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Regifting December Gifts

December 1, 2015, 4:21 pm
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Well, here it is.  The last of the calendar images for the year.

Dec. 21 -Winter begins - shortest day - Don't get up (Not worth it)

While browsing the dozens of online comic archives, I came across some familiar-looking comics, a rough duplicate of which can be seen below.

Something similar happened for this Mother Goose comic, once seen back in May.

Dec. 24 - Buy present.

Dec. 25 -Open present.


In closing, here's the back and interior pages for the Mother Goose calendar.


Oh, and lest we forget, the last of Mr. Bean's "artistic improvement".
In Snowy Weather
John Charles Maggs, 1819-1896
Next year will be something slightly different now that I've run out of comic calendars to use.  The only one left is Gary Patterson's office comics, and they're not particularly funny.  Some hints will be forthcoming if I get the chance to foreshadow them.
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Giving Akira some Colour

December 3, 2015, 8:48 pm
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Akira is one of the most ambitious gateway Animes despite being fairly incomprehensible without being familiar with the source material.  It's been described as the Watchmen of Psychic Manga, which, like the Alan Moore work, only wound up further influencing Mangas for years to come.  For a long time, I was disappointed with Banana Fish lifting so many elements (Biker wars, balding rival, bald powerful man, coverups, mysterious drug) as well as backgrounds (warehouse & sewers), but later had to contend that it was telling a dramatically different story than the Sci-fi epic.
It's no wonder the teacher's surprised -
Kaneda's interrupting before Yamagata's got a chance to complete his sentence.
Every generation seems to want to rediscover this Manga once it falls out of circulation.  Marvel got the ball rolling under their alternative Epic license which radically colourized the lush drawings and slimmed down the speech balloons to more expectant American tastes, all claustrophobic and scrunched up.
Such a task required having clean copies of the original art, otherwise they would've had to redraw the illustrations behind the extra-large speech balloons, which took up the majority of the panels.  Such a practice would be considered heretic and practically unthinkable today, not only in terms of effort, but also in practicality and risking the ire of pissing off purists who'd insist on authenticity.  (Surprisingly enough, the flipped pages hasn't raised much ire)  But this was back when comic fans were even more notoriously finicky on subject material, and wouldn't even consider looking at a comic unless it was available in colour.  That said, Marvel's recolouring by Steve Oliff  co. was a remarkable accomplishment, paving the way for today's colourists to do the majority of their colouring via computer rather than by hand.  Apart from a few minor mistakes here and there (having one eye redder than the other), they still did an amazing effort.
In both instances, somebody's head is being covered up by celebratory dialogue.
Then once the license fell through, Dark Horse picked up the pieces, relying parts of it on the English script, and part of it on the French publication, which is why there's some unusual sound effects sprinkled here and there.  Sales were quite brisk... for awhile, then it fell out of print again.  The third volume was the most popularly outsold one, since it was basically the best in terms of escalating rising action, with multiple parties finding themselves at see-sawing advantageous positions.  Then when interest was surging again, Kodansha picked up the bill once it reverted back to their property.

The school is ruled by sadistic teachers who spend more time beating up and arguing with their students than
actually trying to teach them lessons that'll make them beneficial (hah!) members of society.
Considering that the entirety of the school is made up of biker gangs,
there's not much room for intellectual stimulation there.
Other than these nitpicks, some long-time fans still vastly prefer the Marvel version over the faithful rereleases.  Part of this has to do with some passages done by Jo Duffy's script.
"...something illegitimate!"
I read somewhere on a now-defunct Manga blog that there was going to be an attempt to compare the two versions of Crying Freeman (a realisticly-drawn pornographic Mary Stu) between Viz and Dark Horse, but it was either abandoned or never attempted.  I hoped someone else would pick up the slack, since there was no way I was going to bother buying another copy of a story I already had, and didn't really like in the first place.  Apparently, Ryuji the Blade's dialogue was drastically toned down in the Viz version, and that's all I know.

Here's another subtle change.  Most of Yamagata's amusing mispronunciations stayed pretty much the same in both versions, save for the above, which becomes more obvious by Marvel's mandate.  In the official version, there's no allusion to Mutants, which was pretty much the standard definition of anything relating to X-men.  Kaneda's ignorant reaction is understandable, since psychic S-heroes were severely limited due to their overpoweredness, while in Manga, psychics were as common as dirt.  It's not too surprising they would be considered more familiar there than in American comics.
At first, the Colonel seems to be starting the Doctor's sentence from across the building.
In the second instance, the parallel dialogue is better displayed.
As with any fandom, opinion is relentlessly divided between which version is the superior one.  Some will find no fault between one woman named Kay and the other named Kei.  For the Anime, some will point to the voices being more authentic.  Others will prefer the older script.  Not being able to hear the difference, I can only say that I prefer the version that at least had comprehensible dialogue.
Flunkies failing to meet their superior's orders is a common theme running throughout this Manga.
We should at least have some kind of Schadenfreude from their experience.
By chance, I managed to find and keep a captioned Streamline version of Akira.  Years later, when I saw the DVD available at the library, I took it out, figuring the subtitles would be more faithful.  Instead, what I got was a rushed translation job that made an already impenetrable movie even more baffling.  The amoeba comparison metaphor was so incomprehensible I couldn't even understand what the hell they were talking about.
The Colour version involving puns (this was a boat crashing into the canal)
was probably considered a little too punny.
When Akira unleashed his terrifying power, the second half of the Manga deals with the characters coping with a dystopian world, which means they fit right in.  In one instance, the Colonel is cornered by some renegade soldiers, one of whom spouts some lines of poetic license:
Once we shoot you, how you'll cry! / You'll suffer so! / And then you'll die! / You can't escape! / Don't even try!
I don't want to break the spine of my already preciously fragile copy to scan a few identical words, so you'll have to settle for text reproduction.
Don't you scoff at me, old fart! / It's a serious threat, phrased as serious art!
You may fire at will!  Go on now, start...
But then, complications arise when one of the intended shooters winds up being a familiar face from earlier in the volume:
What is he to you?
Your old boss? / Is that true?
Then killing him should bring you fun.
Stop your stalling! Fire your gun!
Fire!
As with any situation where one party has another at an overwhelming advantage with firearms, it can take ages before any side starts firing.  Five pages after cutting away elsewhere, the situation still hasn't been resolved.
Don't make a superior officer lose patience with you!
In his first appearance, Joker, leader of the Clowns had dental hygiene that were an orthopedist's nightmare.
Only after he showed up again in the fifth book by being relevant again in supplying weapons and transportation, did his teeth suddenly became uniform and squeaky clean.  This sudden change made him a honourary member of the cast (even as he was still regulated to a side character), as well as making it easier for Katsuhiro Otomo to draw him surrounded by heavily detailed buildings.  (Though he still found some compelling reason to deck him out in various facial tattoos)  One minor background difference can be seen below.
Behind one panel holding state-of-the-art weapons is a poster with cute art.
Behind the other is a dire warning for anyone lingering around to keep their mitts off.
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Newspaper Comic Ads

December 11, 2015, 6:49 am
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Newspaper carrying comics have been a customer staple ever since the dawn of the 20th Century, save for those that only contain wordy articles, and appeal to the intellectual few who don't need to rely on pictures for their daily input of information.  They fall on the respectable field of journalism who don't want to rely on advertisers dictating terms for which articles are worthy of being printed or not.

So it's somewhat surprising that usage of comics for ads isn't utilized more.  There was a short-lived run of YTV comics that would've fit right in TV Guide. This kind of thing would be expected in regular comic books, but even there, usage is sporadic.
Probably (hopefully) not the same Michael Jackson you're thinking of.
For the most part, they're fairly functionary, in setting up a conflict in the lack of a need, and a quick-fix solution in the way of a reliable source where retail outlets are sold.
If you're using plagiarized pop art to sell your merchandise instead of hanging them on your wall,
is it considered high or low art?
For years, I braved my way through shows without close-captioning by making up my own dialogue from what I imagined was going on, with small clues gleamed from surrounding elements, situations and gestures here and there.  If I'd actually known what the Hanna-Barbara characters were actually saying, I would've lost all interest in limited stilted animation.  If this level of dialogue is typical of an episode, it's no wonder that Anime's been looked down as children's entertainment for so long.

Some ads look like were basically retreads of the 30-second commercials that were aired and then quickly forgotten.  They probably still exist somewhere in some obscure videotape or Youtube account.


One of the greatest surprises was finding a Mr. Peanut comic that looks like Robert Crumb drew it.

For those not in the know, Lowney are a kind of peanut butter chocolate, not unlike Reese's Pieces.  Their more recognized brand are those lumps with the cherry inside.  It should be mentioned that they're Canadian as well.  If there's a fault with the first ad, it's in the second panel, which has a caption just below some written text that's continued on the caption on the next panel.  Chances are, most readers wanting to ignore the boring picture, feeling it redundant, would read the narrative as "I've been writing to them for over a year... upside Down!" Obviously, any company that would pay attention to such an unusual letter would want to ignore such madness, right?

And yes, this was an actual item, though its presentation could've used some work.  It's coffee colouring and small opening makes it look rather unappealing for all but the brand-faithful and nostalgia-induced.
Capitalism!

Things get downright disturbing with the 3rd ad with the limerick-like introduction of a girl whose personality is as unhinged as her jaw.

Going further with Canadian chocolates is the series of Eat-More bars, which all seem to follow some kind of Western theme.



For some reason, some of them remind me of MAD's Scenes we'd like to See, where a bunch of charming underdog Cowboys are struggling to hold out against a horde of invading Indians find themselves overwhelmed in the face of a cavalry that never comes.

It's certainly an unusual sentiment, given that ads are all about making you feel better about yourself, and less about selling products that carry the whiff of failure.  But that's always been more of a Canadian mentality than an American one - doing the best we can against incredible odds, and wind up losing in the end.  Terry Fox is revered, even though he barely reached the 1/3rd mark in his marathon.  Dieppe was our greatest failure that was a prelude to the D-Day invasion on Normandy Beach.

On another vein of the creative scale are Oh Henry! ads in the form of parodic Believe it or Not! factoids.  All of them feature an oversized Candy Bar, which was how they were portrayed on TV, not unlike the Three Musketeerscandy bar comicslater on.



*Citation needed.
Somewhere along the way, comic ads became less specialized, and became little more than formulary pieces just giving the bare bones of their product.  "Here's this impressive item!  Here're legitimate reasons to get it!!  Now, go buy it!!!"


For me, the low end of the scale was when I saw this revamped Popsicle Pete ad that has all the subtlety of a PSA (or Captain Planet) comic.  There's practically no similarity to his former incarnation (which may or may not be a bad thing) and really, no one was crying out for another redundant S-hero team whose cliched team is composed of The Hero, The Girl, and The Other Guy.  It has all the basic drama and resolution of a typical Hostess Fruit Pies comic, only with less memorable script and art.  I'm embarrassed to even look at it.  Feel free to avert your eyes - you won't be missing much.
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A Little Bit of Everything

December 24, 2015, 11:24 am
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Sorry for the lack of updates.  I've been busier than usual lately, and I'd been having trouble pining down specific topics I'd want to talk about.  I've got some rough guidelines drafted out, but feel that they could use more reworking, and I'm self-imposing myself by not wanting to use the same subject material twice in a post, which is why my topics are so erratic.

A commenter asked if I could show the Full Monty comic of The Simpsons, and since there's been no other requests, I'm willing to oblige.  Here's the full-page version.

