Rectum? Damn Near Killed ‘Em!

11/30/06

A few days ago I imparted the story of Hanni and Ryan’s Disgusting Thanksgiving Weekend, and just in case I hadn’t maxed-out your tolerance for anecdotes concerning poo, I thought I’d add a little epilogue to the story.

As I mentioned Hanni’s younger sister Susanne mysteriously came down with the same fluid-spewing condition when she and her husband were on the way back from picking up a vehicle in the Lone Star State. Rumor has it the final leg of the trip, which normally takes 6 hours, took a staggering 12 hours to cross because of frequent rest stops. Although, not all of them were strictly at places designed for such stops, since there isn’t always a bathroom handy whenever your stomach has decided to attempt to escape via your windpipe. I hear tell that my fair, soon-to-be sister-in-law was forced to squat along the side of the road as liquefied fecal matter shotgunned out of her behind, presumably giving her husband’s truck a new and interesting paint job.

Susanne is not the most delicate of flowers, I should mention, and imagining the flood of expletives that must have come from her mouth (in between the vomit) is enough to make Beelzebub weep. It’s also very possible that she’s somewhat brain damaged.

Now, I like Susanne very much, and the fact that she thinks I’m funny doesn’t wear too badly on the old ego, but sometimes she does things that can only be explained as questionable decision making at best, and outright bat-shit lunacy at worst. This is the woman who once punctured her own hand, through both sides, with a kitchen knife because she was trying to remove an avocado seed and felt piercing it with a savage stabbing motion while holding it in her hand was the best method. That being said, I have a hard time imagining what I would have done differently in the following story:

On one of Susanne and her husband’s “rest stops” in their Johnny Poopleseed trek across the country, the two were lucky enough to have indoor plumbing in the form of a McDonald’s bathroom. Susanne was busy painting the interior of the bowl brown when she found herself in the direst of bathroom decisions. I think some of you are already ahead of me here. I speak, of course, of the decision whether to try to clamp off your ass and spin around, or just let fly because suddenly you have to puke. What follows is a reenactment of how I think the conversation went through the door of the bathroom between Susanne and her husband Stephen:

Susanne: “Oh fuck! I have to puke!”
Stephen: “So puke.”
Susanne: “No, there’s still poop comin’ out, you son of a bitch!”
Stephen: “So?”
Susanne: “So if I turn to puke I’ll shit all over my fucking legs!”
Stephen: (No answer because he has gone to wait in the truck.)

The sound of cursing and vomit splattering commercial tile is heard by the patrons of McDonald’s, followed by a loud blast of diarrhea.

And Susanne did what I assume 96% of you out there would do in a situation where you have just totally raped a fast-food bathroom; she bolted like a gazelle being chased by lions. Oh, sorry, she did take the time to gently cover her puke with a thin layer of 1-ply toilet paper before sprinting for the parking lot. I have yet to understand why anyone thinks it’s less trouble for the dude making $4.25/hour to clean up vomit-soaked toilet paper falling apart all over the place than just plain puke, but that seems to be the prevailing opinion.

I think I might lay off the poo-posts for awhile.

Welcome to the Vomitorium

11/27/06


“How was your Thanksgiving” is probably a question a lot of us will be asked a maddening number of times today, and to avoid anyone unnecessarily speaking to me, I’ll go ahead and tell you: Not so good. I had the pleasure of contracting viral gastroenteritis, commonly known as “the stomach flu,” despite the fact that it has absolutely nothing to do with influenza. Even so, goddamn if it isn’t a nasty little bugger.

Hanni calls my “delusion” that I am incapable of getting sick “a Jesus complex,” but really I do have a pretty stalwart immune system, and I’d never had this particular affliction before. Oh sure, I’d faked it probably hundreds of times when I was a kid (lots of noises in the bathroom, throwing water into the toilet, holding the thermometer up to the light bulb) and I shudder to think how many times I’ve called into work with the dubious and vague “uh, yeah, I’m like…totally throwing up so…not coming in…cough.” For those blessed few of you who, like me up until this demonic weekend, have never flirted with V.G., I’ll give you a few highlights from the CDC:

“The main symptoms of viral gastroenteritis are watery diarrhea and vomiting.
The affected person may also have headache, fever, and abdominal cramps
("stomach ache"). In general, the symptoms begin 1 to 2 days following infection
with a virus that causes gastroenteritis and may last for 1 to 10 days,
depending on which virus causes the illness.”

Or, as I prefer to call it, “reverse-rape via projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea for stretches of time best measured in eons.” Something has clearly gone desperately wrong inside you whenever all the liquids in your body are attempting to abandon ship at once through any orifice not nailed shut.


I awakened Saturday morning around 10 a.m. to the sounds of my fiancé blasting fecal matter into the toilet at orbital-escape velocities and cursing at me for not getting up once in the past 3 hours she had been courting the relationship between her ass and the toilet. Apparently I’d already failed the whole “in sickness or in health” bit. But to be fair, I don’t remember her calling me at all, and why became immediately apparent as I sprinted to our other bathroom and joined the cacophony of horror echoing through the apartment. At first I thought this was the first really bad hangover I’ve had in about five years, but as both Hanni and I lay in bed with stomach cramps and sore rectums the vomiting began.

This is not a hangover, I thought as I spewed into a Styrofoam cooler I’d procured for just this sort of emergency on my way back from my third or forth poo of the morning. Hanni had an empty trashcan on her side. It did not remain empty for long. Oh, did I mention that I had Rotel Queso dip at about 3 that morning when I still felt fine? Yeah. The smell of partially digested tortilla chips and cheese joined a chorus of horrifying stenches permeating our home. By the end of it the apartment would smell not unlike a monkey with a lower G.I. problem got loose in the elephant house.

We weren’t the only ones, either. Hanni’s father, uncle, grandmother, grandfather, aunt and sister would all also come down with this voodoo distress. Her sister Suzanne is the most perplexing case of all, however, as she was out of the state for 3 days already when everyone fell ill; all within hours of each other. She was in Texas with her husband and the only way I can figure this affliction would be worse is to have it at 70 mph, stopping at every disgusting rest area along the way. We at first thought the Typhoid Mary of this case was a baby who everyone delightfully got to see have diarrhea at Thanksgiving dinner, but Suzanne wasn’t there…so I dunno, phantom, syringe-wielding weasels, maybe? And if you’re thinking salmonella trust me, that turkey was cooked to bejezzus and back; it wasn’t salmonella.


Hanni’s family was in possession of some leftover anti-nausea prescription medication, but Hanni’s mother wouldn’t bring it to us ‘cause, y’know, she would have had to drive the 18 miles from Billings to Springfield and, as she put it in one of the all-out craziest fucking statements I’ve ever heard, “how will you be able to go through childbirth if you can’t handle this?”

