TIE: Paul Pope's Battling Boy

This Is Excellent:



A page from Paul Pope's upcoming graphic novel for First Second Books titled (wait for it...) Battling Boy. If you haven't read a Paul Pope comic, you really, really should. I'd recommend starting with his issue of Solo or the recently re-released Heavy Liquid, which is sort of like a William Gibson book on drugs. Which is a very excellent thing.

Mystical Mysticness!

I recently asked for you all to ask me "Yes" or "No" questions that would be answered by magical means. And now that one of you has actually asked a question, I can consult my magical device to divine an answer for you.

But first, you may ask "From whence do these answers come? What magical tome holds the answer to any question that can be answered either positively or negatively?" and to that I answer: it comes from This Old Box Of Comics. But more specifically, it comes from here:



The Original Ghost Rider Rides Again #4 of 5, a Ghost Rider reprint book published November 1991. It has magic powers. One time I had a headache and I held it up to my head and the pain disappeared. It holds every answer to every question in the history of the world. Because it is full of magic like a unicorn on drugs or something. For serious.

But I, as they say, digest.

Let's answer Chris' question, "What should I do?"



Oops! It looks like Ghost Rider is not too pleased that Chris' question cannot be answered by "Yes" or "No" and is threatening him with a beat-down of immense proportions.

Because Ghost Rider is a jerk like that.

I know, totally magic, right? What question will he answer next?! Only you can decide! Well, you and the magical forces that permeate the ether, but you know what I mean. Ask your question in the comments or you or someone close to you will get athlete's foot. It happened to a friend of mine' uncle's girlfriend. For serious. Spooky, right?

B is for "Buffalo", as in "Use Every Bit of the Buffalo"

What follows is an attempt to use every word in Patti's list, in order, in a blog post. It is totally based on a true story, which is to say that it's all fake:

So I was sitting down to watch the Apple Dumpling Gang, starring the indomitable Tim Conway and Don Knotts and I'm struck by a perilous conundrum: should I eat a brownie or a piece of carrot cake while I watch this cinematic masterpiece? It's always a touchy decision, dessert. If you choose wrong, man, you're screwed.

Anyway, so when faced with a "zig" or "zag" situation, I always choose "zug", so I opted for a delightful elixir known colloquially as a "French Taunt", made from raw eggs, baby seal tears and ennui. Its name derives from ancient times when a gaggle of Gallic peoples would mix up a big old cup of the stuff and pour it on French peasants while saying horrible things about their aunts, uncles and pet chinchillas. It's true what they say, "Happiness is a taunted Frenchman."

Anyway, so as I was mixing up this brew and listening to the distant lilt of the ice cream truck as it ambled down the avenue, selling joy and bomb pops, an interesting thought got all up on my jock. What if Kleenex were made from sandpaper? That would be horrible! Oh how I laughed and laughed at this thought, so much so that I cried tears of pure limeade into my newly-baked batch of spaghetti sauce muffins.

"Nuts!" I exclaimed as I threw them out the window, accidentally hitting my flamboyantly heterosexual neighbor, Mister Darryl Oats, formerly of the 80's blue-eyed soul duo Pancakes & Oats. You may remember their hit single, "Que Onda Radish?", which was a sensation in Portugal, where it dominated the charts until Señor Sexy released the mega-smash, "Salsa Tomatillo", which I don't need to tell you, really gets your ulnar nerve a-shakin'. Why Spanish disco was so popular in a country that speaks Portugese is anybody's guess. Novelty, maybe? Aaaah, the 1780's. To be 13 again ...

It was at the exact moment as I sat there, humming Señor Sexy's other smash hit, "Forget the Alamo (And Remember To Get Funky!)", watching Mr. Oats pick bits of muffin out of his white-man Afro (Euro?) as he cursed me in twelve different languages (including Esperanto! Impressive!) and threatened to report me to the Vice Squad regarding a rather hilarious - though admittedly "mature" - Dilbert cartoon I had shown him which he found highly offensive (seriously, you Americans and your fear of the nude male form! Talk about your hangups!) that I realized something of cosmic importance: Wheat Chex are not that good! Like, at all! Not to get all xenobiotic on you, but have you tasted these things? Yuck! Like for serious! They're like sticks held together by mulch and bailing wire. Seriously!