Since there's a lot of shrinkage involved, I've split the posters into two halves.  You may want to avert your eyes from the center.


When I heard the news that respected Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, was going to branch out in S-hero comics, with her title Angel CatBird, it reminded me of this.  I've posted this comic before, but I think it bears repeating.

While the notion of her planned genre isn't exactly my kind of thing, the way she described the format leaves me with less confidence.  Just having your hero spout animal-based puns alone isn't going to be enough.  That obsessive panel relevance might've worked for Watchmen, but it was also distracting as hell.  At first, I thought she was branching out into exploitable fields, not unlike Celebrities releasing unsuccessful children's books, until I did some research, and found out that she was a rabid reader and producer of comics herself.

I certainly couldn't comment on her writing ability, since I've never been able to get past the first page of any of her nerves-inducing novels.  But I'd hope that she'd be able to tie her theme to more than just cat & bird sanctuaries.

When Bloom County branched out into Sunday-only comics in the vein of Outland and Opus, they were a far cry from the legendary strip run of the original.  So when Berkley Breathed said he was coming back to the strip for a thirdrevival, I wasn't very optimistic.  Turns out that what missing magic formula for the snarky up-to-date commentary were the daily strips (with occasional Sundays) that gave the comic the biting nature it'd been lacking.  It probably helps that he doesn't have to stick to a specific schedule, or ironclad number of dailies and Sundays, and just presents them in any order he chooses.

The latest comics have been commenting on the latest Star Wars movie (of which I have no preference, and even less interest) and this little ditty came up:
I figured it'd only be a matter of time before somebody made the obvious editing choice, and was surprised to see it hadn't been attempted yet.  The hardest part is filling in the blank centering around Jon's arm.  I'm sure that somebody out there would be able to do a better photoshopping job, but this'll have to do for now.
Zippy the Pinhead is one of the most obtuse mainstream underground comics (other than Odd Bodkins) that's somehow found its way onto the newspaper funny pages.  In the early 2000s, when Japanese comics began outpacing American comics in terms of popularity, and outlets started devoting pseudo-Manga in hopes of leeching attention away from newcomers, it was a revelation (and confirmation) that the once underground obsession had finally pierced the public consciousness.
Nowadays, with the near-ubiquitousness of Japanese media, any mention of Otaku culture is somehow less impressive.  Back then, fans would scour pages for any mention of their favorite hobby.  These days, why bother?
The Wizard of Id has very few reoccurring characters, but few are as obscure as the monstrosity known as Abra Cadaver.
Abra Cadaver is basically a Frankenstein-creature that the Wizard seems to be on good terms with, and bears no relation to the Powerpuff Girls villain.  It certainly seems to be a popular name for a mangling of the famous magical incantation.
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French CROC Ads

December 26, 2015, 7:42 pm
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Possible homage to Magritte's "Treachery of Images".
(Go ahead, look it up)
In addition to going through old newspapers, I've also been looking through online archives of CROC Magazine.  As mentioned before, CROC was the Quebec equivalent of National Lampoon or MAD, and used to run Red Ketchup.  (Still holding out hope for an official English release or scanlation)
The December subscription page staring panels of Santa along the border, grouped together.
It seems somewhat contradictory of me to be posting more advertisements on Boxing Day, where stores are intent on removing their stock and I'm fixated on dredging up ancient history, making relevance of no-longer available products somewhat redundant.
Subliminal advertising at its basic.
In an age where pop-up ads are considered vastly annoying, and most customer's preference is waiting for the trade or DVD, nostalgia for time-wasting advertisements can be seen as somewhat baffling.  The majority of ads whose only purpose is to induce an earworm imprint in your mind are the most loathed, and therefore, most in desire to forget.  But the rare few clever ads that aspire for something more that stretch the boundaries of a typical 30-second sales pitch are the ones that remain in our minds long after they've been discontinued.

One of these was an ad for Wallobee Jack, an obscure point-and-click computer game series.  Despite the Tiny Tunes influential design, the actual animated gameplay dialogue is startlingly limited to the lips.  While it's the same principle used for Japanese Novel games, it somehow winds up being more distracting.  See for yourself...

If there's a fault, its that the puzzles are rather easy, and are cut between lengthy cut scenes that look unskippable.  I've never been able to understand how people can play dialogue-heavy games with no available text, especially if you're dealing with sensitive material relating to clues, and need to refresh your memory without having to replay the scene again to understand what was said; which is why I prefer games that at least have their text on the screen.

There's been comparative food studies that show that candy and meat advertisers outpace advertisements for health food by hundreds of times.  This may be the only instance of an anthropomorphic broccoli stick in an ad, and it's miserable at not being as fun as a Jos Louis cake bar.

Every year in Montreal, there's a Just for Laughs comedy festival where comedians gather to display their stand-up skits and sketches.  And every year, I wind up disappointed with their mostly unfunny results.  Their only saving grace is Victor, the "Laughing Devil" mascot, who like the animated Pink Panther, is much more appealing than the source material.

Victor was created by the late Vittorio Fiorucci, an ad designer whose works were featured on multiple posters and several Time magazine covers.  The self-caricatured mascot will probably remain his most memorable work, outstripping his other projects, which seems somewhat fitting.  His obituary had all kinds of interesting anecdotes, starting off with coming to this country in anticipation of selling stories.  His only obstacle - he couldn't speak (let alone write) English orFrench, so he resorted to drawing, and by chance, wound up doing advertising work.  That suited him just fine, since "Posters, are after all, short novels of art.", so in a strange roundabout way, he wound up telling stories after all.

Victor is so ubiquitous as an icon that he was even part of an anti-drug platform that even found its way on bus .

It would take me years to figure out that the pink creature with a straw wasn't sucking things up its mouth, but up its nose.  The crow thingie is probably Crack or Speed, and I've just figured out that the yellow slimy thing is likely alcoholic beer.
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It's a Secret to Everyone...

January 1, 2016, 7:45 pm
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Earlier, I mentioned last year that I was going to be doing something different for the beginning of each month for the new year.  If you've noticed the last couple posts, they've focused on advertisements in newspaper and magazines.  Most ads were limited one-offs that were just as quickly soon forgotten.  Others had repeat business from reliable artists who gave their contributions on a monthly basis with varying results.  One of these was the Labatt Blue beer ads which would reveal long-held "secrets" short of revealing their beverage recipe for hops and barley.

The other more impressive series of ads are as seen below.  I've also mentioned that I wouldn't do any comics from Gary Larson's Far Side.  However, there's no reason not to post comics that clearly gleam from his influence.

While Americans were content with their "Got Milk" ads, Montrealers had to deal with the powerful Milk Industry in a different way.  Between 1989 and 1993, there were a series of Paul Brazeau's Franchement / Vachement Lait! (Frankly Milk!) ads that while not copyright infringement, were clearly intended as homaged extensions of Gary Larson's most famous animals.
I'm using your deodorant!
What's particularly enjoyable about these is that every single comic has a smaller comic that summarizes the overall comic, usually near the bottom, not unlike those Throwaway panels in Sunday Comics.  These comics were originally much smaller, but I've taken the liberty of blowing them up to a more reasonable visible size.  Of course, even there, they need to be seen at full size to appreciate.  The ad soon changed from the Vachement pun to Manquez pas le meilleur! (Don't miss the best!)
What'd he say? / ...Beats me.
...Probably an attention hog.
Wow!  What's with him??
Another nightmare? / I couldn't say a word!!
These are just quick translations, subject to change, so don't expect any quality scanlation craftsmanship anytime soon.
You sure?
*Sigh!*
Tomorrow, let's try the barn roof!
An added bonus is that some surrealistic strips don't need any further explanation.
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Words to Pictures, Pictures to Sound

January 6, 2016, 8:09 pm
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Recently, the Webcomic, Dr. McNinja, the only doctor who's potentially crazier than Doctor Black Jack (who's wound up on some wild adventures of his own) has been setting up the stages for its final arc, resolving multiple plots, and tying up various loose ends that's been built up (and forgotten) over the course of the many years that's it's been running.  While discussion basically revolved around how painfully screwed the Ninja-doc was, I noticed that the closing words comic looked vaguely familiar to me.  A quick look through the archives confirmed my suspicions - it was a deliberate homage to the first arc, back when the doctor was little more than a collection of memes smushed together into a collective taste that somehow wound up tasting great.

That kind of body language and panel composition rang a familiar bell in my head, even as the text was drastically different, especially near the end.  The reason for others not easily picking up on this as me could be contributed to several factors - they hadn't been breathlessly re-reading the series since its conception to familiarize themselves with the current arc.  With all other forms of media entertainment vying for attention (including other webcomics), chances are they even forgot about how the first comic arc ended.

But I think it's more likely that they didn't have my kind of Synesthesia.

I've remarked upon this before, but it bears repeating.  Synesthesia is the trait where one sense (sight, touch, taste, sound, smell) is interpreted a different way by another sense that normally wouldn't be expected to connect that way, and is something that's unsurprisingly, rather common in people with Autism.  When your body's all out of sync with the rest of the world, you latch on to whatever makes most sense.  And for me, that was Sunday Newspaper comics.  Of all the potentially alienating interests out there, I latched upon one that would be socially acceptable.  Like David B. (of Epileptic fame) who embraced the concept of fear, I had to master humour to understand it.  Not an easy task when dealing with old-school comics aimed at an older audience.

When I read words, it's simply a matter of converting these blocks of texts into the closest visual representative I'm aware of.  However, converting pictures is going to require some further explaining.

What I do is assign a different "sound" to each picture, depending on position, posture, colour, and movement, so that when I come across something similar, I'll have something to reference to.  Not unlike how words can have the same meaning, despite having different fonts.  That amount of variety can yield unlimited combinations with limited palettes.  While that doesn't sound like much, consider how many musical notes there are, and how we still haven't run out of new noises yet.  The only difficulty is in trying to accurately describe these "sounds" to an outside audience, since they very rarely come close to how they sound in my head, and I don't have the vocal experience to replicate them accurately.  (Not that they'd have any idea of what I was trying to convey via strange noises alone)
Even though each leaning face has a slightly similar (if different) stance,
I still have an unique "sound" for each, as well as internalized "movement"
despite each image remaining perfectly still.
It's primarily why I've never been able to get into Achewood, Pearls Before Swine, or Dinosaur Comics, because to me, each character design and panel layout are TOO SIMILAR to each other for me to be able to appreciate it in any other way.  Especially with Dinosaur comics.  The strict rigid format makes it almost impossible to enjoy a typical comic, because the setup is the same every single time.  Basically, if you've seen one Dinosaur Comic, you've seen them all, even though the dialogue (and mousover text) is completely different in every one.  That kind of repetition may be fine for people who expect a certain amount of consistency from their enjoyment, but it's a death knell for visual narrative for me, because there's no variation.  The format is so familiar to me that I could recognize the format of a parody within the first two panels alone.
EVERY SINGLE COMIC sounds like this to me.
It's also my main problem in reading S-hero comics from the Golden or Silver age.  The strict narrative page dimensions mean that there's a limited amount of space allotted, so that when I flip through the pages, the signal-to-noise ratio becomes overwhelmingly obvious, resulting in a WHOMP-Whoomp-Whoomp-WHOMP pattern that quickly gets overbearing.  When collected in a large format, and read all at once, The musical rising and falling tone makes for a constant repetitive thudding sound that's painful for me to enjoy.
A page from the Star Wars Manga, staring an overconfident Grand Moff Tarkin.
The ability to detect familiar images is not unlike how obsessive fans notice obvious similarities between Greg Land's traced characters.
It may not have been obvious to most readers, but I signaled out the reused drawing
of Tarkin, from the posture of his smirk and fingers alone.
I was amazed to find out that despite heavily depending on close-captioning for understanding TV and Movies, that others might not like them, and find the helpful text at the bottom distracting.  I relied so much on these helpful tools that alternate tastes never occurred to me.  Likewise, a passage in Temple Gradin's Thinking in Pictures brought forth the notion that Temple was amazed to find out that other people didn't think primarily in pictures, like she did.  It reminded me of a shocking statement made by a Morals teacher - that the very act of reading is in itself, unnatural.  That humans were not meant to look at printed words in a zig-zag pattern.  This was extremely heretical to me, since I spent the majority of my life doing Nothing but reading, and couldn't imagine any other way.  Since then, I've learned about Dyslexics, who struggle to get by without being able to read.  Despite their limitations, they've managed to overcome them via other inventive means, and wind up being productive and innovative members of society, all without being able to read more than a few words (and recognizing some heavily overused ones).