Fortunately my mother brought us Sprite, Gatorade, ibuprofen, anti-diarrhea and anti-nausea medicine because she doesn’t hate us. Incidentally, she brought over this anti-nausea stuff called Nauzene and let me tell you, ask for this by name because it is dyno-MITE! It comes in cherry-flavored chewable tablets which actually taste good, and “reaches 99% of its neutralizing ability within 4 minutes.” Brother, that’s no brag because literally within ten seconds of swallowing the pills we both felt immeasurably better and didn’t puke again.


By Saturday night the siege seemed to be over and I was finally able to consume solid food, though Hanni is still on a soup and club soda regimen. I don’t think either of us will crap right for several weeks.

K-O’ed; Round II

11/21/06

Yesterday I touched on the fact that John K values a shiny-looking product over actual content. He seems permanently stuck in the 50’s and 60’s, touting Huckleberry Hound and other Hanna-Barbera cartoons as the pinnacle of cartooning mastery. Hey, I like The Jetsons as much as the next person (which is to say mildly) but I hardly think static, painted backgrounds are the end-all, be-all of artistry. He seems to totally miss the point that it’s the core characters and story of the show that made these programs great for their time, and I would submit that Yogi Bear would’ve been just as popular if done as stills cut out of construction paper. South Park comes to mind. But K can’t be bothered with logic when there’s so much vicious bile to spew all over creation.

Also, he’s kind of a racist. Recently he did a post on color scheme. One of his complaints was the colors in Shrek, though he doesn’t really say why or what, if anything is wrong with it. No, instead John points to Anime as an example of good color schemes and suggests that, “if you are a painter and are stuck for color ideas, just steal a pile of these!” All artists steal from each other, so that’s no big deal, but the more I read the more uncomfortable I get because John talks like your benign but racist grandfather who casually trots out the word “nigger” and offhandedly states that Jews are good at hoarding money. For example:

“Thank God our pals the Japs are keeping visual pleasure alive. Let's pay
attention!”

“Fred is coming out of a bag with tiny down syndrome eyes…”

“It's a tad bit on the cold side for me, but then the Japanese are a cold race. We westerners on the other hand are naturally emotional and warm and inventive, yet our stupid-ass corporate franchise controlled society is stopping us from what we could easily do-beat the crap out of cold cultures that are still imitating what we did from the 1930s to the 1950s!”

Wow. Just…uh, wow. Ignorant stereotyping aside, John seems to miss the irony that he had one hit show and since then has just been imitating his own work from a decade ago and is blissfully ignorant as to why nobody wants to hire him. Gee, I dunno, should we hire a young, new animator who actually uses tools invented in the past forty years, or the crotchety old lunatic has-been who screams like a deranged two-year-old anytime someone mentions The Simpsons?
Some of K’s posts seem less about artwork and more about how he hates everything that has happened in the world since 1970. Really. In one drooling, deranged post on what I guess is supposed to be form and structure in artwork, K just stream-of-consciousness rambles for about 10 paragraphs about how “hippies destroyed the western world in the late 60s” and how toy makers must secretly loathe children these days. After lurching around the page in buggy-eyed madness for awhile, K states that “these toys are just one example of the horrible thing that has happened in all walks of modern (post 1970) life. Nothing has form anymore. Music is rambling non melodic nonsense.” Shortly thereafter he seems to come out of his rage-haze and kind of tacks…something about how this relates to art onto the end of the post.

Yes, our friendly, neighborhood ass-clown seems to think that if it happened before Vietnam, it must have been good. K kind of comes off sounding like that crotchety old bastard who lives on the corner and shouts at kids to keep off his lawn and about how much a loaf of bread costs now. Nostalgia and paying homage have their place, but believing that Looney Tunes from 1957 was the last time anything of value was created is just fucking stupid.

“Mel Blanc read the dialogue with verve and rhythm and a huge variety of
contrasts and accents. (no one does this any more)”

Yep; hit the nail on the head there, K. Mel Blanc was phenomenal, no doubt about it, but I’m a little dubious with his assertion that nobody doing cartoon voice work nowadays has any skill. That’s probably the most insulting, idiotic thing I’ve heard since…well since the last thing I read on his page, actually. I forget, how many voices and accents does Hank Azaria do? Oh, right, he’s on that dreaded Simpsons show and everything involved in modern cartoons sucks, right. (Incidentally, Azaria does Chief Wiggum, Apu, Moe, Comic Book Guy, Cletus, Professor Frink and others.)

I do agree with K that Jack Kirby was an astounding comic book art visionary, but he wasn’t art perfection. K seems to totally gloss-over the fact that anatomically some of his compositions are just fucking bizarre. John K is terminally lost in nostalgia and his objectivity is completely clouded by it.

He’s not shy about extolling the godlike talent that is “K”, either. Here’s a little gem where K claims that anyone who was doing innovative cartooning in the 90’s was ripping him off:

“Of all the innovations that came from that show this is the biggest one and the
one that wasn’t carried on by anyone else. People would copy certain specific
Stimpy expressions and use them out of context in their own cartoons, but I’ve
yet to see anyone make their characters have an inner life…”

What a penis drip. I could probably spend the rest of my life happily criticizing John K’s crazy douchebagery, but I think I’ve gone on long enough. Thank you for your kind attention, ladies and gentlemen. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.




John K’s ass-blog link – Click if you dare!

K-O’ed

11/20/06

In the vein of posting things which maybe I and two other people will find interesting, today I want to talk about John Kricfalusi. John K is best known for creating the wildly popular cartoon Ren & Stimpy, then sort of falling off the map of popular culture. Thanks to Aaron, I recently became aware of John K’s blog and after many painful hours of reading it, have come to the conclusion that John is a bitter dick-hole of a man. Much like my Clonus Island and Clonus Island II posts, there’s a lot of hilarious ground to cover in making fun of this man, so once again I’m going to split this into a 2-day post. First, a little history.

It seems that after selling Ren & Stimpy to Nickelodeon in 1988 John K had battle after battle with network execs and was summarily fired in 1992. Considering the show only ran from 1991 to 1996, it’s arguable that John K was not responsible for the best work of the series, evidenced by the astoundingly terrible re-vamping of Ren & Stimpy for Spike Network which was nixed after 3 episodes. Judging from the fact that every program he’s worked on since then has been cancelled within a few episodes, I submit that John K is a very angry, marginally talented man who completely burned all his bridges because he thought he was King Shit of Turd Mountain.