Anyway I gotta go and wash this Yorkshire Pudding out of my mustache before it sets like it did last winter. It took twelve firemen equipped with blowtorches and rubber cement 17 hours to remove it. I almost had to lose the mustache and we can't have that!

Talk to you later! Ziti!

Sincerely,
Martin P. Wiggumbottom, Esq.
AKA: "Your Boyfriend"

*******

Today's post courtesy of Patti, though Ben threw down the gauntlet as far as using all the words in a list as the basis of a post. Ziti!

D is for "Dragons"

Dragons.
A report on them by an 11-year-old kid who is overly obsessed with them.

Dragons are probably the most awesome creatures that ever existed. I am so sad that dragons no longer exist, but a big lizard that breathes fire is so cool an it's sad they are gone and we don't have them around any more. Scientists still don't know where the dragons went but the most popular theory is that they evolved into chickens. I think this is why we love to eat chicken, to get back at the dragons for cooking so many humans and then eating them. Take that, former dragons! I am eating you! You taste like irony!

My favorite piece of chicken is either the thigh or the drumstick. They are so juicy! You could even say I'm cuckoo for chicken! I am definitely a chicken fan. Yumyumyum!

I bet if dragons were still around that hippie Al gore would totally be having a fit right now and making charts showing how dragons are ruining the world but we all know that dragons are the best and Al Gore should just go invent the internet or Hot Pockets or the George Foreman Grill or something and stop bumming everybody out! For serious!

For dragons being the awesomest there ever was, there sure aren't a lot of good movies featuring dragons in them. I can think of three: Reign Of Fire (starring that guy Matthew McConaughey who is always really sweaty and looks like he smells like dirty socks and those funny cigarettes and also Batman is in it, too), Dragonslayer with the guy from that Allie McBeal lawyer show with the skinny scarecrow lady and the dancing baby and Pete's Dragon, starring the drunk midget guy.

That last one is very scary as it features a bunch of hillbilly types. Hillbillies are frightening. More frightening than dragons. I think a hillbilly dragon would probably kill people with its scariness. People would look at it and get so scared they would explode. KA-BOOM!

I think a great name for a dragon movie would be Dragonkillers about a bunch of people who go around killing dragons and stuff and getting treasure and one guy has a big sword and another guy has a like a spear or something and they have a robot. Who has a big sword, too. Or a laser cannon. In his eyeballs. That would be sweet.

If I had a pet dragon I'd name him Peppers because peppers are hot and so are dragons! Hot temperature-wise as well as the other kind of hot! J/K! Dragons are sort of gross-looking, like big lizards or something. Ew! Also, Peppers is a cute name.

In conclusion, dragons are cool and you should love them because they are awesome and cool. I love dragons! Yay!

The End.

*******

Today's post via Chanel (whose blog is invite-only, suckas!). And yes, I am sort of scared of her.

Will You Be My Blog Buddy?

I always feel weird about adding people's blogs to my sidebar. I mean, what if they're hiding out from the law and I just blew their cover? Though to be honest, if you're hiding out from the law, you probably shouldn't write about it on the internet. Seriously, that's just sloppy. Maybe you deserve to be caught.

I'm always flattered when people put me in their sidebar, but I always feel weird about putting people in mine. It's sort of junior high-ish, I know, but what if somebody doesn't want to be seen standing (digitally speaking) next to me?

So, if you're a regular reader and would like your blog handsomely displayed in my sidebar, please leave a comment with your blog address. I'll display the blogs by title, alphabetically. Now is your chance to hop aboard the juggernaut that is the Big Red Robot Internet Machine That Is Rolling Across America Like A Steamroller On Drugs.