Another surprise was finding out that despite the ease of access, there are people out there who are comic illiterates in being unable to understand even the basic comic panel.  They can't take in both words and pictures at the same time, preferring instead to divide them up separately, examine them at their leisure, and then reluctantly figure out how the two connect.  That kind of analysis is too slow for me, where I see both words and pictures simultaneously.  Having closed-captioned TV probably helped.  I had to read the text at a certain speed to be able to understand what was going on.  Not too fast, lest you run out of time, but not too slow, that you'll run the risk of leaving the sentence unfinished.  At times, I'll prefer to Mute the TV , so I won't be distracted by the captions and sounds not syncing up properly, and run the risk of missing a potentially important end sentence quote.

I've also found that my inner monologue is different depending on the TYPE of captioning used.  For instance, the typically white text on black boxes is vastly different from yellow subtitles from foreign films and Anime fansubs.  Both have their distinctively different sounds, depending on how the sentence is bolded, split up or centered.  There's also the scripting for foreign movies, which has a different kind of pacing compared to the typical Hollywood mindset.  Not every line uttered is intended to be a catchphrase, and is meant to sound more naturalistic; meaning lines that aren't intended to be memorable, but everyday typical dialogue.* Not to mention that there are subtleties that captioning capture that subtitles conveniently leave out.  (Such as names and sound effects)  I found out purely by conjecture that there were minor variations between the captioning and subtitles for GoodFellas, where there were minute differences in the dialogue for each.  The captioning would have minor cues and more instances of uttering character's names, whereas the subtitles would focus more on getting to the immediacy and reductive statement of a guy's jib.
An early scene in GoodFellas, with two subtly different sets of captions.
Likewise for when real-time captioning for the news or Videogame scripts, the scrolling motion of appearing text is significantly different from seeing the whole sentence at a time.  It all depends on how much text I see at once.  Which is why I get so impatient when I'm talking to someone, or receiving instructions face-to-face.  I simply have no idea how long the guy I'm talking to is going to be going on for.

There's an anecdote I read somewhere that probably applies to this.  A young girl from a foreign country saw a Romance Comedy for the first time, and when it was over, she said it was the most terrifying experience she ever had in her life.  The whole move was composed of nothing but disembodied talking heads, cut-off feet, and dismembered torsos.  In short, she was completely unaware of the cinematic language of movies.  That kind of confusion can also apply to comics where the page layout and panel composition can be incomprehensible for someone more used to having everything spelled out for them, and not have challenging notions every second page, such as unexpected plot twists and unreliable narrators for humouristic effect.  The weird thing comes where novice comic readers are baffled by something as simple as a Peanuts or Garfield comic, where confusion shouldn't come into play.
Despite appearances to the contrary, this is NOT a randomized Garfield,
but an actual strip that appeared on September 10, 2005.
Part of the problem may be that there's no general overall agreed mandate for "reading" comics.  Some people are able to take in all the elements of a panel without being distracted by potential spoilers just lurking at the corner of their eye, while others just look at the pretty pictures first, and then go back to read the text to find out what the story was all about.

A commentor from the teaching comics link pointed out that Watchmen is a primer for reading comics for the novice reader more used to prose novels, from the very opening page, starting with a zoom-out.  Reading comics may be second nature to many already acquainted with the form, but can be daunting for those not used to combining two separate art forms at once.  As a kid, I learned to read not by listening, but by looking at the pictures first.  Somewhere along the way, I was able to recognize the weird scribbles on the page for the sounds, and by association, the abstract concepts and objects they represented.  But I have no recollection of how I arrived at that conclusion.  This lack of knowledge of bridging the gap bothers me, since I can't give any adequately helpful advice to others where it applied to me.
A side-by-side comparison from a Manga paying obvious tribute, found on a comic forum.
(Source unknown)
The feat of cross-circuiting senses suggests that having senses compensating for each other would have tremendous advantages, but being able to do so may be harder than we think.  There was a lousy romance movie, At First Sight, about a blind man who got surgery to regain his vision, and he didn't like what he saw, because they didn't look like how he'd pictured them in his mind.  By the same token, when I dare to turn my hearing aids on, I'm dismayed at how different everything on TV sounds from how I expect them to sound.  The music doesn't sync up to the movement onscreen (like Fantasia), and the voices aren't as intoned as I'd expect.  If *I* have so much trouble with getting acclimated with something as intuitive as hearing, how could others be expected to translate smells into colours or touch into music, unless they'd have a deep-seated reason for doing so?  Without proper motivation, there's no point in taking such untraveled off-the-beaten paths unless there's some deeper goal in sight.  At least comics have the advantage of telling stories, so the gateway is easier there, save for blind people.
This posing of two Cosplayers of Jessica Rabbit and Slave Leia reminded me of American Gothic,
and rather fittingly, Leia had her arm wrapped around her "property".
*[One of the hardest lessons I had to learn was that "Not everything that comes out of your mouth has to sound important." For ages, I would get tongue-tied because I was under the illusion that I had to say something significantly profound every time I spoke, and I would oftentimes be floundering, trying to find the perfect word that was just on the tip of my tongue.]
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We Stand on Guard: For Who?

January 14, 2016, 8:41 pm
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Brian K. Vaughan's latest comic proposal, We Stand on Guard, of the US invading Canada sounded interesting on proposal, but loses me in it's execution, even with the addition of a bilingual guard robot. Part of the problem is that it's written by an American, and not co-written by actual Canadians who'd give some authenticity to the franchise. The ragtag team at the end of the preview (their tiny Canadian flag tags notwithstanding) posing with guns (to appear cool) didn't exactly fill me with confidence.  And by the 6th and last issue, any enthusiasm was universally panned.

For the most part, Canadians are regularly ignored, and perk up whenever Americans stand up and notice any of our contributions we've done that normally fall under their scandal-watching radar.  Part of the problem is that Americans know very little about Canada, which is especially troubling since according to a multiple-choice survey, 1/3 of American 8th Graders thought Canadians were a Dictatorship, along with Australia and France.  This wasn't borne from a deep internal reflection of our last political party, but from massive guesswork of limited choices.  They thought that given their current standard of living, any other place would be considerably worse off, since who Wouldn't want to be an American???  The unwelcome answer is: not everyone.  People take a kind of jingoist pride in their own countries the same way Americans do in theirs - they just express it differently.

Generally speaking, Canadians have a different attitude and mentality that isn't easily fit for mass consumption.  Our left-leaning politics is more of a passive-aggressive stance.  We're more likely to win our battles through political manipulation than with outright overkill.  Stephen Harper tried to win his Prime Minister term with scaremongering, reminiscent of typical American election rulebooks, but his strong-arm tactics and single stranglehold over the party (along with unpopular decisions* and scandals that were coming to light) were enough to deem him undesirable, and welcome back the Liberal party, despite their Sponsorship scandal.  Boring, but practical, that's us.

Q. What's the worst insult you can give a Canadian?  A. Calling them Americans.

Indeed, a general complaint about Canadians is that we're notoriously difficult to pin down because of our lack of identity.  While that could be considered a fault, it also works as a plus, since it frees us from being strictly adhered to any one overall ideal.  But that also has a dark undercurrent for the Ugly Canadian - we're the only country that defines ourselves by what we're not.  Our singular identifying bragging feature is that we're not Americans.
"Okay, we might have a looming deficit, but at least we're not as bad as the Americans!"
"Okay, we've got rampant police brutality, but at least we're not as bad as the Americans!"
"Okay, we've got a long history of unfair treatment towards the Aboriginal First Nations, but at least we're not as bad as the Americans!"
If Brian K. Vaughan wanted to give a better portrayal of Canadians, he should've at least considered the plausible ways that Canada could protect itself from an invasion force that for all likes and purposes, overwhelm them by sheer firepower alone. The best Canadian strategy would be to hit them before the Americans could deploy the nuclear option - they wouldn't even HAVE to deploy a strike anywhere on our land - just melt the polar caps enough to flood our land beyond submission. The surest way to protect yourself against a force you're overly familiar with is to determine the most extreme solution, and then guard against that. (A gun's useless if you can't pull the trigger)

"The main aim of this policy would not be to actually fight a war, but to make it clear that the war will be so costly and so bloody that you don't want to fight it."

Of course, a better authentic portrayal would be if he'd gotten some consultation advice from an ACTUAL Canadian.  Preferably, someone who'd served in the armed services.  (The artist doesn't count - he's Spanish)  After hearing this proposal, I started thinking about all the kinds of ways that would prompt an attack.  What would be the impetus for the US to invade Canada in the first place? My first guess was that they'd want full access to our water supply, after inadvertently poisoning their reserves beyond saving. Sure, crude oil is necessary for moving large swaths of transportation around for a circulatory system of goods and people, but NOBODY can survive without water. People deprived of resources they need to live would be willing to do ANYTHING, no matter the cost, even at the expense of all else. This could be one realm where Government Bureaucracy (where Canadian excel) wouldn't be of much use.  Hostage negotiations and prisoner exchanges could be used to convince the other side to give up in exchange for some quality life-giving water.

But we didn't get any of that.  We were treated to scenes of soldiers traversing frozen wastelands, with none of the environmental hazards present.  Nor were we presented with scenarios such as preparing for warmer climates and shifting weather patterns or any background details of changing wet socks from accidentally stepping into ankle-deep waters.  If there's one topic that unites Canadians, it's the weather.  Americans have a generally stable weather system, with only occasional earthquakes and hurricanes to deal with.  But deal a little snow on the highways, and the whole city goes under, because they can't handle a little slippage, inadvertently causing car-pile-ups and traffic jams.  This isn't an egotistical slant - Canadians are just as guilty of this, because the instant a few flakes start falling, we're more concerned on getting to Point B than wasting time putting on time/life-saving snow tires.

Furthermore, for a war on water, there's surprisingly little account of coping with a water shortage, or using water-based substitutes, which would be vastly interesting.  Instant powdered foods would have to be rethought without any water additives in them.  Army showers are generally timed to make the most of their limited two-minute use - dampen the skin down, then apply soap, then rinse.  Hand sanitizers while clean, aren't as effective as good old soap & water.

There's talk of the War of 1812 where Canada fought against the US and won, but no mention of any of the tactics they used.  One particularly memorable anecdote is that before the White House was burned down, soldiers verified that the place was empty, but the President's dinner was ready.  At which point they started devouring the contents of the table and wine shelves.  When everything was eaten and drunk, the Captain said "My compliments to the cook!" before setting fire to the place.

