Why does Guilty Pleasures take Marvel 12 issues to adapt but Pride and Prejudice only takes five?

Also, why do all of the Bennet sisters have that Greg Land-esque "please jizz in my mouth" face? Hell, Mrs. Bennet kind of has it. Ew.

Also, that shouldn't bother me more than the horrible, condescending cover but it does.

Click here for background.

Man, is it just me or is Firestar's costume looking really boring lately?

I'm feelin' the rage building around this, although I'm not feeling it for myself. One because my heart has hardened into a black rock of cynicism, but two because I feel like this has been something that's been passed around the Marvel Comics HQ for awhile and it's finally come to fruition just because it's BEEN THERE for awhile. I remember papajoemambo suggesting to me that this was an idea they had, although I thought it turned into Alias. I'm guessing they've just gotten stuck on it and want to see it done through hell or highwater, just because it's there. That's probably why the Watchmen movie got made.

But why now, really? I mean, Sex and the City has been off the air for five years now. Combining it with superheroes has already been done and didn't their last sexy girls book with the Black Cat and an underused African-American heroine not do so well and was not helped because Marvel kind of showed it didn't really give a shit what the female audience thought.

I don't know. I kind of say what I've said when I read the horrible Mary Jane novel and the I-remain-unimpressed by it Mary Jane/Mary Jane: Homecoming/Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane series: if I wanted to read romance I would read romance. I mean, I don't think I would love Sex and the City but I figure they know what they're doing.

(No, LibraryThing, I WILL NOT LOVE THIS BOOK. You suck.)

First off, I want to start my review with the observation that this story is ten years old. Like, it's so old that the dystopian future has multiple panels with the WTC. ... I KNOW! I feel old, too. :-( This is especially since it makes me realize I've been meaning to read it for 10 years. A WHOLE DECADE and it was NOT worth the wait. If you've read the book/series, a lot of what I say in the book will be old news, because this review is a lot of it's new-to-me bitching about it. Just warning you.

( MOAR! )

I don't seem to do anything useful by myself. Of course, I've only been up for an hour or so. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. I don't get it, though. I got sleepy REALLY SUDDENLY at 11 p.m. or so and then only slept for like, six and a half hours.

Yesterday was okay. I made a Rorschach mask and bought a hat, plus a sunhat for Israel. Now that I have this stuff I feel like I'm mostly ready, even if I haven't started packing and am afraid I'm going to forget something really important, like my passport. I also did ironing for my clothes that I used to wear to work. We'll see what happens.

I'm reading a lot. Short stories from The Best American Short Stories 1998 (So far, Garrison Keillor has much better taste than Sue Miller -- well, the latter picked Alice Munro, so there you go.). More of Dickens, which has kind of turned around now that he had his affair. And Infodump: The Graphic Novel ... er, Earth X. (BTW, if the latter alternate reality takes place during a food shortage, why are so many of the ex-superheroes fat?)

By the way, since I'm so behind, here are some bare-bones thoughts on what I've read and watched this year.

( Reviews )

I'm going to talk a bit about Anita Blake.

( Some Spoilers, but mostly me musing on why Larry looks like Rorschach and Irving looks like tall Bob from 'Office Space' )

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

*Mr. A
Mr. A's just fascinated me ever since I've heard of him, which I think was when papajoemambo put up some splash pages, and the more I hear the more I love in an inappropriately ironic way. His status as one of the inspirations for Rorschach -- my favorite character in Watchmen -- is a part of it. That he's basically the Gary Stu mouthpiece for the second, lesser-known half of the team that created Spider-Man is another. It also helps that his stories are fucking insane but also TOTALLY SINCERE and convinced they are THE BEST THING EVER. I mean, that's actually kind of cute. The fact that Ditko's id unleashed is still quality enough that creators who think Objectivism is a big fat turd nevertheless draw inspiration from his work I think is testament to how oddly likable these stories are.

*Pink! (The color, not the...uh, singer)
I actually kind of like the singer. Not the early stuff, but "So What?" is fun to blare in the car. And I picked my color layouts for the purple, but since I was asked ... I actually quite like pink. I went through a phase where I was all, "Eww! Pink is for wussy girls, I'm not a wussy girl" but I grew out of it. I have a couple of pink shirts and I think I look good in the darker shades. Pink can be fun to kind of own in a semi-ironic way, too. This is why I have a pink Nintendo DS, a big pink carrying case, and a pink PURSE for my DS. Laugh all you want, the guy who sold me the last one was totally jealous. (This is true.)

*Lum!
Urusei Yatsura isn't something I watch all the time. (Mostly because it is EXPENSIVE and semi-out of print.) But I've always loved Lum. She's sexy, she's funny, she's mostly nice but she can kick your ass WITH FUCKING ELECTRIC SHOCKS. She's awesome! I like her so much I've showed UY stuff to my cousins who were probably not old enough for it and they loved her too. Yeah, she can play into the bimbo/sexy alien girl stereotype sometimes, but I think she subverts enough that you can just watch in joy. As my cousin (who later named one of her stuffed animals after Lum, DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THAR?) said, "She's pretty and she flies and she has a neat outfit and she has powers." She does indeed.

*Writing
I like to write a lot. It was part of the profession I had up until ... oh, two days ago. (Shit.) I remember wanting to be a writer from when I was REALLY LITTLE because I liked stories so much, even if I never had the discipline to finish my stories until I started writing fanfic (which is kind of sad). While I've had my blocked periods, I can't imagine a life without writing, and when I can write, especially for fun, I feel a lot better in body and mind overall. It's just ... yeah. I don't want to say it's MY LIFE, because that is silly and too reductive and not what makes you a good writer anyway, but it's a major part of my life.

