive shaky-cam, to “Where the heck are all the aliens?!”

I agree with all of the above plus some. If my housemate didn’t keep recording this show on the DVR box, I wouldn’t have watched it past the first few episodes. But instead of just griping, I’ve decided to offer up some suggestions to make the show better. Get your pencils out and take notes, SGU writers. There’ll be a test on this later!

1: More alien action, please! In two seasons so far, we’ve had, what? Labrador Retriever-sized spiders in two episodes. A sandstorm that may or may not have actually been sentient. Neither one showed any sign of anything resembling intelligence compatible with that of the human characters (despite the fact that human intelligence also seems to be a lacking quality in the show, so you’d think they’d understand one another). Though I have this theory that the spiders weren’t REALLY bloodthirsty monsters trying to eat the faces of the stranded humans. They were just lonely and wanted new friends.

Then there was T-Rex’s doughier cousin for about fifteen seconds. I still don’t get why Scott wasted ammo and time shooting at the thing when he could’ve just escaped through the Stargate. Maybe the dino reminded him of his shameful Weight Watchers days.

The only intelligent aliens of note so far have been the anorexic “blues” that keep trying to steal the ship Destiny away from its human crew (who, it could be argued, stole the ship from the ascended Ancients who made it). They really haven’t done anything else of interest so far, unless you count competitive non-eating.

2: The military and civilians aboard Destiny should be allowed to decorate the ship, or at least their respective quarters. Seriously, now. Every single scene aboard the ship takes place in a setting of drab greys and the occasional blue-grey light. No wonder all anyone does is fight and/or cry. I’m surprised half the crew hasn’t committed suicide already. A little colour goes a long way, folks. Maybe some throw rugs and dried flowers. A splash of paint, a few family photos lining the halls, and you go from stranded victims to homeowners of the biggest and most fashionable estate known to mankind!

3: Dr. Nicholas Rush needs to decide which team he supports. I mean, come on, Nicky-baby! This sympathetic-villain-in-one-episode, antihero-in-the-next stuff was old last season. At least he and Colonel Young are no longer at each other’s throats every five minutes. (Kudos for the next pic go out to housemate Thoradin, whose idea of a D&D setting for Young and Rush was far more amusing than my original pic of Rush shouting about how he was going to hijack the ship’s systems to obey only him and then give everyone onboard the puppies he and his dead wife never got to have.) For some reason, this scene works best in my head in stick-figure format.

4: The final suggestion doesn’t need pictorial accompaniment. To save the Stargate franchise, Syfy should go back in time, NOT cancel Stargate SG-1, NOT cut its budget, and watch the money come rolling in. But we all know Syfy can’t do anything sensible, time travel or no. This is why The Lost Room still has never moved beyond a pilot miniseries.

Did you pay attention, Stargate Universe writers? I may have just saved your show there.

That’s it for this week. Tune in next time, when we may or may not have more hand/mouse-drawn pictures. It really depends upon how masochistic I’m feeling. You’ll just have to come see to find out!

Don’t you hate it when something you love just…stops with no resolution? Webcomic fans know this pain all too well. Your favourite webcomic is chugging along, picking up fans right and left, in the middle of an epically epic storyline, when suddenly…a month goes by with no updates. Then two months. Then six. The artist puts up a brief blog post that says, “Being swamped by work/school/family, but we’ll be back soon!”

A year later, the site is inhabited only by crickets. It sits there, unchanging, for many more years, or until the server deletes the page. The webcomic is only ever again mentioned in forum discussions where people ask, “Whatever happened to such-and-such comic?”

In the spring, a young geek’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of loss. Let’s look at a few of the fallen, and sometimes missing, friends that I would have loved to see get a proper ending. We’ll be doing this again later, by the way. I have a pretty long list of comics I used to read that stopped without ending, and they make for great nostalgia columns, eh? Plus, there are other unfortunate webcomics being abandoned all the time….

5ideways by K. Sandra Fuhr – This supernatural apocalyptic thriller started off with a strong story and intriguing characters in 2005, only to taper off with updates as Real Life continued to eat away at the artist’s free time. By 2008, the comic was officially on hiatus, and the site sat largely untouched until November 18, 2008, when a “5ideways will return soon” graphic was tossed up on the front page. “Soon” was a bit of a stretch, sadly, as there have been no updates since then. However, the extremely talented creator didn’t just up and abandon webcomics completely. If her name sounds familiar, that’s because you may already have read/be reading her other works: Boy Meets Boy (completed), Friendly Hostility (completed, and reviewed here), and Other People’s Business (ongoing, and blurbed about at the bottom of this page).