In the event that the US (or another country) tries to invade us again, we've got various fail-safes set in place. Our bridges are designed to be blown apart at a moment's notice, which may explain our crumbling infrastructures, because they were never intended to remain standing for so long. (There's been years of corruption tied to our construction industry for this very reason)  Not that our spaghetti highways are easy to navigate in the first place, but why make it easy for our enemies?

So, how does this story start out by going into the great Canada/US divide?  By going into a blatant historical screed of Superman.  As interesting as the backstory of the founding background of Metropolis is, it feels somewhat out of place for what amounts to a border civil war.  One could say that the major difference between the creators of Batman and Superman was that Bob Kane knew how to manipulate the American Comic business to his whims, and Sigel and Shuster didn't.

The reason We Stand on Guard rings false is that it's more of a political metaphor for the Iraq War than a commentary on the political divisions between two superficially similar countries.  Pretty much any stories about the past or future are cautionary allegories for what's happening in the present, but they should also be an examination of how such rash decisions could potentially be avoided.  It's been suggested Brian K. Vaughan's stories are reflections of his inability to get over 9-11, and that certainly seems to be the case here.

Too much of We Stand on Guard's attention is focused on the jingoist fantasy appeal of a small rebellious group banding together to overthrow a corrupt government.  That setup relies and feeds on the lie that a band of trained outcasts can somehow stand up to overthrow a corrupt government.  A government that has access to unlimited supplies.  And loads of high-tech weaponry.  And elite men willing to follow orders.  Which could be safely executed miles away from their position.  Their resources would vastly overwhelm any potential outlaws.  And that's before the government'd get the media on their side.  The fantasy that one determined man can make a difference by waving their magic gun in the direction of their oppressors will make all their potential problems go away is a seductive one.  (Not that Americans tried to take their country back by force when Bush Jr. was in charge)

It also conveniently overlooks the fact that Canadians invaders could easily pass themselves off as Americans by simply aping their patriotic appeal while firing guns in the air, and using that as a pretext for buying more ammunition.  (Of course, it would have to be white people getting ammo, since other races would be frowned upon, and draw too much attention)  The challenge would be in presenting authentic forged documents to buy said ammo, though that wouldn't be too much of an obstacle, given how free Americans are about their gun rights.  What WOULD be more interesting would've been for said bunch is if they had to rationalize on their dwindling sources, and how to make the most use of every remaining bullet effectively.

The inverse would be less than true, since American spies trying to ape themselves as Canadians without prior knowledge would be easily caught using a variation of the Rick Mercer report.  Rather than try to convince us of their heritage via trivia (naming the Prime Minister, Provinces & Territories), give them the task of creating an igloo or canoe.  If they seem more eager than reluctant to the task, call them out on it.  (If they're heavily versed in wilderness living, see the extent of their knowledge, and whether they differ between Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts)

A. Sure!  I'll get right on it.
B. Are you MAD?!  I don't know beans about doing that!  Never learned how!
C. Well, the surrounding material's all wrong for that, but if that's what you want...
D. This is how I've always done it.  What's wrong with it?

Alternately, it could be a case of two sides feeling each other out, and avoiding answering potentially loaded questions.

"What's your favorite Hockey team?  The Raptors or the Expos?" (Basketball and Baseball)
"I don't really follow sports."
"Well, what's your favorite Canadian TV program?"
"I much more prefer the American stuff."
"Me too.  Any show in particular you like so far?"
"Well, there's (insert futuristic show title here)."
"I haven't seen it, but heard good things.  How'd you see it?"
"Same as anybody - illegal downloads."
"Yeah?  Which server do you use?"
"The same as anybody else's."
"You got an address?"
"DomainNameDotCom"
"...Com?"
"I mean Ca."

If we wanted to make this an ideological war, we could intentionally target potentially problematic generals who have a long history of sending their soldiers into suicide missions.  Intentionally removing these obstacles would spread confusion among the American ranks, since our deliberate targeting would operate under the pretext of "Don't make us hurt you." However, chances are they could interpret this Canadian message as being "weak", and come after us in greater force.  At which point we'd have no choice but to retaliate in kind.

To stand a better chance against the Americans, we should pair up with Australians (another widely underestimated / caricatured country), since history has shown that when teamed up, they wind up vastly intimidating the enemy.  "Woe betide any who fight against us." If that's not our motto, it SHOULD be.
"The U.S.A. is the antagonist of this story, but Steve [Skroce] and I never wanted to portray them as two-dimensional, mustache-twirling villains." - Brian K. Vaughan
Despite assurances that he wanted to portray sympathetic flawed representations of both sides, the US wound up being political strawmen after all.  It's probably difficult to accurately portray a Socialist society when you've been raised up in a Capitalist society, convinced that all Americans have the right to Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness, and you're up against a country whose less-than-catchy motto is Peace, Order and Good Government.  The thing is, Socialism isn't a bad thing when done properly.

It doesn't help that he's harping on old traits he's already familiar with.  The sensitive issues that're raised up are already outdated by the time they hit print (using holographic fireboarding in place of waterboarding) despite the fact that it's been proven that torture tactics don't work for gaining accurate information from resistant soldiers unwilling to give up their sources.


A better analogy would be how purer water sources are reserved for the very rich, and polluted dirty water is outletted to poorer regions.  Then blame could be outsourced to Northern outsiders having access to wider expanses of cleaner water as a way of diverting attention away from the actual perpetrators of the crime.  Some corporations have even gone so far as to hold their water reserves hostage until their customers pony up enough money to sample their wares.  Privatizing water they claim, is a monopoly, not a human right.  Even collecting wellwater or rainwater is frowned upon and against the law in certain states, because that water is "someone else's property", so it needs to be dumped for vague reasons.  Especially upsetting is how Nestle drained water not just from poor countries, but also various US states and one Canada Province as well.  The previous Harper government gave Nestle unlimited permission to pump as much water from Hillsburgh, Ontario, upon which they "pay $3.71 for every million litres of water it pumps... which it then... sells back to the public for as much as $2 million.", making a 53,908,255% profit.

There were so many potentially interesting avenues that could've been taken, and they were all squandered away for a typical feel-bad story.  Brian K. Vaughan suffers from the same problems and weaknesses as Naoki Urasawa.  Both authors are both great at spinning yarns that have attention-grabbing cliffhangers, but have remarkably weak endings to all that buildup.  They're not as bad as Stephen King, whose overwritten horror prose is fraught with too much build-up, and not enough payoff, but it's just as annoying.  If anything, it's another exercise for wasted potential.

While Canadians have managed to succeed with underwhelming weapons against overwhelming odds, chances are still high that we would still fail the instant Americans start getting serious about overtaking us.

"Please.  The odds are clearly stacked up against us.  It's just a matter of time before we're fed some misinformation, or we're rushed by soldiers who happened to catch a pattern or reading we failed to notice."
"If you're so dubious about our chances of success, why are you standing up for a belief you don't even believe in?"
"HMM!  Good question.  That's a very good question!"
(Long pause)
(Even longer protracted silence)
"Sir?"
"If you're expecting an answer, you're going to be disappointed."

It's not that we're vehemently opposed to their ideology (though America-bashing is practically a national pastime over here, finely tuned to an art form), we just disagree with how they handle most of their internal policies.  A country operating over the impetus that anyone can be what they strive to be, doesn't mean much if a certain entitled demographic vastly outpaces 99% of the other living citizens.  We look at how they've handled things, and feel (and know) that we could do better.  It's Socialism Vs. Capitalism, but through the lens that "Socialism isn't bad when done right." Capitalism's been ruling the US policy for decades, and how well has it worked out for people not in the top 1%?  It doesn't help that our identity is continuously squashed by our boisterous louder neighbors constantly vying for attention.

The irony is, the US and Canada are similar enough to the extent where usage of "We're not that different, you and me", would be put to perfect use.  The closest we came to a successful Canada Vs. the US parody was Michael Moore's Canadian Bacon.  Sadly, the scaremongering newscast was the best part of the movie.  Once you've seen that, don't bother with the rest.

Maybe someday we'll have a worthy satirical takedown of our tenuous relationship with our Southern neighbors filled with pathos, but not today.

*The Conservative Party's last straw was probably the intended dismantling of postal service to the protest of many (including a mayor who took a jackhammer to one), in favor of community mailboxes... that to add insult to injury, were custom made in the US, and were unacclimated to the cold, resulting in frozen boxes.
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Absence of Valise

January 19, 2016, 7:23 pm
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You notice all kinds of weird things while browsing old online newspaper archives.  For starters, due to rushing the scanning process and lack of double-checking the source material, some pages are accidentally posted twice.  And other gap in the dates are filled in previous dates that run together that were never divided.  For instance, you can look up an article in say, November 28, 1985, and find a paper wasn't available that day, because they were celebrating Thanksgiving, thus yesterday's date would double-up on their features which would compensate for the lack of a paper the following day.

But this wasn't just regulated to national holidays - it happened sporadically.  There are wide swatches of missing patches scattered here and there, which makes finding archived quality comics a nightmare for anyone who didn't bother to keep a subscription to every published newspaper ever.

And then, there are the scanning errors.

This probably isn't how it originally appeared in the pages, but I like how Jeff's (the father) face is distorted in the second panel, because it looks like he's in one of those non-twinning in-between frames from multiple hand-drawn animated cartoons.  (Something that 3D animation has yet to perfect)

Another feature is that some newspaper comics used to have advertising of available book collections of the most popular strips in the margins.  Nowadays, you're more likely to see that kind of self-promotion in the cover header of the latest scanlated issue.  (which explains the wide empty spaces at the beginning and end of every chapter)

With the majority of newspaper comic content being readily available online, there isn't much impetus to seek out other comics for their low-impact humour since audiences are more likely to stick with the material they're most familiar with.  Having a singular page showing one strip at a time isn't close enough to the newspaper comic model.  The closest equivalent would be one large page that'd show every single comic that'd appear on that day.  Such a model would be an assault on their bandwidth, but it'd give audiences a wider range of samples to draw from.
This Dilbert strip is actually made worse by the lack of the middle panel
One feature that's been largely eliminated is the prospect of missing or absent comics.  For the most part, these were hand-waved away by dint of being unsuitable or controversial enough for the family content of a newspaper.  (Whose rationale for attracting reader numbers is the motto "If it Bleeds, it Leads")
If the middle panel had a suitcase, the title post would make more sense.
These strips would usually be replaced by other comics or older material.  (Pogo was notorious for having Bunny strips for its impenetrable political comics)  Considering their disposable nature, and that today's cartoonists are required to take mandatory vacations, it's surprising that other cartoonists didn't get the chance to jump in and try to substitute as a guest strip for a trial period.  Then again, some comics are so popular with certain newspaper subscribers that they're usually the only reason they bother to stay on, so removing them (even temporarily) is a risky prospect.  Calvin & Hobbes spent almost 2 years on sabbatical, but remained endearing, so there's 7 1/2 years of material within its 10-year run.

