There's only two types of guys out there. Ones that can hang with me and ones that are scared. Welcome to Your Time Is Now Mine #4.
Once again, it's my privilege and honor to reach out a hand of kindness
to you, the infidels, through Newsarama.com in the hopes that we can
all come to some various understandings. I think that by the end of
this column you'll find that I am, if nothing else, a Unifier. You
should know that I am now in compliance with Matt Brady, who is the
Wizard Behind the Curtain of this website, since he suggested that I
write less about "poop", especially in the same column as a mention of
an Egg McMuffin. Although I didn't make the connection between the two ITEMS
then, (Matt actually literally covered one with the other in his
helpful guidelines for future topics) I do now, and I am not one to
make waves. It would be tyrannical of me to suggest that when I said
I'd write about "whatever crap I wanted", they should have taken me
literally.
Editor’s note – the actual comment was that, since the audience
seems to respond more the crazier he gets, that does not necessarily
give Ethan carte blanche to talk about poop McMuffins, but his
explanation was close enough…but as always, if there is demand, we can
do nothing less than cater to our audience’s demands, and there may be a special column focusing on poop McMuffins in the future.I can't believe I wrote "poop McMuffins" twice. Back to Ethan.
Weightier topics ahead. Hold on to your hearts.
ITEM: Last week's column contained some unkind words about
filthy hippies and stoners, and a fellow named "Masterdebator" was
quick to call me a "douche" and remind me that a good percentage of my
readership are likely filthy hippies and stoners. To this, I can do
nothing but gasp. I didn't take that into consideration at all when I
wrote at length about deceptive fast food dollar menu commercials. It
was insensitive, but I am a guy who believes that Easy Rider and Jaws
both ended on exactly the same note, and I recognize my prejudice. If
you are a stoner, or would describe yourself as a "filthy hippie", my
most sincere apologies. I will donate $1.07 to whatever charity deemed
best suited.
ITEM: I watched some old Sesame Street Christmas special with my
9 year old son, and was alarmed at how filthy the street they all lived
on was. I remember, vaguely, the opening sequence and the theme song,
where children without visible guardians or clean clothing rolled about
in the dirt and drank from old bottles. But I had forgotten just how
unkempt Sesame Street actually was. There was, apparently, a garbage
strike so lasting and severe that a horrible monster could set up
permanent residence in a can on a huge pile of trash and crates. Mr.
Hooper's store was a miserable, grimy establishment full of soot-coated
objects of no retail value and non-functioning soda fountains and beer
taps. "David" ran the only other business on the block, which was a
repair shop that "fixed" ancient manual typewriters. I mean, I'm glad
they're all learning the alphabet, but how do they earn a living? It's
like a tiny Soviet Union, cold and bleak, with little money earned and
nothing to spend it on anyhow.
I talked to Hunter about it, and together we wondered if those puppets
had inherent civil rights. I would place them something like Grover
somewhere between animal and man, so I don't think the answer is so
immediately obvious. The questions of Big Bird and Kermit the Frog are
much clearer. They talk, but they are manifestly animals. Nowhere in
the Constitution will you find mention of Snufaluphagus. Our Founding
Fathers didn't plan for these aberrations, so it's up to us to decide
where they fit into society. I recommended that either they be enslaved
in some sort of profitable circus or bred, butchered and eaten, if
found to be tasty. Something like Big Bird, if allowed to breed and
multiply, could be a delicacy that could feed thousands, if not
millions, of hungry people. Instead, they let this feeble-minded yellow
mockery sit on the roof all night waiting for Santa Claus, while Sesame
Street remains a depressing ghetto instead of a trendy Rodeo Drive like
it has the potential to become. They have only themselves to blame.
ITEM: Despite producing an utterly ass-kicking four pages
of penciled and inked artwork this past week, I still managed to get
out of the house and do a little Christmas shopping with the family.
This is important. Many comic book artists balance their days with
soccer or social get-togethers, but I am not this animal. I am
involved, thoroughly, with my work. The script I am working on haunts
my every thought, and I rarely leave my office when I am so engaged. If
my pen is not moving, I am lying on the floor, looking up at the light
on the ceiling, and talking to myself. Gradually, the years have seen
me grow from a lanky, energetic lad, to an egg-shaped and colored,
obsessive-compulsive bastard who sings little jingles about the cat to
himself and his family as a way of letting off steam. I call Geoff
Johns now and then to excitedly rant about some new visual trick I
figured out and plan to install into Flash, and he politely
pretends to know what I'm talking about. I am caffeinated, distant,
bizarre and hard to know. Not in a sexy way. And I'm assuring you,
it'll get worse as time goes on.