John K’s blog reads like the deranged manifesto of a man who has come to blame the entire cartooning industry for his frustrated career. If it’s a popular cartoon today, you can bet that John hates it like sour-grape poison. Fiery spittle flying from his lips, John K rails against everything from how nobody can draw in today’s cartoons, to how awful the color schemes are and, I can only assume, how there are far too few matte paintings of boogers and scabs. The Simpsons and Family Guy are two examples of extremely popular shows that draw John’s sad little ire.

His blog is very well frequented, mostly by young K-disciples who identify with K because they too aren’t getting paid to animate, and seem to believe that despite any evidence to support it, they totally kick ass and it’s “the industry” standing between them and countless riches and fame. Either that, or the fact that it’s hard to get a job when you’re an emo teenager with no professional training who sits in your parent’s basement all day long farting up the furniture. But John K does make converts like gang-busters. Here’s a comment one fan left on his blog:

“I was watching The Simpsons today and all of a sudden it hit me how horrible
all those pinks and purples and yellows all mashed together really are. Bit of a
shock, really, considering how long I've been watching the show.”

Yeah, thank the gods that John K has come along to inform us why we should arbitrarily hate something we’ve been enjoying just fine for years. It’s sort of as if K is screaming at the top of his jaded little voice that “the emperor really is wearing clothes; can’t you see it?!” And, naturally, scream anything loudly and long enough and there are bound to be fanboys out there who will eventually agree with you because of the one good show you did fifteen years ago.

John K seems to be laser-focused on one tiny aspect of cartoons, and that is the artwork. While important, you could have the best artwork on the planet but unless there’s a good story and interesting characters to go with it nobody is going to watch your abortion of a program. I speak, of course, of The Ripping Friends.

John K seems to believe that there’s really no reason for art to evolve, ever. I can only assume that’s what he was thinking when he churned out the mindless vomit-fest that was The Ripping Friends. “Hey, people really liked Ren and Stimpy ten years ago. I know! Let’s recycle the same exact style and feel of the cartoon, only let’s take out all that bothersome story and character. What’s that you say? The script sucks? Nobody cares about the script! Just cram some disgusting images up there and call it done!” Either it was something like that or he was high on PCP because that cartoon s-u-u-u-u-u-ucked. In case you missed it, The Ripping Friends was 4 brain-damaged, superhero brothers who ineffectually fight crime in between doing unspeakable things such as biting pustules off their feet and being subservient to their extremely masculine mother. (Paging Dr. Freud) It was cancelled after only one season on Fox’s Saturday morning lineup, but inexplicably reared its inane head on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, one of my favorite blocks of programming. I can scarcely put into words the frustration and confusion I suffered when that asinine fever-dream of a cartoon ate up a half hour of my Adult Swim time every Sunday.

In fairness to John K, I do like the work he does for music videos, especially the Tenacious D and Weird Al Yankovic spots. I probably like them because he does just the animation and has nothing to do with the content of the video. Were that the case, I’m sure it would be a psychotic cavalcade of small, dangerous woodland creatures sodomizing a tree trunk or something. Man, John K is one deranged prig.



Tomorrow: John K gets medieval on modern cartooning AND John K’s deliciously oblivious racism.

Buttered Balls

11/16/06

With the holidays approaching like a commercial-laden freight train, I thought some of you out there might enjoy a few cooking tips and recipes. Remember, the more time your relatives spend cramming things into their rotund bellies the less time they’ll spend actually talking to you. So get out those stretchy pants*, put the doctor on speed-dial and hunker down, you madcap cooks out there, Jett Fumes is comin’ at’cha Thanksgiving-Style, you sum-bitch!

Some of my more faithful and veteran readers may remember that last year for Thanksgiving I was charged with making the turkey to take over to my mother’s house. As per usual with anything culinary, I couldn’t be satisfied with simply popping a gobbler in the hot box for a few hours and calling it a day, no, no. I had to make a Turducken, which is a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken. Read all about it here. This year I think I’m going to forgo Ultra-Mega Turkey and just go with a more traditional bird.

How Much of What Kind?

A good average for how much bird to buy is 1-1 ½ pounds per guest. Unless your guests happen to be those guys who enter professional eating contests.


Now, there are numerous different kinds of turkey. “Frozen” means that the turkey has been taken down to zero degrees F and hasn’t been brought above 26˚F. Why so cold? While water will freeze at 32˚F the fluid in meat won’t necessarily follow suit, since it contains sodium and all manner of other goodies; the more components in water the colder it has to be for it to freeze. These bad boys are rock hard, solid frozen.

“Refrigerated” turkeys are brought down to 24-26˚F, but not frozen solid. They don’t need as long for “thawing” since they’re not technically frozen. But that’s about the only difference. Both frozen or refrigerated are fine; don’t be a snob. There is a 3rd category, “Fresh”, which means the bird has never dropped below 26˚F. This one just seems like more trouble than it’s worth (bruising, contamination, escaping on foot, etc) not to mention hard to find in the first place.

Into the Briny Deep

I cannot imagine why anyone would cook a turkey without brining it. Sure, it’s one extra step, but it’s essential if you want to guarantee a flavorful, juicy bird. However, make sure you’re not using a self-basting bird for this, as it has already been injected with salt and…other stuff.

Brining can be used for any meat, but it works very well with poultry and pork which are easy to overcook but need to be brought to a significant temperature to ensure bacterial genocide. The salt in the brine creates osmosis which drags whatever flavors are in the brine into your meat, trapping them there and holding onto much more liquid whenever you finally cook that bad boy. Here’s the recipe I prefer:

1 gallon (16 cups) vegetable or chicken stock
1 gallon ice water
1 cup Kosher salt (3/4 cup regular table salt)
2 Tbsp whole black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
Several rough-chopped sprigs parsley (about 1 cup worth)

Bring all ingredients except the ice water to a boil, just to marry and release the flavors. In a 5-gallon bucket or other large container combine brine with the ice water. Add turkey. Brine in fridge or a cold area, like the garage (as close to 40˚F as you can get) for 10-12 hours, turning bird once.


You can use just plain water instead of stock for a perfectly fine and cheaper alternative, but double the amount of salt.

Fire It Up, T-Bird

Kudos to you who got The Crow, reference above, by the way. Okay, here’s the skinny on cooking that poultry prize; ignore that demonic little plastic timer. That device is set to pop at 180˚F and while that’s great for dark meat, the white meat will be something not unlike vulcanized rubber by that time. Dark meat does take longer to cook, and to compensate for that use a sheet pan with a lip (to catch drippings) and a flat roasting rack, plus a digital thermometer with a probe. The shallow pan will accelerate air over the lip of the pan and into the dark meat, cooking it faster. The thermometer probe should be inserted into the deepest part of the turkey and set for 161˚F. Yes, this will kill any salmonella bacteria lurking inside your bird.