Absurd Notions/Why the Long Face, both by Kevin Pease – The first, running from 1999 to 2007, focused on the work and play misadventures of a group of young-adult friends with varied hobbies (though they all seemed to enjoy tabletop gaming) and the occasional bout of mad science. You know, what has since become a staple of webcomics. The second ran from 2003 to 2007 and focused on the creator’s musings about life in general. Both trickled to a halt around the same time (with Absurd Notions in the middle of a story). Sometime in 2008 or 2009, I asked Pease about further updates. He mentioned that he didn’t intend to drop his comics completely, but it looks like if that’s still true, we’ll be waiting a while longer for updates. A certain Spwug webcomic writer can keep hoping!

Chrono Trigger Rip-Off (at least they’re honest!) by Mark and Tom (and possibly someone else; it’s not too clear) – Sprite comics are reviled by art elitists for not using original art, but I LIKE sprite strips. LOVE them, even. I love sprite art and everything you can do with it. I love sprites being used for tributes and parodies of the games they come from. This webcomic did all that. Sprite comics are all over now, and the whole “Video game sprites cause mayhem while behaving in naughty ways that are totally out of character with how they behave in their canon” thing is done and overdone, and often done wrong. Chrono Trigger Rip-Off isn’t exactly a unique entity now, but back when I found it (likely pre-2001, but the archives only go back to January of that year), sprite comics were a fairly shiny new concept for me. I got a lot of good laughs out of this comic and enjoyed the fact that it even had a plot. And while there’s nothing unique about the strip by today’s standards, I still regret that it died out in 2004 with its story unfinished.

RPG World by Ian Jones-Quartey – You just can’t talk about unfinished business in webcomics without invoking the granddaddy of them all. RPG World went from a superstar of webcomics to a lesson in how NOT to end a story during its final battle. (The lesson is: DON’T STOP UPDATING DURING THE FINAL BATTLE.) Remember that? This webcomic started off strong in 2000. It updated regularly, the story kept getting better and better, Cherry’s butt kept getting bigger and bigger, the audience grew steadily–even friends who otherwise never read webcomics read RPG World. Every breath was bated as the story blazed into its climax. Beloved characters were killed. World-altering secrets were revealed. The final boss was confronted. The heroes geared up for the greatest fight in history. And then…nothing. In 2005, the comic ground to a halt. It tried to defibrillate itself with fillers and side stories on very sporadic occasions until June 2007. Finally, the artist admitted what the audience already knew; he had no intention of completing the story. He was too busy, he’d lost interest, didn’t like seeing his old art, etc., etc….

Recently, he put out the word that he felt bad for leaving the audience in the lurch and wanted to find a new artist to take his scripts and finish the story. I’d dearly love to see that, but since then, there’s been no word on finding a new artist. The site has been dead for so long that I don’t know if anyone who could help even saw his request for a new artist. But if you’re interested, please contact him at his site. I selfishly want to see RPG World finally completed! And if you want to know what eventually helped take Ian’s time away from the comic, watch this show called The Venture Bros. that he’s worked on for a few years. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. I think it’s about siblings who become business entrepreneurs. Also, something about butterflies. Maybe they fund a living butterfly museum together or something. I don’t know. (And if you think I’m being serious here, let’s talk bridges.)

Well, that’s enough out of me for now. I still hope to someday see these old loves of mine completed, before being shoved back in the shoeboxes of the Internet. If there’s a webcomic you enjoyed that ended prematurely, let me know. I’m seeking more stalled comics for future installments!

Greetings, Madballs!

Holy crap.

I’m sure those of you who own one of the “fat” PS3 systems (like me) became quite acquainted with the issue that occurred last Sunday on the right and straight on ‘til Monday.

In short, the non-slim PS3s all took a huge dump.

In a major snafu that most-assuredly gave Xbox 360 owners plenty of ammo in the “Which system is better?” war, a simple glitch with the internal clock ended up wreaking havoc for about twenty-four hours.  For some weird reason, the older PS3 models tried (unsuccessfully, I might add) to turn over from February 28^th to February 29^th, 2010 on Sunday night.  Of course, the system that only does everything (including ride the short bus) did not get the memo that 2010 is not, in fact, a leap year.  The side effect of that?  February still remains short-stacked against her fuller siblings (I’ve always thought of February as a woman – she sure flirts like one).