Having watched some Cable TV news over the past month, I've become
aware that people believe, or are pretending to believe, that we're on
the verge of another Great Depression. I'm not sure what to think about
this. Surely, I'm aware of the recession, and I'm prepared for the
consequences of job loss and tightened belts, working as I do in a very
tiny corner of the entertainment world. But are we truly about to tip
over into another 1930's? Because let me be the first to say, I don't
want to! But I am not in control of all things, and sometimes I can
only observe and suffer with the rest of humanity.
As I mentioned previously, I did get out of the house and do some
errands, milling about with the peasants and bromides. And it was very
odd. My peripheral vision kept registering moments of human
desperation. It was like the first fifteen minutes of Shaun of the Dead.
I was Simon Pegg, going about my routine, and sort-of-almost-noticing
some very alarming and sad things. He was seeing zombies. I was seeing
breadlines. My first stop was the bank, where I needed to cash a
paycheck. As the bank teller shamelessly flirted with me, handsome as I
was in my Graphitti Designs Alex Ross Wonder Woman t-shirt, I became
aware of the customers at the window next to me. Just sort of aware, I
wasn't really paying much attention. But they seemed nervous...upset. I
gave them approximately 28% of my attention.
She was a mid-40's, prosperous looking woman with a 10 year old
daughter in pink winter coat. She was asking, stuttering, to close out
her account. The bank teller asked why she'd like to close the account,
and she replied that she was moving. But it sounded untrue. She was
told that she had 58 dollars and some change in the account, and told
she could have it in cash. She whispered, head down, "yes, please."
Coulda been nuthin', but it made me feel uneasy and worried for her.
This didn't stop me from driving to Wendy's to have a
cheeseburger, though, where I saw a guy in the back of the restaurant
picking through the dumpster. This is a suburb of Charlotte, North
Carolina. When I lived near Camden, New Jersey, this was a common
sight. People around my new neighborhood are fairly upper-middle class,
or at least, are able to appear to be. This was enough to make me do a
double take. Then again, it coulda been nuthin'. Maybe he dropped his
watch.
Sharis is planning on doing some baking for the neighbors this
year, so we stopped off at a Wal-Mart to get baking ingredients. There
I half-noticed another fairly well-to-do looking gentleman doing some
price comparisons on Ramen instant noodles. Once again, coulda been
nuthin'. Ramen noodles are tasty, if utterly devoid of nutritional
value, and bargain shopping is always a good thing.
But I think it's time to prepare yourself. We've been living in a
very strange period of time, where our 24 hour Cable news culture has
cried wolf so many times about impending doom, whether it's terrorism
or environmental catastrophe, it's hard to know whether to bring an
umbrella anymore. But you can trust me. I don't exaggerate one bit,
because I only have to fill a single page with crap information once a
week. I am not burdened by an obligation to blather scary nonsense all
day, seven days a week. And I am telling you all to start digging bomb
shelters again. I'm working on mine now. Stock them with generators,
dvds and dvd players. Dried fruits, canned soups, cookies, bottled
water, Britney Spears' new CD entitled Circus.
Whatever you'll need to get through for the next eight years. Because
we've been here before, folks. First comes eating out of garbage cans,
then comes Communism and National Socialism followed by war, then comes
It's A Wonderful Life, which is good, and then comes the Atomic Bomb.
I'll be ready. Will you be?
A familiar face from Flash: Rebirth
ITEM: As promised in last week's column, here's a sneaky sneak peek at Flash: Rebirth #1.
I took a quick digital photo of the corner of one of the pages.
Shhh...don't tell Dan Didio! It ships April of 2009, so don't say we
didn't warn you!
Thanks for everything, including making last week's column the number
one recommended item at Newsarama! We got close to 150 recommends,
easily beating the number two item, which scored something close to 13
recommends. This time, let's try to get on the charts for most responses.
So if you read this, enjoyed it or hated it, please type out a quick
reply below! I appreciate it, and I'll see you next week!
With a song in my heart,