Rub the turkey down with a polish of canola oil and stuff the cavity with a few sprigs of parsley, rosemary and sage, plus ½ of a rough-chopped onion and ½ of a lemon.

Roast the turkey at 450˚ for 30 minutes, then mold aluminum foil over the breast and return to oven, reducing the temp to 350˚. The timer should go off in about another hour and a half. Pull the bird and let it rest for at least 15 minutes before carving her up; this will give any juices floating around time to reabsorb into the meat.


The drippings from the pan can be used to make a dynamite gravy, but that’s another blog. Plus, with all the TLC you’ve put into your fowl it should be tender and juicy enough to stand on its own. Eat in good health, dear readers.



*Contrary to popular belief, the average American only gains about 1 pound over the high holidays. The trouble is most of us don’t bother to lose that pound over the next year and after mama earth makes 15-20 trips ‘round big daddy sun, that starts to add up.

Ask Dr. Jett

11/15/06


I randomly decided to start a piece where I pretend to be an expert on, well anything, really, and answer questions about which you probably never wondered and couldn’t give less of a shit. Enjoy!





Q: Dr. Jett, why do men have nipples? I mean, other than to make that suit from
Batman and Robin look utterly ridiculous, what purpose do they serve?


A: Yeah, what was that suit about? Creepy. Anyway, nobody can specifically tell you for
what purpose do men have nipples, but we do know why…kind of.


Prior to 14 weeks in the gestation process, all fetuses have both male and female parts. At this point either testosterone kicks in and you grow up to enjoy exploding things and embarrassing junior high erections, or it doesn’t and you get to derive pleasure from things like shoes and Thelma and Louise. Nipples are not tied either to estrogen or testosterone, specifically, and develop well before either hormone makes us male or female. Estrogen will cause them to become fully functional and grow lovely globes of fat around them called boobies that men inexplicably want to squeeze. Men still have remnants of their original hardware and in some cases, with enough estrogen, they can grow breasts and lactate.

More interestingly, we originally have several sets of nipples. Normally only 2 develop fully to have nerves and blood supply, but about 1 in 100 babies will be born with extra titties which usually resemble nothing more than a freckle or mole. Unless you’re that mutant broad from Total Recall.




Q: Dr. Jett, is my girlfriend/wife/hooker just frigid, or am I really that bad in bed?

A: Well, I’ve never met you, but couldn’t it be both? Actually, a lack of female orgasm is just about as common as popular culture would have us think.

Anorgasmia is a predominately female condition, though this may be skewed by the fact that men who can’t achieve orgasm might be a bit wary about letting other people know about it. Perhaps with some complex rig of tubes and warmed yogurt they could fake it, I dunno. According to MedlinPlus Medical Encyclopedia, a staggering number of women don’t orgasm the way they would like, “surveys…suggest between 33% and 50% of women experience orgasm infrequently or are dissatisfied with how often they reach orgasm.”

Good gravy! Primary orgasmic dysfunction (there’s a fun phrase to trot out at parties) where a woman has never gotten her rocks off affects 10%-15% of women. Anorgasmia can be a condition one has always had, or it can develop suddenly and, my guess is, quite frustratingly.

The causes vary widely. It’s been proposed that most often it’s a mental condition owing to performance anxiety or early predisposition to sex being unpleasant or painful. There are some physical causes, such as mood enhancing and antidepressant drugs such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Lexipro. Hmm…suicide or don’t cum…that’s a tough call.

The bad news is that unless it has a specific physical cause it’s very difficult to pin down what’s causing it and how to fix it. The good news? A large portion of women who can’t orgasm still enjoy and get pleasure out of sex, they just can’t cross the finish line.

My guess is that I’ve unknowingly dated women with Anorgasmia exclusively.



Q: Dr. Jett, what is with that little shudder I get at the end whenever I pee? Do I have cancer?

A: Yes, you have cancer. Or not. Probably not. I do know that some of you out there probably don’t know what we’re talking about, but I’ve experienced this as well so it must be totally normal, right?

This seems to be a condition limited to men, as every time I’ve ever asked a woman if she gets a little shudder or cold chill right at the end of her pee she looks at me as if I’ve just asked if I could fuck her cat. Perhaps I should stop asking strangers in line at the grocery store.

At any rate, it seems that most all of us experience this at some time, but some people take little or no notice of it. Most often it occurs when you really have to pee badly and expel a heroic volume of urine. It’s just a little involuntary shake like a cold chill. Which may in fact be what it is, because I have yet to discover in my perusal of source material any medical reference to this condition. I guess most doctors are working on “sexier” problems such as AIDS and impotence; they don’t have time for my “cold-chill pee” experiments, bunch of philistines.

I’ve only heard guesses as to why this happens, and it was the assumption that I’ve made myself: Whenever you pee you’re releasing a large amount of heat in the urine, and the body wants to hold onto that so it gives a little shudder in an effort to stop it. Not only do shudders generate heat from muscle constriction, but it squeezes veins and capillaries away from the skin to retain heat. Sounds pretty good, right?

I bet it’s embarrassing if you’re giving someone a “golden shower”, though.

That's a 4-person portable urinal in The Netherlands. Drafty.

P.S. The technical term for a “golden shower” fetish is Urolagnia. It’s very powerful word on the Scrabble board.

Window to My Soul

11/14/06

What my car may have looked like at some point in the distant past.

As many of you are no doubt aware, I’ve moved residences recently. Where I was once a scant five minutes from work (about 1.5 miles) I now have the ludicrous travel time of some twenty minutes, or about 6 miles, to sit in a cubicle and goggle at the fact I have not yet been fired.* As many of you are also no doubt aware, much to the hilarity of everyone, my car is…not the optimal method of conveyance over any significant distance. It’s a 1990 New Yorker and the odometer stopped clocking at around 250,000 miles well before I purchased her for $400 some three years ago. The engine has a tendency to get rather warm owing to the fact that the fan doesn’t work, which is only problematic in the summer when you have to run the heater to keep the vehicle from overheating. I don’t take it on the highway because she starts to shudder like an old man with a voracious chill at around 55 mph. The left turn signal doesn’t work precisely right, in that you have to toggle it manually to make it blink and the driver’s side window is permanently stuck in the down position. At least, until last weekend.

One of the many fringe benefits of dating my fiancé is that her brother-in-law is a mechanic, not to mention the fact that she forces me to do things I should do but valiantly refuse to do such as acquiring a valid driver’s license and, as was the case last weekend, drive my behemoth of a car the ungodly 12 miles out to Billings so her sister’s husband could fix my window. Nobody was more surprised than me when the vehicle made the trip (significant portions of the drive are 60 mph and one lane) without incident. We dropped the car off and her brother-in-law not only fixed the window** but also replaced a $2 bulb which repaired the left turn signal. I must confess, I hardly know what to do with myself now that I have what appears to be a legally functioning automobile. I’m as giddy as a budding school girl, I must say.