Nowadays, if there's a comic that's been banned from the pages for one reason or another (recall Opus' Burqa issue), it's just a matter of a quick search result to find the offending material, and wonder what the fuss was all about.  (Unless you're on a limited-information dictatorship plan)  But back then, there was another kind of self-censorship that had nothing to do with imposing values.  I'm referring to the most dreaded quote of debt collectors and editorial feedback: "Your submission got lost in the mail."
Back then, cartoons were shipped forward and back via a shipping process that for one reason or another, wasn't entirely reliable.  Such a method using snail mail would be considered unthinkable today.  Even more unusual would be if multiple comics happened to be "lost" along the way.
Normally under unusual circumstances, missing or mangled comics would get a correction with a proper image on the second page the next day.  But I can assure you that no such compensation was given for these comics.  Not that much would've been missed with these particular strips, but still, having 1/5th of your intended reading material cut off without any backup is kind of an insult.  Fortunately, as far as I can tell, this kind of thing didn't happen often.  Of course, that's only judging from the available online stuff.  The online archives for other papers which require a paying subscription to access their contents is still out of my reach.  I have no intention of giving away good money without sampling the wares.  (i.e., what comics those newspapers have)
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What is the Form of a Question?

January 23, 2016, 10:50 pm
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This Monday, viewers were treated to a rare feat on Jeopardy!  By sheer chance, every single contestant decided to wager everything they'd won onto the Final Jeopardy! question... only for all three to lose their savings in one fell swoop.  This kind of occurrence has only happened six times during Jeopardy!'s 50+ year run.  At least it didn't happen during a Tournament of Champions.

An actual 3-way Tournament of Champions tie would be an incredible upset, resulting in audience outrage.  Not long ago last year, we were treated to the exploits of a rather remarkable achievements of a young paralegal who came out of nowhere to dominate the Jeopardy! board.  Online reaction was mixed, being amazed and appalled at Matt Jackson's autistic-like ability to perfectly time his answers as soon as Alex Trebek confirmed they were right.  Those haters weren't looking forward to having another contestant who'd keep staying on the game for what looked like months on end.

They reminded me (naturally!) of an early MAD satire of a gameshow starring a contestant who was rather unpopular, despite his impressive ability of accurately making rapid-fire predictions down to the decimal point.  In between rounds, we found out some interesting trivia about Matt Jackson, including the fact that he had a Jewish mother and a Christian father, as well as a twin brother.

During Matt Jackson's run, Alex Trebek mentioned that previous champions were hoping that he'd keep up his winning streak, since they were terrified of having to face up against him for the Tournament of Champions.

In one particular Daily Double (Oct. 7), Matt Jackson bet the sum of "Five" in a Music category. (WHY he kept persisting in a category he was having trouble with is a mystery)  After making the wager, Alex said "$5000?  Alright then, here's the clue..." to which Matt Jackson got wrong, but a measly $5 was deducted from his score, which was a major factor, because it was still a close game; and Matt Jackson lived to play for another day.

As it turned out, the latest contender for breaking Ken Jennings' 74-day record ended after a mere 13 days, losing to Michael Baker after being overconfident in betting in Final Jeopardy!, but then it was a very close game, having just a $200 advantage over his closest competitor.  Michael Baker seemed like a worthy replacement... only to wind up losing the very next day.

When shown in the Tournament of Champions, Matt Jackson's introduction, whose trademark of opening with raised fingers of his running streak, and a creepy unwavering timed smile was inverted by opening up with a smile that tapered down to a disappointed smile.  That reversal could've been considered prophetic, considering how disappointing Matt Jackson's results were.

In the semi-finals, he continued his usual pattern of racking up maddening numbers of moolah, easily outpacing the other opponents.  But then he fell apart after reaching the 2-day final rounds.  His strategy of quickly pressing the buzzer and choosing the mid-number categories to get the Daily Doubles faster only works if he's the only one implementing that strategy.  His contender, Alex Jacob, who copied that tactic to great effect left Matt Jackson constantly playing catch-up.  Losing valuable money on wrong Daily Double answers didn't help Matt either, and by the end of the first Final Jeopardy!, he'd lost most of the money he'd made, despite impressively keeping pace once he finally got his rhythm going.

Also, in deference to Matt Jackson's line of rapid-fire answering, Alex Jacob used the counter-intuitive method on every Daily Double by taking his sweet time giving an answer, looking constantly worried, then popping a question... which would turn out to be right every time.  The man certainly knew how to play his audience.

As it turns out, answering Jeopardy! questions isn't as easy as it looks.  In addition to being prepared, there's the overhead studio lights and mounting pressure to keep up the pace, even when you win multiple games in a row.  Eventually, that strain begins to build over your head until you crack.
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Mangled Franglish

January 29, 2016, 11:58 pm
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When it comes to translating one language to another, there are potential pitfalls that come from not fully understanding the social ramifications of the individual words you're using that are close approximations to what you're used to in your home language.  Not to mention all the conflicting uses of punctuation that spell the crucial difference between Going to Hospital, and Going to The Hospital.  One of the trickiest things to convey is correctly showing someone unintentionally misusing language.  At best, you have amusing Engrish that permeate the pop culture landscape, and at worst, becomes almost intelligible.

The Batman Odyssey, a marvelously insane comic, had a joint summary between two comic fans, David Wolkin and Laura Hudson who gave a hilarious recap that was far more comprehensible and entertaining than the actual comic.  They also cleared up some of the more baffling narrative choices that would've been completely incomprehensible for lesser minds.  To put it in their own words, "Every time I think The Batman Odyssey can't get any crazier, it suddenly does." Each subsequent issue gradually ramped up the madness factor to the extent that by the time the last few issues came out, they'd given up attempting to tackle it out of sheer desperation and exhaustion.  David threw the comic away after reading a few pages, and after another issue, he was so traumatized he had to get a kitten to recuperate.  (There was some moving involved too, which may have been a factor)  It's been suggested that there be a Brave & Bold episode adaption as examined by Bat-Mite, with Mr. Mxyzptlk and Ambush Bug in a kind of Mystery Science Theater 3000 tribute.

At the very last recap, a commenter, Ben Freeman made the following observation:
The most fascinating thing about Batman Odyssey is how close it can come to making sense. Take "Acquit yourself, you kung fu movie guru", for example - it's not so very hard to see how that line is SUPPOSED to work. It would look fine (if still a little odd for Killer Croc) as "Is that all you've got, you Splinter wannabe?" or "Fight back, Mister Miyagi" or what have you. But somehow, the actual words on the page have been chosen from synonyms which form a sentence that nobody would ever actually say. And the ENTIRE COMIC is like that. It's like the script was somehow run through Google Translate into and out of Korean or something.
Sadly, this results in even some of the comic's pretty cool moments (like Batman instantly knowing that Deadman has possessed someone because they switch from left to right handed) being rendered into surreal nonsense ("right-handed. other stuff.") And Adams' tendency to have every character speak entirely in sentence fragments separated by ellipses only muddies the waters further.

Still, the script's tendency towards total screaming madness did give us the line "and octopus of a thing - and I have but an inkling!", which has since become a catchphrase of mine, so it's not all bad news.
On the other end of the spectrum are comics that've been translated into one language, then re-translated into another.  As with photocopying from various sources, something is bound to get lost in the process.  Especially if the re-translation is too faithful.  One of my linguistic challenges when reading a badly translated piece is to try to rework the text around to a more condensed readable form.
In this instance from Shin Tekken Chinmi, the above page seems perfectly normal at first glance.  But after browsing several pages in quick succession, you gradually begin to notice that the speech pattern doesn't flow as smoothly as it should.  For instance, the following dialogue could be modified like so:

Sailor: Taste the water.
Chinmi: It's salty!
Chinmi: The river is spilling into the sea!
Shuufan: Our boat trip is almost over.
Chinmi: Tantan!  Wake up, Tantan! (Unchanged)
Tantan: Ugh, don't bother me... I'm seasick...
Chinmi: We're at the bay.  We're gonna see the sea soon.

See how much easier and faster it is to follow?  For typical elementary Shonen-type Mangas like these, large clunky words slow down the narrative.  Estuary is the technically correct term, but it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.  If English teachers wanted to motivate their students, they could have them correct online work, then make the necessary modifications where necessary, since pointing out other's faults is more fun than concentrating on your own.

In my instance, I almost wound up doing some self-correction of my own.  District 14, a wonderfully inventive series is set in an alternative 1920s civilization where humans and anthropomorphic animals are caught in a conflict involving themes of journalism, protection rackets, psychic mediums, illegal aliens and an immigrant elephant's backstory has allusions and callbacks to War & Peace.  The story takes so many inventive twists and turns that I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next, and I looked forward to seeing the next page.  About halfway through the first season, there was an incident involving some French cats, and at first, I thought the translator made an amateur mistake.  But then I quickly realized it was intentional.

In this instance, in the second panel, when he says "keep the brain busy", he really means "keep your mind occupied".  The purpose of such an act is to make the reader think about a character's manner of speech, and as such, resist temptation in making their script free of errors, so that some linguistic mistakes still make their way through.

One of the best examples of intentional mangled English comes from the PBS classical adaption of Agatha Christie's Poirot, as portrayed by the definitive and inimitable David Suchet.  I was able to enjoy watching the episodes again after the latest re-release on DVD finally acknowledged my complaints and had subtitles added to them.  In one of the episodes, Captain Hastings talked about abstract art, and how you need to view it in a different way to fully understand what you're seeing - that a transparent outline could show both the front and back of a person.  For years, I was continuously perplexed as to what the opening image was supposed to be.  It looked like a sword in midair, next to a moon, that suddenly became deformed, then windowpanes of the Belgian Detective would taper down the middle.

It wasn't until I paused the screen before the crucial eye-catching distracting detail that I finally noticed the significance of the warped sword - it was actually a profile of Poirot himself, with the edges of the sword acting as a representation of his mustache.

One of the most amusing things is how often Poirot (not a Frenchman, but a Belgian!) continuously gets certain English phrases just slightly wrong:

That may be to your profit (advantage)
Is there nothing Poirot cannot turn his finger? (hand?)
Yes, we pull ever gently the leg.  (pulling your leg)
And on the debit side? (bad side)
I am in something of a difficulty.  (quandary)
What's the word?  Bloater?  Kipper?  (Red herring)
She is close to the breakthrough.
We'll be out.  Hold the castle.  (fort)
Better the safeness than the sorrow.
We must not try to walk before we can jump.  (look before we leap)
Wonders will never stop.  (cease)
I need a... lampe de poche.  What is that, a lamp of the pocket?  Torch!
Twins?  Yes, two pins in a pot.  (peas in a pod)

Still very far from being the species extinct.
Not suitable for the humour.
Do not be stinting with your praise.  (damning with faint praise)
Running up the wrong tree.
I'm still a force to be calculated. (reckoned with)
The case is dried and cut.
The quickness of the hand deceives the eye.
He's mad - taking leave of his rocker.
There should not be the sleepy dogs.  (let sleeping dogs lie)
He's been sold a pup.  (a dog)
Barking up the wrong bush.
Kindly do not band together against Poirot.  (gang up against Poirot)
The appearance of being above the board.

Shortly after compiling this list, I came up with a Poirotism of my own:

My senses have left.
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Eastmost Victoria has a Secret

February 1, 2016, 7:27 pm
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February's Milk ads...
Powdered milk
Perfect Union Agency
Wouldn't it be better to wait inside?
It's freezing out here!
Stay if you want, I can't stand it!  I'm leaving!
Ugh!  I've been waiting an hour for you!
I just can't get into abstract art... how 'bout you?
Lastly, a slightly NSFW image behind the cut:


Go ahead!  They're cheaper than usual!
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The Hamsters in the Walls

February 6, 2016, 7:32 pm
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It was another normal night at the Newman household, when a seemingly benign proposal was made.

After much pleading and convincing, the Newman children eventually received an advance on their inheritance.

The kids were thrilled to have a new pet to play with, until they were suddenly faced with the harsh truth of reality.

Concessions were made, and the siblings enjoyed their adequate replacements, but couldn't help but immediately fall into barbed rivalry.