So, when that internal clock rolled over to the obviously illegal date, those “fat” PS3s immediately wet the bed, making online connection impossible.  Also affected?  Trophy data was either corrupted or non-existent and almost all PS3 games were completely non-playable.

Sony’s response was amusing, yet horrifying at the same time – “Stay off your PS3!”  Sounding like an septuagenarian who just confiscated your Frisbee (do people even play with Frisbees anymore?), the company that uses the same font for Playstation and the Spider-Man movies admitted that they were at a loss, but that the problem was bad enough to warrant treating your system like a red-headed step child (what a sad moniker – I happen to like gingers).

So, like the stalwart troopers that they are, Sony set their tech experts (who obviously have no concept of the Gregorian calendar or this wouldn’t have happened in the first place) to task to find and fix the problem.  Meanwhile, Xbox folks were laughing at our misfortunes right up to the moment when their 360s got their fifth or sixth “Red Ring of Death”, at which point they swore profusely and immediately throw themselves onto some jagged rocks.

At the same time, I was going through a steady decline as withdrawals started to kick in.  It wasn’t noticeable Sunday night, as the problem didn’t occur until after I had already signed off for the evening.  But by the time I got home from work Monday afternoon?  Well, let’s just say that I never realized just how much I use my PS3 until I found out the hard way that about two-thirds of my couch time in the living room requires the use of the third generation Playstation.  I couldn’t play any video games.  I couldn’t watch any movies.  Every time my instincts automatically queued up my arms to reach for the power button on my system I had to stop myself.  In the end, I was forced to “channel surf” – a past time that I’m pretty sure became obsolete right around the same time that Frisbees stopped being something cool that you did in parks and backyards.

Fortunately for me, the Winter Olympics were just over enough to return one of my 8 PM viewing staples to its proper time slot.  After watching the show I bought a Subway sandwich to keep on the air, “Chuck” returned the favor and kept me distracted long enough for Sony to figure out how time is actually kept track of in modern society.  By 9 PM I hesitantly fired up ol’ Bessie based on some positive rumblings I had read in one of the forums I frequent.  Sure enough, my sleek-black beauty was fine and dandy.  She was a little disoriented, still thinking that it was Sunday, February 28^th, but after a gentle correction I was able to play Fallout 3 with only my usual operational glitches and irritations.  All was now right in the world once again.

At least, until all game systems everywhere instantly self destruct while trying to reconcile December 21^st, 2012.

The Don survived the PS3 Blackout of February 29^th, 2010.  He didn’t even get a lousy T-shirt.

Greetings, Toxic Avengers!!

Valentine’s Day is coming up.  So, in honor of this day of hearts and cupids I should probably do some kind of article commemorating fatal romances in movies, dictating the top love triangles in comics, or listing the love ballads everyone says they hate but secretly love.

I’m not gonna do any of that.

Instead, I’m going to veer completely around that holiday of pinks and purples and make a beeline straight for the twenty-four hours (almost) everyone in the U.S. will be observing (theoretically) the day after: Presidents’ Day.

For my contribution to the day in which we acknowledge the efforts of our leading forefathers, I turn to a medium that – in this day and age – can almost be considered as American as baseball and apple pie.

Comic books.

Presidents have been portrayed in comic books almost as far back as the beginning.  From George Washington penning for an (extremely) early version of The Daily Planet to last year’s run of Obama appearances, every age of comics through the years has had a commander-in-chief show up at some point.  In some cases, especially during times of war, having the president appear in a comic book was a way to rally the morale of Americans, as well as to add some weight to a particular hero’s efforts.  If FDR was responsible for helping Captain America obtain the shield he’s known for today, it must be just and right.

But as much as comic creators like to herald our national leaders, they also sometimes throw our presidents into comics to serve in a satirical sense.  The result is that often our leaders are portrayed in a negative light.  The reason for this is simple: comics, like any other entertainment medium, are just as often used to deliver a message as well as entertain.  It is not uncommon for comic book writers to infuse their own views on politics, society, and pop culture into their stories.  Richard Nixon tends to be a perfect example of this, as you’ll see shortly.