*Comic book meta
... Can I be meta about comic book meta? I feel like my brain might explode ... I don't know. I remember when I really got into the Internet fandom I always really liked reading people expounding on Spider-Man or whatever, even if it was goofy stuff like which Green Goblin was their favorite or something like that, so I guess I'm just sort of doing the same thing and adding my own spin. I spent a lot of time writing for Sequential Tart at one point, too. I don't know if I did a great job there, but it exposed me to a lot. Anyway, it's fun to expound on these things and figure out why characters do what they do and what creators might have been thinking. Kind of like fanfic, only more straightforward and the fetishes aren't as sexy.

I tried watching Shock Treatment tonight, expecting either an amusing trifle or the wost movie ever made. Around the thirty minute mark I got the sudden urge to get up and clean things. I guess that's the best indicator of its quality, anyway. Especially since I haven't figured out WHY I'm not into it, despite the fact that I'm not expecting Rocky Horror by any means.

Oh well.

Okay, anyway, I also remembered this was something I was willing to do ... [steps up to the microphone, taps it] test test ...

HELLO INTERNETS!

WHY DOES TAROT SUPPOSEDLY SUCK AND EMPOWERED SUPPOSEDLY ROCK?

I mean, from my vantage-point, both comics feature goofy villains, ridiculous side characters, a heroine who often gets tied up/unclothed and aspirations to higher feminist ideals despite their pornographic nature.

Now, from the brief bits I've seen of both series, I'll totally admit that Empowered has made me giggle. (Specifically this part.) Whereas Tarot just makes me stare in open-mouthed horror.

I also have a suspicion I may like Empowered because at one point I willingly watched all I could find of Cutey Honey, even Re: Cutie Honey i.e. the animated adaption of the live action movie, i.e. the cartoon wherein the bad guy powers her evil machine with THE POWER OF 1,000 WOMEN'S ORGASMS!

Look, take away my feminist card if you must (NO! IT'S MINE!) but I have John Waters' sensibility when it comes to sex humor. Non sequiturs are my best friends.

Plus, nobody who draws bishonen Peter Parker can be bad, right?

But I want to hear your answers. If anyone will answer. HELP ME, INTERNET!

Back when I did my review of An American Carol I determined that there's a difference between a fan and a cheerleader and most ideological art has the latter instead of the former. When I read the comments on An American Carol that said shit like, "I loved it! I'm going back with 12 of my friends!" and nothing more, I determined that these people CANNOT BE FANS because people who are fanatic about something do not bring 12 of their friends to see something, they talk about it so much -- quoting the lines repeatedly, at the very least -- that their friends are sick of hearing about it before they're even dragged in the theater/to the bookstore/wherever. Fans are why the worst thing you can do is see Monty Python and the Holy Grail with someone who can recite all the lines.

That sort of shit is about fun. Cheerleaders are about propping up the philosophy of a certain ideology professed by the work. They are not that interested in fun unless that fun involves beating the other team. I don't know that much about Objectivism beyond what I've picked up through cultural osmosis and some anti-Objectivist essays. (I own a copy of Atlas Shrugged that's remained unread for more than a year.) But from everything I've heard they're not big on this "fun" thing. Usually they scoff at anyone who likes Ayn Rand's novels for anything OTHER than a way bring the philosophy to the masses. Or at least that's what the Hank/Francisco slashers tell me, anyway.

That is not me. I am about fun. And I come to introduce you to the Funnest Objectivist Thing Ever: Mr. A.

( The Epic Battle Between the Jarheads and the Nimrods Starts HERE! )

Man, this sucks.

Although it doesn't really affect my life because I don't read the newspaper comics. Hell, I haven't read the new Marvel comics for ... awhile now. Mostly because my job was keeping me preoccupied so I had to drop comics even before One More Day/Brand New Day came out. So I didn't really contribute to the "vote with my wallet" initiative. I suspect they don't care about money anyway, given how adamant Quesada was about this.

My boyfriend has been whining to me about my Marvel apathy. (I taught him the term "harshing my squee" and now he says that to me all the time.) But at least that's pretty much all it is: apathy. I don't want to play the "you have a responsibility to buy the books you like" game anymore. And I'm not going to get excited about these big crossover events only to have them come out late and be annoying. I can still squee, even if most of that squee has been taken up getting excited over a comic that came out when I was 1-years-old. I just, don't feel it for Marvel much anymore, I'm afraid.

And while I'm complaining, I just want to say this: Peter Parker should have never married Gwen Stacy. Actually, scratch that. GWEN STACY should have never married Peter Parker because she threw herself at him and he was a total prick to her. Right before her death he thought she was cheating on him with Flash. That relationship sucked, sucked, SUUUUU-CKED.

Like a lot of geeks, I have an mp3/wav file of "Mahna Mahna". At the end of the mp3 file, Statler and Waldorf have a conversation that goes something like this.

W: "That was wonderful!"
S: "Bravo!"
W: "I loved that!"
S: "It was great."
W: "Well, it was pretty good."
S: "Well, it wasn't bad."
W: "Well, there were parts of it that weren't very good, though."
S: "It could have been a lot better."
W: "I didn't really like it."
S: "It was pretty terrible."
W: "It was bad."
S: "It was awful."
W: "Ah, it was terrible!
S: "Get them away!"
W: "Boo!"
S: "Boo!"

My mindset reading Black Hole, the 10-year horror comic project of artist/writer Charles Burns, was a little like that. Well, I don't think I ever got to the "Boo!" point, maybe just to the "It could have been a lot better" point, but the slow eroding of good feeling serves my purpose pretty well.

( Manha Manha - SPOILERS INSIDE )