Of course, there is still the issue of the car’s body resembling something that didn’t place terribly well in a demolition derby, and the back windshield is a plastic sheet sort of rammed in there because the glass was broken out, and the interior is less than pristine due to years of rain coming through the open window and flooding the trash that is now sort of forever affixed to my floorboard, and the passenger side door only opens a crack because part of the body panel is jammed against it, and the brakes will need replaced pretty soon if I do not wish to become interpretive art on Kansas Expressway, but…what was my point again?

Oh yeah; anybody want to buy a car? With all the repairs I’ve made to it I could let it go for, oh, say $800? I’ll even throw in the flat spare tire in the trunk, no charge! No pushing please; form an orderly line to the right.



What's your car worth, suck'a?

*Office Survival Tip: If you suddenly see everyone in your department avoiding eye contact while suddenly going to a meeting to which you have not been invited, you’re getting fired, Poncho.

**That is to say, it is now permanently in the “up” position but cannot be rolled down.

Examples of Why I Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Interact with Humans

11/13/06


The following are conversations I’ve had at work with one of the minuscule number of coworkers whom I like.



She’s Not the Brain-Damaged Type of Vegetable

Coworker: So why does your girlfriend wear that pumpkin shirt almost everyday?
Me: What the hell are you talking about?
Coworker: Francine*
Me: Heh…I haven’t noticed what she’s wearing, but I assume that you get less picky with the clothes you wear the closer you get to resembling the shape of a blueberry.


*She’s talking about someone clearly not my girlfriend; name has been changed

_________________________________________________________________

It’s Much Easier Than Assaulting an Adult

Coworker: I have to disagree with your blog. I really enjoyed The Island. Now I have never seen the one that you compared it to but tell me what movie that comes out now that isn’t a remake?
Me: We’re not talking about a “remake” per se. We’re talking about an unauthorized copy of someone else’s movie. It’s not similar to the other film, it is the other film. Let me put it this way, it’s more similar to the other movie than the remake of Planet of the Apes was to the original. It’s fucking rip-off.
Coworker: Well whatever it was, I liked it!
Me: Jesus. I don’t know if I can be friends with you now; that’s almost like saying you like raping babies.

_________________________________________________________________

Office (Pocket) Pool

Me: What time are you going to the benefits meeting?
Coworker: I went this morning. Boring, very boring. Take a pillow.
Me: It’s alright, I’m wearing specially designed pants that allow access to my “special purpose” from inside the pockets; I’ll amuse myself somehow.
Coworker: Well that sounds fantastic. Make sure you sit in the corner.
Me: Yeah, I suppose the severance package for termination due to exposing oneself to your coworkers is pretty slim.

__________________________________________________________________

The Crimson Tide Comes In

Coworker: God, this chair is so gross and dirty.
Me: Yeah, it looks like you started early this month.

The Island Review

11/11/06



Alright, saddle up ladies and gentlemen because I’ve got some knowledge to drop on your asses. For those of you who’ve seen this steaming pile of nonsense you have my deepest empathy. For those who haven’t, there are spoilers ahead, but if you were thinking about watching this film in the first place you should probably just go ahead and cram the business end of a broom into your ass now; it would be less painful.

First of all, the entire premise behind the film is just dumb. Thousands of clones are created and housed as organ harvesters for the rich and famous in a secret facility. So, if I understand it correctly, we have medical science capable of creating functioning, viable human clones we somehow age to adulthood in a matter of 2-3 years, but we can’t grow a simple human liver in a dish? I dunno if you know this or not, but it’s harder than Ron Jeremy on Viagra to clone a human. In the movie they say the Department of Defense has given the facility $120 billion dollars, on top of the $5 million per clone they get from each person wishing one grown. You expect me to believe that with that kind of scratch it’s not easier to learn how to grow individual organs instead of secretly cloning entire people, feeding and housing them, hiring thousands of staff to control and maintain them, not to mention look at yourself in the mirror every morning knowing your butchering human beings because some actor drank his liver into cirrhosis? Yeah…that seems much simpler.


That’s all before we have to keep all this quiet! The public doesn’t know about it, of course, but you’re telling me not one of the people working for this organ farm has a moment of guilt and moral quandary and blows the whistle? It’s not just the hundreds of people smart enough to get through medical school that have no moral compass; there are the guards, the cooks, the janitors, the maintenance workers and out of all these thousands of people nobody every let slip about the disgusting human carnage going on in an old military bunker underground? This place has been around a minimum of seven years, because the oldest clone in the movie is said to be seven years old. For fuck’s sake, President Bush couldn’t even keep the secret wire tapping out of the public eye for, what, five years tops? And that didn’t even involve cutting someone’s heart out while they trustingly look up at you like a doe-eyed Anime character.


The movie is supposedly set in 2019, but in a scene where the director of the clone facility is talking to potential clients he mentions a law “of 2050.” (Just a side note here, in the commercial played for the clients the narrator says, “the human organism…perfect in every way except one: like any machine, it wears out.” That’s kind of like saying, “the water’s perfectly safe to drink…oh, except for the cyanide poisoning.”)

Whether it’s 2019 or 2050; either one have their problems. If it’s 2019 that means that in 13 years we went from unable to keep a cloned monkey alive for more than a few months to totally viable human copies. Not only that, but we have levitating trains, hover bikes, fingerprint scanners for door locks and fully-contained holographic video games like a la the Holodeck in Star Trek. That’s a fuck of a lot of progress for a half-generation time span! And if it’s 2050 we go back to the whole problem of “why can’t we clone individual organs again?”

The pseudo-science in this lark must have been written by a retarded chimp on heroin because it’s all over the fucking map. Ewan McGregor’s character Lincoln had his clone made because he has hepatitis and his liver is failing; we can clone and super-age people but can’t cure hepatitis? It’s about at this point you need to beat yourself in the face with a hammer just to choke down the fact that the clones are even up and walking around in the first place because “keeping them unconscious causes the organs to fail; the clones need life experience.” I guess a lung will just give up the ghost if it doesn’t feel “fulfilled” in life. AGGGHHHH!

Lincoln 6 Echo’s (Ewan) questions about his existence reach a head whenever he sneaks into the hospital above the compound where they take the clones who have “won the lottery” to harvest their organs. He reaches this supposedly most secret of secret areas through an air duct, which he later uses to ludicrously easily escape the entire compound. Hey, secret death-base, here’s a tip; maybe (A) Don’t make the air ducts large enough to drive a Mack truck through and (B) Use something more secure than a simple plastic lock to prevent your clones from skedaddling; Lincoln 6’s owner has a fingerprint pad for his house for godssakes. But I digress.

