dick giordano, r.i.p.

(you last saw dick giordano's artwork on this blog in my november post "a great escape")

in these days where just about every press release touts everyone as an industry great, dick giordano was truly a comic book legend. while primarily known as one of the great all-time inkers (often pairing with neal adams, another legend), giordano also spent 10 years as DC comics's vice president/executive editor, a position he held from 1983-1993, arguably the most critical time frame in DC comics history. he oversaw "crisis on infinite earths" and the rebooting of the entire universe and its iconic characters, one of the more ambitious moves ever taken by a major comic book company. he was also there when DC launched their vertigo line of mature readers comics, possibly the most influential move DC comics has made in the modern age.

back in elementary school, when i was just getting hooked on comics, dick giordano, with the aid of the abovementioned neal adams and irv novick, was helping usher in the more sophisticated artwork of dc's modern age, which also moved batman out of the batcave and shipped robin off to college, as explained by bruce wayne in 1969's "one bullet too many":

from the following month's "the secret of the waiting graves":

(stories by frank robbins and denny o'neill, art by dick giordano, irv novick and neal adams)

i am the tea party people

her voice is just the icing on the cake:

doocy:	... and joining us right now is former "saturday night live" star victoria jackson joining us from los angeles. good morning to you!
jackson:	[waves] good morning!
doocy:	so, are you ready to , ah, join the tea party people?
jackson:	i am the tea party people! we're, um, beginners at this political activism and it's all new to us and it's kind of cute 'cause we're shy, we hold up our signs like this, you know, despite what they say about us, i have never done anything like this, but we have to because the president is a communist!
doocy:	now, he is not a communist. but you just pointed out that you hold up signs and stuff like that and people make fun of you. what do you think about how some on the other political side have tried to diminish or, you know, or marginalize the tea party people?
jackson:	well, i guess they're afraid of, uh, the power of our passion and our numbers and, you know, you might not say communist, but i watch glenn beck and he's taught me well. progressive is the new word for communist, but it's the same goal as government control of everything and it's very obvious that obama is trying to do that and, um, i don't want to brag, but i sort of called it before he was elected and when i was on o'reilly and i said he was a communist and, uh, i got a lot of hate mail, but i got some that said i was a "prescient", which means a "prophet."
doocy:	yeah ... and i'm sure that was his "word of the day" one day. ah, victoria, what is going on in the country politically that you feel so, uh, motivated to go out to searchlight, nevada this weekend?
jackson:	well, for one thing, i am thrilled to get to meet sarah palin, 'cause she's my hero, and, y'know, we need, um, people who are not politicians in political office, people who don't want power, people who are honest, people who don't take bribes, people who don't lie and cheat and are tax-cheats — our government is all evil right now and someone's gotta do something! and i just can't sit at home and watch tv and bite my nails, so i think that's ...
doocy:	yeah ...
jackson:	... how all the other people feel. we gotta get out there and do something!
doocy:	i have heard a lot of that, where people say "i've never been political but now is the time to act." all right — ah, victoria jackson, who's gonna be in searchlight, nevada along with governor sarah palin this weekend. thank you very much for joining us live.
jackson:	[waves enthusiastically]
doocy:	[after an awkward, silent beat, waves back]

ow.

velkomm to der ussa

well, i guess we finally found out, didn't we?

time for some whine and cheese from the usual suspects:

march 21 10:45 pm eastern time: RIP USA.

USSA

the shift from personal liberty to federal tyranny is a done deal.

c-span would not take callers!! we have been silenced!!!

i feel sick. the fact that c-span was not taking callers was telling.

WOLVERINES!

but if obama and his liberal cronies get their way america will be changed forever

what planet r u living on.

they just got their way! no if’s about it.

&*@$, @#&%, %$#@*&^ **** **** ****!!!@!!

nazi piglosi and her comrades heading off to celebrate.

from now on i work as little as possible, and skirt all taxes possible, lets bring this f*cker down.

yes, i now will do only what is "according to my ability" and absolutely no more. welcome to the USSA

we the people are reaping what we have sown in our uninvolvement in this republic. these fascist federal oligarchs (read democrap party) could not rise to such power if we the people had been paying the requisite attention to our sovereign responsibilities.

there were 34 democrats who stood with the republicans in standing up for freedom in america. we should know who they are. because all republicans and democrats who voted for our freedom, should be recognized as patriots.

none of those democrats voted against the bill, they were allowed to vote no to cover their arses. they are ALL scum! eff them all!

i want to say this before my daily prayers. we are totally fu%%ked. it is time for patriots to take charge. pay no insurance premiums (ITS FREE!!!). pay no taxes (40% don’t —why do you??? idiot!!) (file an honest return because you can’t go to jail if you just file a return. check it out!!) .
we need civil disobedience like gandhi and certainly michael king (alias martin luther— what a joke)never dreamed. go to bed . pray and then let’s raise HELL!

i fully advocate the use of civil violence at this point.