No sooner were their acquisitions acquired did the children lose their property again, and then deflected all blame onto the absent party. 
 Search parties looking for the missing pets were met with unfavorable results.
Empty mass graves were erected to placate the emotions of the grieving party, and to commemorate those who had died for so little.
With so much unwelcome failures, the head of the Newman household authoritatively decided to put a stop to the unproductive results of supply and demand.
With no more troublesome pets running around, the heads of the Newman household figured their troubles were over, but their days of terror had just begun.
The restless hamsters in the walls were implacable, and would not cease to rest until the dawn of the new morn.
Outside parties loathed the long-standing household for bringing back painful memories regarding flesh-searing pain.
Hours and minutes, days and nights began to blur together with no variation or indication of how much time had progressed between periods of awareness.
Restless nights without relief inevitably brought increasing methods of desperation, driving the home owner to previously unknown levels of insanity.
Knowing that there were hamsters in the walls was unbearable, but not knowing how long they would remain there was worse.
Attempts and traps were made to lure the animals out of hiding, only to have the elusive rodents relocate to another floor.
The horror was only multiplied when it was slowly revealed that the hamsters in the walls were reproducing as well, and the household owners were held responsible.
Unending days of burrowing sounds were temporarily relieved when the ceaseless noises abruptly... stopped.
With much reluctance, it was decided the internal conflict could be avoided no longer, and an abrupt hasty excavation was deemed necessary to relieve the unbearable tension.
After much exploration within the unusually vast caverns, eventually, an opening was found which reluctantly revealed the source of the maddening scratching.
The lasting impressions and traumatic experiences of the sole survivor hunched over countless bodies relayed a story that would be considered unbelievable.
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Weird Romance Sequel

February 14, 2016, 8:30 pm
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A quick follow-up to last year's post between Linus and Lydia.





Since then, there's been several more Fantagraphics Peanuts collections, and they're currently catching up to the less-than-stellar declining years.  Lydia doesn't show up at all in 1989, but makes a brief comeback in 1990.




My personal colour copy, just for completeness.

I've only got scans from the library copies up to 1994, so there's not much past that date, since they're constantly taken out when I come, and I haven't bothered to reserve them.

The only (and best part) continuing storyline is where Lydia drops unsubtle hints on wanting a music box for a present.


Obviously, Lydia is quite a material girl, seeking status through possessions.


I may not have any extra Peanuts books, but by sheer chance, I happened upon a rare Lydia strip while browsing my collection of international newspaper comics in Ontario, and came across this beauty.

There's just no pleasing some people.
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Putting my Knee Down

February 16, 2016, 5:57 pm
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I almost didn't contribute a Weird Romance this year.  I'd been otherwise preoccupied with other things that'd been distracting me; the least of which was that I noticed that I was having trouble walking.  Lately, I would attempt to go up stairs, or crawl around, and feel a lingering pain beneath the waist.

Then I noticed that my knee was bloated and swelling on one side.

It didn't take too long to figure out the cause of this symptom.  Normally, when I switch positions while sitting on the computer, I'll opt to sitting on my knees for extra pressure, since I enjoy the feel of heavy G's on my person.  Unpredictable light touches make me nervous, but direct heavy force calms me.  I've always carried a heavy backpack since my school days, since I feel comfortable knowing that I've got everything I need in there.  (It also makes it easier to lean my arms against a thick spine of books while riding the bus)

However, one thing that religiously devout people don't mention about being on your knees all the time is that it builds up callouses, just like any other part of your body.  I was utterly surprised to find out that other people didn't normally develop white crusty blisters on their elbows and knees.  I thought it was a naturally occurring symptom.
Not mine, but a medical representation.
Mine also had two smaller calluses below the knee where I rested my legs.
I've been so used to being on my knees while on the computer that I didn't even notice that my knees were developing pus-filled burst blood vessels until it became too painful to ignore.  I tried to relieve it with some leftover cream, but it'd apparently passed its expiration date some years ago, since it wasn't working.  Obviously, this condition wouldn't be easily cured overnight, which meant a visit to the walk-in clinic, but I'd have to wait the next day, after making an overnight appointment beforehand.
My general philosophy of "Maybe if I ignore it, it'll go away"
wasn't proving to work out after the second day.
The worst part was having to tell the clinic people that I'm Deaf and have Aspergers, to the receptionist, then to the nurse (who I always mistake for the doctor) and again for the doctor himself, since it's been ages since I last went, and they'd forgotten they had my file on record.  Also not an easy concept to manage for someone with social anxiety.  Fortunately, having somebody else to fill in the details of how to speak to me helped.
I can't understand how anybody can get used to asking the same questions
multiple times a day.
When the doctor showed up, the Nurse gave him the heads-up on my condition, but failed to pass on the necessary information on how to properly talk to me, so upon finding out I was Deaf, he talked to me in a shouting haltingly manner, which I told him wasn't necessary.  (Normal speech in a clear concise manner is enough)  His previous contact with Deaf clients were mainly elderly people who refused to acknowledge or admit that their hearing was going, so he didn't have much experience under his belt.  I was the first Deaf person below retirement age he'd ever seen.

The doctor gave a prescription, and a warning to stop sitting on my knees for the time being.  While it sounds obvious, it's not very easy for someone so ingrained with certain habits to break them, despite all evidence to the contrary that these actions are hazardous to your health.

I thought I'd have to reorganize my current writing space, so that I could work standing up by leaning up against a long flat surface (somewhat like against the back edge of a filing cabinet), since it'd save the effort of having to buy a new piece of space-wasting furniture, and it'd be easier than having to use one of the newfangled "standing stations" that revolutionize office work.  But then it was decided I needed a chair that didn't restrain my legs from spreading wide enough.  (Preferably one with elevated armrests)
I take a weirdly morbid sense of pride in my calluses.
Currently, the swelling's gone down, and the pain's been relieved, but there's still a worrying red spot that hasn't gone away.  And chances are it won't take long for me to fall back onto my old patterns, despite repeat proclamations of the risk and dangers I'm putting my body under.
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One Punch Man Vs...

February 27, 2016, 8:02 pm
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Part 1 here.
Part 2 here.

(The setting is in a field far from the Assassination school, where Saitama and Squirrel Girl are lazing around)

Saitama: There's no real reason for you being here.  Why'd you come?
Squirrel Girl: Are you kidding?  I'm interested in seeing what lousy excuse the teacher's gonna give for not exercising. (Throws peanuts in her mouth like they were popcorn)
Saitama: You never know.  He might've actually decided to try harder this time.
Squirrel Girl: Your unwavering optimism is admirable.
Saitama: I'm just glad you're not taking up resident in my apartment.  I've got too many freeloaders already.
(Looks in a general direction where a bright circle is unsuccessfully trying to camouflage itself)
Saitama: Get out behind that tree.  You're not fooling anyone.
(Koro-Sensei reluctantly moves closer to the field, looking more worried than usual)
Saitama: Well, you know the conditions.  Are you prepared?
Koro-Sensei: I think... I might've made a mistake in choosing your opponent.
Squirrel Girl: Hah!  I knew it!
Saitama: So, you skipped your homework again?  I can't say I'm not disappointed.
Koro-Sensei: I can't throw a punch to save my life!  And I really want to keep my life, you know.  I looked all over, trying to find someone else who'd be more of a match for you, but none came up.  Kenshiro... Jojo... Vegeta... Mr. Satan... they all declined for one reason or another...  Then I started looking further, and came across some hardcore supernatural fighters who might be in your weight class.

Koro-Sensei: So, you're the God of Fighting, huh?  And you're feeling kinda bored, looking for a good fight?
Beerus: That's right.
Koro-Sensei: Well, let me tell you...
Beerus: Nope.
Koro-Sensei: I haven't even started yet!
Beerus: You were going to offer me an opponent worthy of my attention.  Sorry, but I'm currently occupied in reigniting the popularity of a beloved franchise.  Besides, he's only the SECOND man I've dared glanced at that made me weak at the stomach and knees.
Koro-Sensei: The second??  Who was the first?
Beerus: I heavily advise against it.  You don't want to be anywhere near him.
Koro-Sensei: It's not for me, it's for... a friend!
Beerus: You must really hate your friend.
Koro-Sensei: Trust me, this guy's desperate for a fight that'll make him feel something.
Beerus: Well, if abject terror is what he's looking for, then he's right up your alley.  (Hands over card)  Here's his address, but I seriously recommend against it.  (Looks worried)  If he asks, don't use my name.

Koro-Sensei: After a short flight, it didn't take long to set up a meeting with the mystery man, and he certainly lived up to the hype.  I wore my trademark disguise and told him of a monster that'd been tearing up the populace, and he started convulsing with sadistic glee.  At this point, I was beginning to regret not taking Beerus' advice -
Saitama: Yeah, yeah.  That's nice and all, but I still don't see anybody here yet.  You talk too much.
Koro-Sensei: That's because in addition to being overwhelmingly powerful, he's somewhat of an eccentric.  He only agreed to come here if he could make a flashy appearance.  First, he had barbed wire wrapped all around his body... Then rubber tires were stacked, surrounding him... then rubber quick-drying cement was poured through the cracks... as he was encased in a 10-inch steel container.  Now, he's currently being dropped out of a high-flying airplane... without a parachute.  (Puts hand above eyes to protect glare) In fact, I think that's him coming down now.
(Upon plummet, said 10-inch steel container is twisting around, devouring itself from the inside)
Squirrel Girl: You got the Tasmanian Devil?
Koro-Sensei: I WISH.  If Bugs Bunny could handle him, ANYBODY could handle him.  However, I don't think anybody can handle this guy...
(Upon impact, the container bursts into pieces, and a silhouette shredding the barbed wire like toilet paper)
(An intimidating figure comes out of the wreckage, radiating an aura so intense it warps the background)

(Squirrel Girl reaches into her pocket to find a card that suddenly appeared in her inventory)

Deadpool's card guide to Super Villains: Yujiro Hanma - Father of "Grappler" Baki Hanma
  • If you're ever feeling tempted to fight this guy, don't.  (That means YOU, Squirrel Girl)
  • This is not an instance of reverse-psychology.  Only go up against him if you want to experience having your fighting pride emasculated and made fun of.
  • And this is coming from someone who teases The Hulk on a regular basis.
  • This is a man who devotes every second of every day totally focused on fighting.
  • He lives for nothing more than finding worthy opponents he can crush underneath his heel.
  • Black Belt Martial artists have broken their bones just from hitting him in the face.
  • TaskMaster tried to mimic Yujiro's punching power, and wound up fracturing his arm in three different places.
  • In addition, he's extremely egotistical, and refuses to be chauffeured around by anyone of lower status than the President of the United States.