So, here are a few of the more notable moments in comic book history when our nation’s presidents made an appearance, for good or for ill:

Richard Nixon: Watchmen

Might as well start with what is most likely the most well-known appearance of a U.S. president in comics history.  Unfortunately for ol’ Tricky Dick, his role in the award-winning series only expounded upon the less-than-stellar reputation he was forever stuck with after his resignation in the shadow of the Watergate scandal.  In Watchmen, Alan Moore creates an alternate 1985 where Nixon is still president, using him as a tool to portray a country that thinks it is invulnerable.  Moore’s take on how Nixon would eventually lead the country to nuclear war was his commentary against “power politics” and “Reaganism”, a statement that continues to resonate with anyone who picks up this powerful graphic novel.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Captain America

FDR appears to have been quite the busy guy in comic books… retroactively.  While not part of the original canon of these books, over the years FDR was retconned into playing a major role in a number of major comic book moments.  Not only did he play a major part in the creation of the Justice Society of America and the All-Star Squadron over at DC, in Marvel’s Captain America issue 255 he makes a cameo appearance to present Cap with his current, iconic shield.

Ronald Reagan: The Dark Knight Returns

Another negative portrayal of a U.S. leader, this time from the pen of Frank Miller.  Miller’s tale also takes place in an alternate reality.  This time, a much older Batman comes out of retirement to reclaim Gotham from being overrun with crime.  Coming out right around the same time as Watchmen, Miller wasn’t afraid to take the founder of “Reaganomics” head on (unlike Moore), portraying him as a slippery-tongued oaf who had only his own best interests at heart.

Ronald Reagan: Legends

Reagan again, only this time, the actor-turned-president was portrayed in a more sympathetic manner.  A semi-successful mini-series that told the story of a Darkseid operative turning the American public against superheroes, Legends featured a Reagan who was a little more reasonable in his decision-making.  Though he initially had to reluctantly issue an order to restrict superhero activity, The Gipper immediately rescinded that edict after the Martian Manhunter saved his life from an assassination attempt.

John F. Kennedy: Action Comics

Kennedy’s appearance in Action Comics issue 309 is distinctive for a couple of reasons – not only does play a major role in the story by teaming up with Superman, he also ends up being one of the few people the Man of Steel trusts with his secret identity.  Sadly, the timing of this issue couldn’t have been worse, though it is part of the reason why this appearance is so notable – Action Comics 309 came out a week after JFK’s assassination in Texas.

Now, before I get comments and e-mails about the bajillion examples I missed, keep in mind that I couldn’t list every single instance of one of our leaders making an appearance in a comic book.  After all of my research, these were the ones that kept popping up the most.  And, for the most part, I think they serve as worthy representatives of a comic book tradition that really shows no signs of letting up for as long as we have presidents in these United States.  And I’m sure that we’ll continue to see them portrayed both sincerely, as well as satirically.

Or we could just get Lex Luthor as president again.

The Don doesn’t get sworn in.  He gets sworn at.

Greetings, Station!

The other day I was listening to the Tenacious D song “Beezleboss (The Final Showdown)” from the soundtrack to Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, a movie which no one saw (as evidenced by the abysmal box office numbers).  Despite its lower-than-lackluster performance, I found the film to be a fun romp in the spirit of the rock band misadventure movies of old.  And being a fan of Tenacious D itself (comprised of Jack Black and Kyle Gass), it was only natural that I picked up the soundtrack to the film.  While it isn’t as good as their first album, “PoD” still contains plenty of little musical gems.  One of my favorites is the afore-mentioned “Beezleboss”.

The song retells a slightly altered version of the story regaled in the previous D song “Tribute” – JB and KG get involved in a “rock-off” with the Devil.  The stakes?  If The D wins, Satan must go back to Hell… and he has to pay Jack and Kyle’s rent.  If Beelzebub wins, he gets to take KG back to Hell with him to be his slave (and not the indentured servitude kind, either).

With the stakes in place, the rock-off commences.  Satan begins with an epic, dark mass of metal proportions.  Tenacious D reciprocate with a fairly inspirational effort, but to no avail.  The Devil wins and prepares to take Kyle back to his domain for eternity.

But wait!  At the last minute, Jables intervenes, causing the Beezleboss to break off a piece of his own horn.  With that piece in Black’s possession, he is able to command the Devil to go back to Hell once more until he is “complete again”.

So, I’m listening to this song and the thought occurs to me – most tales that chronicle Ol’ Scratch competing for a mortal’s soul seem to paint him in the same manner in order to sell the message that good always triumphs over evil.  He’s almost always painted as an honor-bound entity that can be easily beaten by someone with enough talent, hard work, and moxie.