that won’t happen, but I do have a baseball bat, various metallic projectile launchers, a feather pillow and a jar of honey.

damn them all to hell!

and damn to hell every freaking idiot who put these tyrants in power!!!

i would assume that that would include every conservative that sat on the couch election day to ‘teach’ the republicans a lesson! i guess you did that all right....and took the country down with your attitude. thanks, thanks so much. my question to all of you...HAVE YOU LEARNED YOUR LESSON??????? election have consequences!

the dems must be frog hopped out of their offices and put on trial for TREASON. no excuses, anyone who voted for this must be tossed out and denied any pensions and put in prison.

in ictu oculi, sic transit gloria mundi...

but don't worry if you've heard this sturm und drang all before — this time they really mean it!

quote of the night

matt yglesias, on north korea's execution of a "top financial official":

it seems like it should be possible to find a middle ground between this sort of thing and the U.S.-style “everyone cashes in, nobody important is ever at fault for anything” approach.

the gauntlet is thrown

steny is all talk, no action. they would have passed it today if they could. stalling for time. pure 100% propaganda.

we'll know tomorrow who's all talk, won't we?

180 days ago

... but who's counting?

made to slaughter

this 1953 tale from the crypt asks: "what could be worse than dying a hundred horrible deaths?"

(story by bill gaines and al feldstein, art by joe orlando)

'come and look at him!' the brothers cried, and they each took one of alice's hands, and led her up to where the king was sleeping.

'isn't he a lovely sight?' said tweedledum.

alice couldn't say honestly that he was. he had a tall red night-cap on, with a tassel, and he was lying crumpled up into a sort of untidy heap, and snoring loud — 'fit to snore his head off!' as tweedledum remarked.

'i'm afraid he'll catch cold with lying on the damp grass,' said alice, who was a very thoughtful little girl.

'he's dreaming now,' said tweedledee: 'and what do you think he's dreaming about?'

alice said 'nobody can guess that.'

'why, about you!' tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly. 'and if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be?'

'where i am now, of course,' said alice.

'not you!' tweedledee retorted contemptuously. 'you'd be nowhere. why, you're only a sort of thing in his dream!'

'if that there king was to wake,' added tweedledum, 'you'd go out — bang! — just like a candle!'

— lewis carroll, "through the looking glass"

good answer

joe scarborough and friends do their vapid best to get tom hanks, "the nicest guy in hollywood", to pile on obama:

joe:	... and [james carville] said: "what the obama people don't understand is washington always wins."
mika:	[nodding in agreement.]
joe:	is this one more depressing example — for you 1 — of how, with the obama administration, washington always wins?
tom:	we, ah, we're in the first year of what is going to be — what is going to be one the most difficult administrations in our history. we're at a place where world history is traveling around us. we're going to be fine and i think we've elected a wise, calm man who wants to get things done. common sense will out.
mika:	i don't disagree with that. i do think there may be people out there who would say, "well it's easy for you to say, easy for us to say", but there are a lot of people out there with no job and they have been looking for months and months and months and they may feel like this president is not completely connected with their plight.
tom:	well, maybe they, maybe they can elect [invent?] a time machine and they can go back and vote for john mccain, in which case i'm sure everything would just be hunky-dory right now.
mika:	ahh ... good answer! okay ...

---

1. ... because grown-up talk like that would naturally depress someone like you, tom, a naive liberal hollywood fantasist, and not someone like me, joe scarborough, a smug and savvy washington insider who, like a real democrat like my buddy carville, knows who's really running things ...

wiped out

more from canada's chester brown, who would later give us the award-winning "ed the happy clown":

(story and art by chester brown, 1980)

gun control

the booman @ the booman tribune:

my position on gun control is that it is best regulated at the local level, even though it is impossible to establish meaningful gun control if neighboring communities are completely permissive. part of it is that i care about other issues much more and do not want to lose political power over the issue. but, having lived in dangerous urban neighborhoods, i do not support laws that would deny me the right to provide myself protection that the police are clearly incapable of providing. i think the second amendment is an anachronism, but the proper way to deal with an anachronism is to amend the constitution, not ignore it. but, the second amendment is a federal right. it says that congress can't restrict your right to bear arms. it doesn't say squat about the state or local governments. that distinction is about to change. conservatives on the supreme court are going to strike down nearly every local or state gun control law in the country. this is the price of letting bush get reelected. i dropped everything in my life and worked my heart out (for ACORN) to prevent bush from being reelected. this is why.

leaving some states at the mercy of more permissive neighbors is exactly what puts me in the opposite camp, in support of consistent regulations from the federal level.

because of the second amendment, and because i think the problem is massive oversupply, i think the focus of gun control regulations should be on manufacturing, distribution and destruction instead of focusing on ownership.

you can't reduce an excess supply by reducing the number of legitimate buyers; you actually acerbate the problem. and while you have a constitutional right to own a gun, you have no such right to sell one.