Lincoln sees several clones murdered, the most idiotic of which is Michael Clark Duncan, who wakes up in the middle of the surgery and sprints down the hall before being dragged back to have his liver vacuum-packed. What the fuck are they using for anesthetic in the future? A rubber mallet to the back of the head? DAMNIT!


Speaking of escaping the facility, Lincoln drags Jordan with him when he escapes with absolutely no question from her. She even bashes one of the guards in the face with a wrench despite the fact that, you know, the clones were “bred to be non-violent and complacent.” After the couple emerge into the outside desert, we get the joy of watching the Michael Bay-i-est chase scene ever to be burned to celluloid. Bay single handedly strangles suspension of disbelief to death as the clones

1. Survive having the cop car they’re riding in cut in half by an armored truck
2. Jump onto a passing semi truck
3. Survive the poorest-aimed machine gun fire on earth
4. Kill the pursuing hover-bike pilots
5. Steal hover bikes (which they can now drive, apparently)
6. Drive bikes through a damn building
7. Finally crash-land into a sign hanging from said building
8. Survive more badly aimed gunfire
9. The sign detaches from the building and falls 40 stories
10. And finally land safely in a construction site net


Wow. It’s later explained that Lincoln knows how to drive because he has residual memories from the dude he’s cloned after. ‘Cause genetic memories are possible now, apparently. Pseudo science! Since this is getting long, let’s do a rapid-fire list of some other idiocy.

1. They find Jordan’s benefactor’s number in the phone directory, despite the fact that she’s a famous actress and would definitely have a private number.
2. Lincoln’s number isn’t in the phone book, oddly.
3. The man-hunter sent after them is told to keep a low profile, but turns downtown L.A. into a war zone and murders cops in cold blood.
4. The “train wheels” dumped off the back of the semi in their escape wouldn’t bounce down the road like that; they’d punch through and just stick.
5. It’s hazy how old the clones are; Lincoln is told he’s three, then five, then later a clone in the same Echo series is told he’s seven.
6. Puerile ruses still work in the future, apparently, as the merc sent after Lincoln is fooled into shooting the “real” Lincoln when the two are standing next to each other. “No, he’s the clone!” “No, he is!”
7. Sex drive is suppressed in the clones. Why? Uhm…BECAUSE!
8. It’s either 2019 or 2050 and Lincoln destroys the entire complex by throwing one lever. Nice.

The product placement is just wildly out of control in this movie, but I guess that’s to be expected when Michael Bay and Stephen Spielberg are involved. Among others, Michelob Light, Aquafina, Cadillac, NBC, MSN and Puma are prominently displayed alone on screen for huge swaths of time.

















Back to hell, demon!


One final point and I’ll let us all get on with our lives. Almost nobody in this abysmal movie has any redeeming qualities whatever except for the hired mercenary who suddenly has a change of heart at the end of the movie because the plight of the clones remind him of his family’s persecution in Africa. This is the same man who gunned down innocent police men in the streets. Perfectly reasonable.



Despite containing some of my favorite actors, this is a very bad and confusing movie.

Fiveson Update

11/11/06





Earlier I posted an email that was sent to me by Robert Fiveson concerning my Clonus post. (Read first part of the story) I emailed Robert back and he courteously replied to my query. In case anyone out there is even vaguely interested in our correspondence, here’s the email:



From: Ryan Jett
Date: 11/10/2006 4:11:05 PM
To: Robert Fiveson
Subject: RE: Good Job

Ah yes, my mistake. Thanks for the correction. Just out of curiosity, how did you come across my post?

______________________________________________________


From: Robert Fiveson
Date: 11/10/2006 7:08:41 PM
To: Ryan Jett
Subject: RE: Good Job


Because we are in a Federal suit - anything in the blogosphere or elsewhere re the two films could have relevance. Google has a search that updates as items show up. You showed up.

No preamble, no threat - no lie.



ROBERT FIVESON
EXECUTIVE & PRODUCER

________________________________________________________



The “no preamble, no thread – no lie” line is in reference to me saying “I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that he only wrote one line with no preamble at all; I don't think I like the implied threat there,” in my previous post.

I can now totally add Robert Fiveson to my list of quasi-celebrities to which I’ve had personal correspondence! It’s not a long list; the only other name with this dubious honor is Bill Shatner, though that doesn’t really count since he has yet to respond to my 12-page letter in which I included a full-sized glossy print of myself rubbed down with olive oil.

Clonus Island II

11/10/06


I was hoping to post the follow-up review of The Island today, but alas I have yet to finish it, so it might be tomorrow before it's up; I know you're waiting with baited breath. But as an appetizer, I offer this curiousity.

When I checked my email today I found the following:


From: Robert Fiveson
To: wxaine@hotmail.com

9:57 pm
11/09/06

Subject: Good Job

It was over 400 times the budget.














Needless to say I was somewhat surprised that less than a day after I’d posted Clonus Island, the director of Clonus had apparently contacted me to correct my math on the budget of the two films. Either that or someone is messing with me. I really have no idea how he stumbled across this post, unless, like me, Mr. Fiveson spends ridiculous amounts of time Googling his own name.

Still, I thought that was pretty cool. Thanks for the correction, Robert.

















Fiveson on the set in 1979.

Clonus Island

11/9/06


I called in sick to work on Monday and early in the afternoon found, as is often the case, there is nothing on the television at 1 in the afternoon on a weekday. Even on expanded digital cable. So what do I do? I decide to watch something I know I’ll hate if for no other reason than it might have some redeeming qualities and in the likely event that it does not, at least I can write about how badly it sucked. The Island seemed to do just fine in this respect.

I’m splitting this post up into 2 days because, well, the movie is just so kick-you-in-the-crotch awful that I have more to cover than can be conveniently crammed into 900 words. Tomorrow we’ll examine why the film is gloriously awful in its own right, but today I wish to explain why it’s a complete rip off of another movie which was bad in its own right, but cost 200 times less to produce.

This was one of those rare movies in which I actually like all of the actors (Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson specifically) and completely loathe everything else about the film. I can only assume that Ewan and Scarlett signed on before dream-killer Michael Bay was attached to direct. At least that’s what I’m telling myself so I can still enjoy their work. Without further ado, here’s why you should not see this movie and/or why you are now dumber for having watched it.