Wait, what?  Hold on a minute.  This is the same guy who had the molten stones to challenge The Big Man.  Sure, he lost and was cast out of St. Peter’s jurisdiction, but he obviously had enough power to challenge George Burns in the first place.  You don’t make such a bold gesture unless you know for certain that you got the Mana to do so.

Plus, Lucifer is also a master of deception.  He managed to fool the first man and woman with fruit.  The guy’s got some serious ad executive powers going on if he can sell a couple of nudists on foliage sweets.  Come to think of it, this isn’t all that different from the supernatural ability Steve Jobs has to convince people to buy things like iPads.

Wait… Steve Jobs… Apple…

Mind = blown.  Where was I again?

Oh yeah… So, The Dark Lord is obviously a master manipulator.  There’s a reason why he is called The Master of Lies – the guy uses words to confuse, deceive, delude, dupe, fool, gull, hoax, hoodwink, kid, snow, take in, trick, intrigue, machinate, plot, scheme, arrange, contrive, devise, finesse, mastermind, cheat, chisel, defraud, fleece, gyp, hustle, and swindle (thanks, Merriam-Webster!).  He’s always in it for his own ends and he does whatever is necessary to get what he wants.

This means that there is no way in Hell (pun intended) anyone like Charlie Daniels or Ralph Macchio could ever hope to defeat him in a one-on-one.  It doesn’t matter how hard you try or how much spirit you poured into your efforts.  The Devil can say whatever he wants.  He could play two plunky chords off- key while you play Vivaldi backwards with your butt cheeks.  He’ll declare himself the winner no matter what.  It’s what he does.  Say goodbye to your soul, Karate Kid, because no amount of Crane Kicks or Drum Techniques or Lipton Brisk Iced Tea will save you from spending an eternity waxing on and waxing off The Prince of Evil.

Now, I’ll give “Beezleboss” some credit.  Despite the fact that the Source of All Evil adheres to a “demon code”, the song (as well as the final scene of the movie, which is where the song comes from) does finally illustrate that The D had no chance of winning a rock-off against The Dark One.  Even the “Real Ghostbusters” episode “Night Game” had a better understanding of how things should work when you compete against dark forces.  Granted, Winston was playing baseball against your more run-of-the-mill demons, but the ump still recognized that evil was free to cheat and play as dirty as it wanted (well, at least as dirty as a Saturday morning cartoon can get).  Of course, in the end good still won, despite the fact that the evil demons cheated the hell out of that game.

Don’t get me wrong.  I completely understand the intention behind the way these stories are told.  Triumph of the human spirit against the forces of evil and the belief that we are inherently good enough to conquer our own (metaphorical) inner demons is a popular trope that’s never going away.  As a society we need to be able to watch movies and television shows, listen to music, and read books and comics that remind us no matter what dark paths we go down or what nefarious entities we meet, we still have a chance and the power within us to punch old Beelz in the front-flow and scream “Adrian!” in triumph.

It’s just that every once in awhile I would like to see Mephisto with his Adamantium cup on.

The Don went down to Georgia.  Her mother didn’t approve.

By now, you may be sick of hearing about Haiti. If that’s the case, you’re pretty darn lucky right now to be well off enough that disasters don’t affect you. Haiti’s a good cause, if you’re of the donating mind. There are many good links and resources being widely advertised, and that’s why this article is not about Haiti, but about the equally-important yet lesser-known cause of putting a stop to human trafficking and slavery.

Yeah, I thought we were living in the 21st century too. Apparently some people didn’t get the memo. Here’s the situation, as written on the site I’m about to link you to:

There are currently 27 million enslaved people worldwide- more than double the number of enslaved Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children every year are sold into slavery, most of it sexual. The US Department of Justice estimates 16,000 victims of human trafficking are brought into the United States every year.

A lot of wonderful webcomics have banded together and formed the Comic Creator’s Alliance. The recent donation drive they held ended January 24th, but the organizations they were trying to benefit can still be reached (and donated to) from the main page of the Alliance’s site!

There’s really not a whole lot I can say about this. Not a whole lot to BE said, really. Slavery is a Very Bad Thing which must be stopped. End of story.

I just want to give the participants their well-deserved kudos. And if you want to see who took part in the Comic Creator’s Alliance this year, drop by the listing! (And maybe drop by their webpages and give them some love on your way back from donating some coin to save humanity.) These people are fighting the good fight, doing what must be done, and all those other clichés that boil down to just being awesome people.

The more you know, amIright?