Squirrel Girl:  You're in luck!  This guy looks pretty tough!  He inspired the character Akuma from Street Fighter.
Yujiro: Akuma??  Pfft.  They had to really nerf him down to make him remotely beatable.  Even Shin Cyber-Akuma is nowhere near my level.
Saitama: I've never been able to beat that guy.  I'm always amazed when seeing someone win against him.
Yujiro: So, I heard that there was a magnificent monster found lurching among this mountaintop.  (Leans and smiles right in front of Koro-Sensei's face)  Anybody seen it?!?
(Koro-Sensei's eyes are unfocused, darting everywhere, some tentacles pointing towards himself, some towards Squirrel Girl, some at Saitama, some at Yujiro)
Yujiro: The spokesman had a round head with a nose that kept falling off.  It couldn't possibly be this octopus-like creature could it?  Talk about slow.  I can't believe a whole country is held hostage by such a weakling who couldn't punch its way out of a paper bag!  (Takes a bite out of a broken-off Koro-Sensei tentacle)
Koro-Sensei: (Looks at his cleanly-broken-off stump)  When did you-?
Yujiro: Yuck!  You taste awful!!  Ptoo!!
Saitama: Yeah, you have to boil his limbs a long time to kill the taste.
Yujiro: (Ignoring Saitama)  So, what's this??  You're trying to teach children how to kill??  How cute.  This country's certainly gone to the dogs if they're reduced to using weapons instead of their bare hands.
Koro-Sensei: (Standing up for himself and his students) Hey, don't insult -
Yujiro: A REAL man settles all their accounts with their fists!  People who devised rocks as tools depended on them... then hammers... axes... spears... blades... bows and arrows... guns... cannons... bombs... the further they developed these extensions of themselves... the further they deviated away from their true power.  Tools are short-cuts that have allowed man to forget the inner strength they hold.

Saitama: And you have that kind of long-lost strength?
Yujiro: Precisely!  That's because I follow a strict regime that I never deviate from:


Yujiro: Of course, that's only appropriate for a macho prodigy like me.  If some random schlub attempted to do even one-tenth of what I've mastered over the years, they would be overwhelmed by the pain, because chances are, they'd be doing it wrong.  Anybody who'd stick to that schedule would be an idiot of monumental proportions.
(Saitama embarrassingly averts his gaze)
Yujiro: I couldn't even fathom what such an exercise would do to a human body.  In my case, I trained so hard, my hair turned blood red.
(Saitama looks even more embarrassed and despondent)
Squirrel Girl: Waitaminute. (does mental math) That's the distance of two-and-a-half marathons a day!  That's physically impossible.
Yujiro: For normal peons, sure.  But there's a trick to it.  Are you aware of how computer monitors are able to save energy?
Squirrel Girl: Uh?  Well, there's screensavers, and ever-advancing cheaper microchips, right?
Yujiro: Sure, but there's more to it.  Back when Steve Jobs was figuring out how to lower costs... for the Apple II... by eliminating noisy fans... Rod Holt found out energy could be saved... by having the screen flicker... multiple times... in a fraction of a second... faster than the human eye could conceive.  By that very same principle... just as computer monitors use rapid blinking to save on power... I exert my body... to move my legs constantly... in a fraction of a second... to the point where they're always moving... while seemingly standing perfectly still.
Squirrel Girl: That's a very weirdly specific way to reveal obscure trivia.  And I don't think exercise works that way.
Yujiro: Shows what you know.  While scouring the globe looking for ever-stronger opponents... and legendary creatures... I spend my free time by going all Rambo in war zones... barehanded... Breaking into heavily guarded panic rooms... Threatening the heads of state... Gatecrashing Underground Tournaments... and the Olympics... Breaking Guinness world records... In my spare time... I attempt Chuck Norris memes.  It's SO great being all-powerful.  I don't see how anybody could ever get bored.

Saitama: You still haven't found anybody worth sparring, right?
Yujiro: Is it that obvious?  Let me tell you - picking a fight with me is the equivalent of declaring war on a Nuclear Country.  For some reason, everybody's too scared to make the first move, so I have to keep provoking them until I get a reaction... which doesn't last long after my first hit.

Yujiro: What's with that cheap-ass costume you're wearing, anyways?  You look like you've wandered off from a crowd-pleasing carnival play.
Squirrel Girl: Not to disparage you, but he's a Super Hero, and so am I.
Yujiro: (Disappointed sigh)  A Superhero?  You're little more than glorified wrestlers with Soap Opera elements.  Sure, you may want to engage in national emergencies in the real world to feel relevant, but for the most part, you're more interested in beating up other people in costumes than anything else.  Admit it - if I dressed up in fancy garbs, you wouldn't think twice of going up against me.
Saitama: I'd still want to hit you, even if you weren't.
Yujiro: Now, if I were ever given a Hero title, it would be along the lines of Captain General Admiral Commander CurbStomp, given how easily I crush my foes.
Saitama: That's a little long-winded isn't it?
Yujiro: Something catchier then?  Okay, since I enjoy using my limbs so much, you could call me One-Kick Man.
Saitama: That sounds... almost, but not quite right for some reason I can't quite pin down.
Yujiro: You don't seem convinced of my physical superiority, so I'll prove it to you.  I want you to punch me as hard as you can.
Squirrel Girl: Uh... do you know who you're talking to???
Yujiro: Yeah.  Some average guy.
Saitama: (Shrugs)  Alright, if you insist...  (Winds up arm)
Yujiro: No, NO, NO! Don't you even know how to throw a punch?!  Here, let me show you.

 


Yujiro: (Grabs Saitama's hand) Just bunch your fingers into a fist (thumb outside last), then tuck your arm backwards to gather up all your strength, so you can lurch your momentum forwards into one piercing blow that'll blow away your opponent with one shot!

Squirrel Girl: Um... I think he already knows more than enough about punching...
Yujiro: This won't do at all.  Your form's too amateurish.  We're going to have to amp up your game to get any decent damage.  (Points to Koro-Sensei)  YOU.  Come here.
(Koro-Sensei nervously obliges)
Yujiro: You can move pretty fast, can't you?  I want you to carry this man around the stratosphere several times.  When you return via re-entry, you should be burning enough centrifugal force to rend flesh and bone.  But that's not enough - you should also be spinning counter-clockwise for maximum damage.
(Yujiro digs a small circle in the grassy ground around his feet)
Yujiro: By the time you land from orbit back at this very spot, you'll have gained enough Mach speed to MAYBE present enough of a challenge against me.
Koro-Sensei: And what if I refuse to comply with your demand?
Yujiro: Then I'll hunt you down to the ends of the Earth.
(Koro-Sensei attempts to run away, but Yujiro keeps getting in front of him)
Yujiro: Forget it.  Even if you move to another continent, I'll just cut the Earth in half, and throw that half into the sun.  Then I'll move onto the next half, until there's no more halves to hide from.
Koro-Sensei: You - you're bluffing!
Yujiro: Am I?  I'd sooner destroy the Earth with my bare hands before you do it yourself.  You're talking to someone who stopped an Earthquake just by punching the ground.

Koro-Sensei: (Turns to Saitama)  I'm sorry, but it looks like we'll have to team up in order for him to fight you.
Saitama: I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this.
(The two of them zoom off into the atmosphere)
Yujiro: And now, we play the waiting game.
Squirrel Girl: (Tiptoes up behind Yujiro) You may act all aggressive, but I know your type.  You're a macho macho man.  You guys were very popular in the 90's, posturing around with your heavy guns and grimacing faces.
Yujiro: This isn't a grimace - this is a SMILE.  A welcoming smile to intimidate opponents and reassure small children.

Squirrel Girl: If that'sa smile, I'd hate to see your frown.  While we're waiting for them to come back, how about you spar with me?
Yujiro: Sorry, I don't fight women.  They're too soft and fleshy, and not worth my time.

Squirrel Girl: Oh, NOW you're just asking for it!  (Thinks) "Sorry Deadpool, but I can't take that remark lying down."
(Squirrel Girl attempts several punches and kicks upon Yujiro's person, who barely notices)
Squirrel Girl: Okay, time to amp my game up!  (Chitters, summoning thousands of squirrels from all over)
Yujiro: (Notices the ground covered with furry little creatures) I usually fight animals more than twice my size.  Handling smaller creatures is beneath my notice.  But I'll play along.
(Inhales deeply) (Screams a high pitched yell that has all the nearby squirrels scrambling wildly) (Only a few dozen brave squirrels are still remaining)
Yujiro: That was the mating call of the dreaded cannibal squirrel-eater - a squirrel that eats other squirrels.
Squirrel Girl: (Visibly shaken, but still standing) No - no problem.  I can still manage with a handicap!
Yujiro: If you're still going against me, you'd better take these.  (Hands over a bunch of dangerous-looking weapons)
Squirrel Girl: What was all that tirade you went on about not depending on weapons for tools?  And where were you hiding all these?
Yujiro: (Looking away) That octopus teacher is more scared of me than I thought.  He's been throwing dozens of various objects my way at my blind spots in the vain hope that he might catch me off guard.  So far, all I'm getting is my hands loaded with dead weight.  Careful with that - that's an unexploded grenade.
(Squirrel Girl's eyes bulge out) (A squirrel hands over a piece of wire for Squirrel Girl to defuse the bomb)
(When Squirrel Girl looks up, she's surprised to see Yujiro carrying a cruise missile with the rocket engine still running)
Yujiro: Hmpf.  He's getting desperate.  (Scratches the words "STOP STALLING" on the missile's side and throws it heavenwards where it's intercepted by Koro-Sensei's flight path)

Saitama: (Reads the rocket message) Better do what he says.  I've been trying to tell you not to bother, and leave him to me.
Koro-Sensei: But that guy scares me more than you can possibly imagine!
Saitama: Rather than focus on him, you should've focused on fighting me.
Koro-Sensei: You mean after this, you still want to fight me???
Saitama: If you'd spent as much time avoiding your homework as you did on doing your homework...
Koro-Sensei: Don't lecture me about responsibility!

Yujiro: (Looks up) Hmmm!  He's doing better than I thought!  (Raises his arms and flexes until his shirt rips, exposing his bare chest)
(Squirrel Girl's Deadpool card beeps with new information)
  • When he contorts the face of the demon on his back, that's when he's getting serious!  RUN AWAY.

(Saitama is entering the atmosphere with incredible velocity, catching fire, while still retaining his composure, looking slightly bored)
(Koro-Sensei is looking utterly terrified)
(Yujiro is still smiling maniacally, standing still on the field)
(The impact creates a fountain of dirt and dust spreading everywhere)

Report account of events from Squirrel Girl later:

Squirrel Girl: How would I describe Yujiro Hanma?  Well... how do I put it?  He's a cheater.  There's really no other way to describe him, really.  No, I'm not going to stay silent!  Don't act so nervous!  You're going to hear what I have to say, whether you like it or not!
Interviewer:  (Resignedly) It's your funeral...
Squirrel Girl: When the octopus teacher with Saitama clashed with the Rictus Grin fighter, there was a massive burst, as if somebody set off a dozen charges of explosives underneath for dramatic effect.  On first sight, it looked like both parties disintegrated upon impact.  But the reality of what actually happened was stupiderthan you'd think.

(Squirrel Girl is carrying several squirrels who are fanning away the excessive dust with their tails)
Squirrel Girl: Okay, anybody still moving?  I know that explosion didn't hurt anybody.
(The dust clears to reveal Koro-Saitama with his fist buried in the Earth, while Yujiro stands several meters away)

Squirrel Girl: What are you doing all the way over there?  I thought you weren't going to move from that spot?
Yujiro: That's what I said. And I didn't - the Earth moved.
(Sees the patch of land Yujiro dug around with his foot)
Squirrel Girl: You kicked your spot away with your heel before Saitama landed?!  That's cheating!
Yujiro: Don't be such a sore loser.  And besides, you've read the situation wrong.  Before impact, I countered by striking a jab, while ALSO making a roundhouse blow.  But even countering that excessive force wasn't enough to keep the unsturdy patch of land firmly rooted to this spot.
Squirrel Girl: In other words, you hit them before they hit you.
Yujiro: Considering how fast they were going, it's a wonder I wasn't blown away further.