First off let me say that by virtue of the fact I am an avid fan of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, I recognized that the premise to this film was dangerously close to a 1979 film panned on MST3K called Parts: The Clonus Horror. What I assumed was a funny coincidence soon turned to stark terror when, the longer The Island went on, the more and more closely it resembled Clonus. So much so that I cannot believe the screenwriter didn’t have this movie in mind when writing The Island. I even have a hard time believing that he had seen it years ago and unknowingly was “borrowing” from it rather than sitting there with a notepad jotting down plot points. I wasn’t the only one to see the similarity, it seems, as Robert S. Fiveson, director of the awful Clonus movie sued DreamWorks when The Island came out. As of August 25th of this year a judge ruled that there was sufficient evidence (90 incidences of similarities!) for the suit to go to trial.

Sadly, I’m not nearly the first person nor the most clever in the media to point out these similarities; Premiere Magazine wrote “the first hour of “The Island” plays like a much more expensive albeit scene-for-scene remake.” I certainly hope Fiveson gets his just rewards for being totally ripped off, but I must say I have much less sympathy since I read a Variety article where he was talking about The Island and said, “honestly, I really liked it. Because this is the way the movie should have been done.” No, Robert, no it’s not. In fact, neither movie probably should have been made in the first place. They’re both ridiculously idiotic and illogical premises and-- ah, but that’s for tomorrow!

For those of you not lucky enough to have a rolodex of bad movies inside your brain, here’s a comparison of the two films:


The Island

Premise: An isolated compound in the American desert is breeding clones to be used for replacement organs for wealthy politicians.

Plot: Two clones learn of the true nature of the facility, escape, and attempt to find their “real” counterparts to blow the whistle on the secret base and shut it down, saving all the clones.

Method of Control: They keep the clones in the dark by totally controlling their environment and maintaining the clones in a state of childlike naiveté. Clones are told that one day they can “win the lottery” and go to “the island” where they’ll live in bliss. In reality this means “cut up and harvested for organs.”

Protagonist: Lincoln 6 Echo, (Ewan McGregor) tired of being told what to do/eat/think all the time, begins to question if there isn’t more to life, especially when he finds a moth that came out of an air duct from the supposedly contaminated world above.

Love Interest: Scarlett Johansson as Jordan 2 Delta; an unquestioning clone who Lincoln pals around with (the clones don’t know about sex, for…some reason) and, oddly, seems to have no qualms about being dragged along while Lincoln escapes.


The Clonus Horror

Premise: An underground desert compound is breeding clones to be used as replacement organs for politicians and the wealthy.

Plot: Exactly the same, only it’s just one clone that learns of the plot and escapes, though he does tell a female clone that he’s smitten with about the plan.

Method: The facility…uhm…yeah, that’s pretty much exactly the same, too. OH! Except instead of winning the lottery they hope one day to “go to America.” So…that’s…that’s different, right?

Protagonist: Richard, played by Timothy Donnelly, begins questioning why things are the way they are (i.e. boring and strictly regulated) especially when he finds something he’s never seen before in the form of an empty beer can while walking the grounds and being morose. Hey, it is set in Minnesota.

Love Interest: Lena (Paulette Breen) is a rather vapid, unquestioning clone who Richard hangs out with. In a more realistic reaction, I feel, she doesn’t go with Richard when he leaves and is lobotomized at the end of the film.



Some more specific similarities include the fact that the clones wear track suits in both movies and are constantly monitored by guards with earpieces. Also, both one of Richard’s friends and Jordan 2 Delta find out their going to “America” and “The Island,” respectively, immediately following an athletic event with the main character. In Clonus it’s disturbingly shirtless wrestling, and in The Island it’s what appears to be the worst imagining of virtual boxing I’ve ever seen.

Both movies have a scene where you get to see a clone duped, drugged and operated upon, and in both instances the clone wakes up during the operation. You know, just to make sure you as an audience member gets bludgeoned over the head with the fact that they’re killing human beings. And yes, that is Darren from Bewitched.

Both Lincoln 6 Echo and Richard decide, oddly, to go find their “outside world” counterparts to help them. I’m not sure what they are thinking here, as it seems any other human on the planet would be a better choice than the one that wants you around until he needs a lung or two. Oh, and both of their counterparts predictably betray them.

I didn’t notice this, but according to the agony booth: Green liquid is injected into clones in both movies to kill them, and both are covered with a translucent tarp afterwards.

Why DreamWorks would rip-off a movie that was already bad to begin with, change almost nothing about it, and attach Michael Bay to direct it just in case there were any chance of it not totally sucking ass is beyond me. I hope they get their asses handed to them for copying and releasing a very bad, bad movie. Also, Michael Bay should suck demon cock in hell. Thank you and goodnight.



Sources:
Variety
The Agony Booth
IMDB

Hey, Hey, Hey, Goodbye

11/8/06

Breaking News: Rumsfeld Resigns!


A staggering news day, ladies and gentlemen; with Democrats already taking control of the House of Representatives and quite possibly the Senate as well, it would have been a fabulous day for liberals and yours truly even without the news that Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld is resigning. Rumsfeld, apparently seeing what all of us knew six years ago, that his close-your-eyes, plug-your-ears and substitute-your-own-imaginary-reality approach to the war in Iraq has failed utterly and miserably, will be replaced by former CIA director and current president of Texas A&M Robert Gates. (pictured at right)

Rumsfeld has been the whipping boy for Democrats, Republicans and senior military officials alike when it came to the debacle that is the Iraqi war. Calls for his resignation have been circulating for years now and I guess we all just wished hard enough that the fairies made it true! That, or the fact that yesterday Americans overwhelmingly cast a vote for administration and policy change by sweeping the Democrats into power.

Rush Limbaugh has been heard to say that, had Rumsfeld resigned a week ago, it could have saved some Republicans their seats in Congress. There is some truth to that, probably, but, as was pointed out by my devilishly gleeful fiancé, had the Dems not swept the election, Rumsfeld never would have resigned. So you have a little catch-22 there. But the important news is that the man that has been saying “everything’s cool, dude,” for years now concerning the increasing failure and bloodbath of Iraq, is gone.

I think I have an erection.

Blue Again

11/8/06

I…I’m shocked. I woke up this morning stalwartly prepared to be disappointed only to discover that yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus! These are the most current election results as of this morning. Let’s go to the Jett Election Score Board, shall we?

Missouri


U.S. Senator (3678 of 3746 Precincts Reporting) Votes % of Votes
Claire McCaskill (DEM) ………………… ……........................ 1,028,375 49.5%
Jim Talent (REP)……………………………………………….................986,007 47.4%
Frank Gilmour (LIB)…………………………………………….................46,977 2.3%
Lydia Lewis (PRG)……………………………………………................…17,994 0.9%

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen; Missouri is a blue state again! Granted, Claire McCaskill is at best a very conservative Democrat (no queers marrying, in other words) but I’ll take what I can get. This one was really the lesser of two evils.

Constitutional Amendment 2 (3570 of 3734 Precincts Reporting)
YES NO
Stem Cell Initiative 50.7% 49.3%

It seems that Missouri will indeed allow stem cell research. I’m dumbfounded. And very, very happy. Moving on!

Constitutional Amendment 3 (3570 of 3734)

YES NO
Tobacco Tax 48.3% 51.7%

The Tobacco Tax would have amounted to 4¢ per cigarette plus 20% of the initial price of the pack, which essentially would have almost doubled the price altogether. But it looks like it’s going to fail, gods be praised. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

Constitutional Amendment 6 (3570 of 3734)
YES NO
Tax Exemption for Veterans Organizations 61.4% 38.6%

Admittedly, this one is kinda boring, but we will now have a tax exemption for personal property of non-profit or veterans organizations. Potential for tax dodging, sure, but it seemed to me that the good outweighed the potential evil. My vote wins again!



Constitutional Amendment 7 (3570 of 3734)
YES NO
Elected Officials Compensation Pensions 84.4% 15.6%

This one was pretty sweet; it was to vote whether or not an elected official or government employee would have their pension forfeited if convicted of a felony while in office, or removed or impeached while serving. Awesome.

Proposition B (3570 of 3734)

YES NO

Raising Minimum Wage 75.6% 24.4%

Hooray! We likes us some livin' above the Poverty Line!

For the most up-to-date results here’s the link for the State of Missouri.




Nationwide

I was elated last night while watching the Daily Show midterm election coverage when I learned that the Democrats had retaken the House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years of that GOP machine. Dems picked up at least 27 seats in the House and it’s still too close to call on the Senate, but it’s entirely possible they could take the entire Congress. Democrats took 4 seats in the Senate and need 2 more to take a majority. Right now it all hangs on Virginia and Montana, which are still returning very close race results. I…I’m just so proud.

All in all this election was better than I expected and more than I had hoped. Having my dreams dashed in the past two Presidential elections had made me a bit cynical and gun-shy as far as hope springing eternal, but there is light at the end of that demonic Dubya tunnel! “Stay the course” my ass!

Oh…right…he still has 2 more years. Well, see you at the apocalypse anyway, then.




For the most recent election results:
Google News
Yahoo News
NPR

Robbed Blind

11/3/06

If you don’t read either comics or comic book blogs—and let’s face it, those of you pretending to be adults unlike me probably do neither—than you’ve doubtless never heard the name Rob Liefeld. Those dear readers out there who are aware of him are laughing even as we speak, despite the fact I haven’t written a single joke yet. We’ll get to why Rob Liefeld is the most comic-blogged name in a moment; first, a little back-story!

During the 90’s comics underwent a huge upswing in popularity. Well, more accurately I should say they experienced a huge upswing in sales. That’s an important distinction because it became very fashionable to purchase multiple copies of the same issue in the vain hope that it will be worth a small mansion someday…hopefully next week. Yes, the internet wasn’t the only sector to have a 90’s bubble, as publishing companies pumped out new titles with six different covers for the same book at a pace that would make Gutenberg blush. (Johannes, not Steve.) The Internet Bubble burst when people started realizing that business couldn’t support hundreds of different dotcom startups per month, especially when most of them didn’t seem to actually do anything more than open with a ridiculously inflated stock price. Similarly, people eventually realized that the reason Action Comics #1 is worth $190,000 (I’m not kidding) is that it’s the first appearance of a popular, beloved character and there are very few of them left in existence. Armies of adolescents wept upon waking up in 1997 and realizing the 12 copies of the new Wonderman #1 was worth…well about 95¢ less than they paid for it in 1992 because Marvel printed 8 million of them. Oh, and the character/story/art sucked out loud. But that’s just potatoes; here comes the gravy:

With so many titles being produced a lot of things there were really rather shitty were making it to the shelves. Rob Liefeld’s work doesn’t just fall into this category; it plummets there. Liefeld’s work is a little bit like spotting a hot chick from across the bar; if you’re drunk and it’s dark and she’s 30 feet away, you might be able to overlook the fact that she has vomit down her dress, one lazy eye, and a penis. Liefeld’s work looks like comic book art at a glance, but I can assure you it’s nothing of the sort. Well, here, just look:

Just what in the bloody blue-fuck is that?! I can’t even begin to guess what thoughts went swirling through the mind of the colorist who was handed this monstrosity to enhance. Probably something like “dude…this fucking suuuuuuuuuucks!” It’s not just the fact that Liefeld has the anatomical knowledge of a Brazil nut, either. He also seems to believe human heads can be represented as anywhere from tangerine to basketball-sized.

Liefeld also pulls a trick I used to employ, and near as I can tell he does it for the same reason. I used to draw the worst legs and feet on the planet, and so when I got down to the bottom of a drawing I’d conveniently sketch in a rock or a plant or an inexplicable explosion to ensure I didn’t have to explain why my character appeared to have garden spades attached to their ankles.

Another trick just about any artist uses is copying the work of better artists. Only most of them get this out of their system while still learning how to draw, say, around junior high. Liefeld never saw the need to actually create his own drawings. Liefeld had a mercifully short run on Wolverine, and there’s an issue starring Ghost Rider that I hope I can find to show you what I’m talking about, because Liefeld copied a cover drawing of Wolverine from X-men #1 by Jim Lee for one of the panels inside the book. Until I find it, though, here are some examples from Clamnuts, a less lazy blogger with pictures.

In 1992 Liefeld and several other artists (two of my favorites, Marc Silvestri & Jim Lee included) split off from Marvel and founded Image Comics, which might have the worst website ever. Personally I didn’t much care for most of their books, as the bulk of their characters seemed to be rehashed Marvel rip-offs. And whenever you think poor rip offs, think Liefeld.

Remind you of anyone? Leaving aside the fact that Agent America seems to have hundreds of muscles which don't exist in the human body, of course.

All that being said, clearly Liefeld has talent. It’s just a kind of wild, unfocused and inconsistent talent which is below par with what should be allowed in print. The thing that’s great about Liefeld, though, is that he gives me hope. If he can get published, surely I can get some illustration work once I start producing drawings I feel are “good enough.” Being unpaid for my work and criticizing Liefeld is sort of the illustrator’s equivalent of yelling at the TV because the quarterback is “so f-ing stupid!” while you shovel bleu cheese-drenched hot wings into your maw and sweat whenever you get up to pee. But looking at bad comic book art is like reading bad fiction for me; it makes me think “well I can do better than that.”