(Koro-Saitama pulls his arm out of the crater)
Yujiro: Well, now that we're all done getting warming up, let's move on to the main event.
(Yujiro rushes into Koro-Saitama's zone, executing and trading multiple blows that are easily parried and shrugged off)
Yujiro: Weak.  So weak.  It's amazing how unbelievably WEAK you are.
Squirrel Girl: (Looking puzzled)  I was evenly matched against Saitama while wearing the Koro-suit.  And Yujiro's keeping pace?  Something's not right here.
Yujiro: (turns to Squirrel Girl while still in the volley of trading punches, kicks and feints)  You seem to be misunderstanding something.  It's not that his punches have become stronger.  (Grabs hold of Koro-Sensi's head)  It's that this damned octopus is getting in the way!
Koro-Sensei: I am?
Yujiro: Rather than amplifying your techniques, you're actually Restraining Saitama's strength.  He's worried that if he tries any harder, he'll wind up unintentionally hurting you.
Koro-Sensei: Well, that's rather kind of -
Yujiro: As I said before, WEAK.  A REAL man wouldn't be concerned with surrounding himself with burdensome tools.  (Squeezes Koro-Sensei's head)  If you really want to help out, stand aside, and let this matter be settled between two men.
Koro-Sensei: Gladly!!  (Slips out of Yujiro's hand the instant he relaxes his grip)  Go ahead!  Fight to your heart's content!

Yujiro: (Smirks and raises his arms) Now that all annoying restraints have gotten out of the way, we can finally start fighting seriously!
Saitama: Sure, as soon as you start fighting seriously yourself.
Yujiro: Are you implying I've been holding myself back this whole time?
Saitama: I wouldn't be surprised, considering how mundane your previous opponents must've been.
Yujiro: (Snarling) Coming from anybody else, that'd be an insult.  Honestly, you're not as much fun as I'd hoped you'd be.  You're barely responsive!
Saitama: Yeah, I've been let down so many times from guys who claimed they were the strongest, and then turned out to be total crybabies.  You're not going to run away, are you?
Yujiro: I'm no battle junkie!  I can quit fighting anytime I want to!  I just don't want to.
(Yujiro launches an air-shattering punch which Saitama casually catches)
Saitama: You threw a punch.  That means -
(Yujiro follows up with a kick, using Saitama's clutch on his fist as leverage)
Saitama: (Looks unaffected) I wasn't finished -
Yujiro: (Continuing landing blows) The fight has now officially started!  No backing off now!
(Saitama throws a punch, which misses Yujiro, destroying the mountaintop in the process)
Yujiro: Not bad, but I could do better!  (Plunges his arm in a nearby stream, sending waves that ripple along the path, until they burst out throughout the mountaintop, showering the region in dirt)  Let's see you beat that!!
Saitama: Quit it.  The Earth isn't your opponent, I am.
Yujiro: (Pulls on the grass like it was a carpet, flipping Saitama upside down) Collateral Damage!
(Yujiro rushes in, attacking Saitama's backside, which is being blocked from behind)
Yujiro: For a self-taught fighter who's never been in a dirty fight, you're doing quite well!
Saitama: Thank you, that's quite the compliment.
Yujiro: (Spins upside down) But if it were me, I'd use every advantage at my disposal, like this!  (Kicks Saitama to the ground)
(Saitama recovers instantly, punching Yujiro's midair position... who just deftly lands on Saitama's fist)
Yujiro: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  You're STILL holding back!  (Kick's Saitama's face to no effect)  Don't insult me by taking it easy on me!
Saitama: And I'm saying I haven't started fighting yet!

Koro-Sensei: (Yelling) You guys are both nuts!!
(The two of them pause briefly to look at Koro-Sensei)
Koro-Sensei: It's so easy for you to destroy something.  Creating something of worth is much harder.  Anybody can take a sledgehammer to their ideals.  The real masters are those who chisel their way into submission.  Sure, it'd take much longer to create a masterpiece in the process, but at least you'd have the sense of accomplishing something that'd test the strands of time.
Saitama: Well, that's that.  You win.
Koro-Sensei: What?   Really??? Just like that???
Saitama: I'd never be able to say something that poignant today.
Koro-Sensei: If I'd known I could've stopped you with simple philosophy, I would've talked long ago.
Saitama: Wouldn't matter.  You still talk too much.  So, are you still going to destroy the Earth?
Koro-Sensei: That depends on whether Yujiro'll do that first.
Saitama: Don't worry.  He's not gonna hunt down somebody he just admitted was too weak for his taste.
Koro-Sensei: What about you?
Saitama: He's strong, but I have no real reason to fight him.
(The two of them walk off, leaving Yujiro standing all alone, looking perplexed)

Yujiro: Is he kidding?  Does he think destroying the human body with your bare hands is EASY??  Do you have any idea how long it took me to be able to effortlessly curb-stomp anyone into submission? (Turns to Squirrel Girl) I'm gonna relieve my stress by taking it out on you!
Squirrel Girl: Sorry, but I don't like the idea of being sloppy seconds.  You can tell everybody that you fought against the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl to a draw.  Nobody would ever have to know the truth.
Yujiro: But *I* would know that!!!
Squirrel Girl: Tough nuts.
Yujiro: Well, who's going to suffer my wrath then?!
Squirrel Girl: (Looks at her watch) Just wait five more seconds.
Yujiro: Five...?
(An explosion of dirt erupts nearby, sending dirt and trees flying everywhere)
(Within the debris arises a bulky pale creature with tightly stitched seams all over its body, atop a crimson curved head)
Muscularly Bulky Creature: For too long, my brethren have been mercilessly pounded upon without remorse!  I am Punching Bag Man!  But now, I'll exact righteous vengeance upon the foolish creatures that've relentlessly pounded upon my people!  And it's all thanks to this foolish squirrel who chewed away the seals surrounding my prison!
Yujiro: (Stares with bloodlust in his eyes) YOU'LL DO.
(Squirrel Girl casually watches the ensuing carnage while eating peanuts like popcorn)
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Secret Easter Eggs

March 1, 2016, 5:36 pm
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The title of this month's theme might be a little early, but considering how have holiday Easter display around Valentine in the same vein as putting up Christmas decorations before Halloween's over, it's not too far-fetched.
That cloud looks like a large gray cricket playing the kazoo!How many times have I told you not to eat grass?

You're making a wish?
Kinda, yeah.
What'd you ask for?
Oop!!
Change for a buck!

Height Limit
Queen Mary II
The secret of Percé Rock
This last one may need some further explanation.  The Percé Rock is a Montreal tourist landmark, famed for its unique limestone hole.  A sort of natural aquatic Arche de Triomphe.
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Blog Takedown Fear

March 4, 2016, 10:33 pm
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Last month, I received an alarming notification - one of my articles had somehow triggered a DMCA complaint and violated some kind of copyright infringement.  (Emphasis mine)
"Content that may infringe copyright has been discovered on the post(s) listed below, and it or they are now in "draft" status. You have three options: 
You may edit the post(s) to remove the offending content and republish, at which point the edited post(s) will again be visible to your readers.
You can delete the draft post(s). 
If you believe the post(s) do not infringe copyright, please fill out the form here: and we will evaluate your request. 
DO NOT republish the post(s) as-is. If it is brought to our attention that you have republished the post without removing the content/link in question, then we will delete your post and count it as a violation on your account. Repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in further remedial action taken against your Blogger account including deleting your blog and/or terminating your account. 
Sincerely,
The Blogger Team"
Despite the fact that the majority of my posts involve reprints of long-lost Sunday comics, and borrowed elements from easily available stuff online, I was flummoxed as to what specific element of my controversial post had upset someone.  I sent a reasonable request to the blog moderator to find out what the exact nature of the complaint was.  If it was a specific sentence I'd written, I would've gladly changed it, journalistic standards be damned.  After several days agonizing over the best way to respond under 1000 words or less, I decided to go the direct honesty route:
"I'm curious as to the exact nature of the complaint. It's a REDACTED of a REDACTED that I thought deserved wider recognition. If I knew what the problem was, I could make the necessary modifications. I suspect the problem was having the link available on the front page. If that's all, then that's easily remedied. 
I've never had a problem with any of my other comic posts until now."

Though the available link was no longer on my front page (a side effect of having it reverted back to draft form)  I figured that it was probably an unintended consequence of having it openly linked as one of my favorite posts on my front page; but without the link being available anymore, I couldn't be entirely sure.  (I'm not linking it here, out of the vague fear that it could potentially backlisted against me)  I then received what amounted to little more than a form response: (emphasis again, mine)
"Hello, 
At this time, Google has decided not to take action based on our policies concerning content removal and reinstatement. We encourage you to review the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for more information about the DMCA."
I did some perfunctory research online to see if any other bloggers out there had received warnings of this nature, and found out that the specific nature of said warning is to discourage pirates from filesharing and outright plagiarizing material for profitable use.  Since I did neither of those to the article involved, I could only conclude that the most likely culprit was that my post had the unfortunate result of having collected keywords designed to attract attention that somehow rubbed the wrong way.  Furthermore, the sheer amount of blog material out there would make it almost impossible for moderators to specifically target bloggers, save for the most outrageous offenders.  Even so, I was cautioned against putting my post back up, lest the authorities find out and use it against me again.

The prospect of losing my entire blog with all my writings (which I hadn't bothered to save elsewhere) was too frightening for me, so before I made the move to bring it back, I decided to back up all my previous posts, going back over Five Hundred articles of varying length over a span of five years.  But before I backed them up, I wanted to enlargen the images first.  When I initially started out, I was hesitant to use too many images, since there was a finite memory supply, and I wanted to ration the most useful posts for later.  Then, sometime in late 2012, image memory was no longer an issue, and I could post as many pictures as I wanted without fear of running out of space.
As an example, here's a resizing from the June Fbofw Calendar.
The added image memory also meant that size wouldn't be restricted to thumbnails, and clicking them to view the larger pictures wouldn't be necessary to get the jokes.  But that only applied for future articles, not my past posts, which would have to be manually changed.  I can understand why not very many bloggers would want to go to the trouble of making their earlier stuff easier to read, since there's a rather low probability that their archives would be worth plunging into, in favor of more recent stuff.  What particularly struck me while going through my archives was how much more comprehensive and in-depth my early writing was.  Ranging from an amusing description of a reverse-gendered Twilight werewolf Manga, to cartoony reaction shots, to parodic apocalyptic games, to recommending worthy European Comics, to making Archie worse in context.  An annoying (and unavoidable) feature was that some of my old Youtube links had expired, and I couldn't find suitable replacements for some of them.
While this may not look much different from the first image,
note that I've clicked on the Large image size, though the picture remains essentially the same.
I'm also something of a vicarious perfectionist, not wanting to save what amounts to a hastily written badly spelled rough draft.  While others save-scum multiple times every time they write a sentence, I prefer to go on lengthy writing sprees until I get all my thoughts down first.  There's a thrilling and terrifying window between seeing how much information I can jot down before I run the risk of having all my previously transcribed thoughts removed from memory.  It probably seems counter-intuitive, but I hadn't made any backup files of any of my written stuff before now.  I ascribe it to something similar to a gambler's high, where betters feel confident while having a spectacularly lucky streak, and wanting to see how high they can get before the statistical reality goes against them and sends it all crashing down.  I've kept to this mentality despite past threats of numerous power failures and computer meltdowns.
After I've chosen a different picture size, I went back to Original Size,
resulting in this extra-enlarged picture that stretches past the border.
When it came to actually saving the various posts, it was somewhat different from the seemingly easy instructions.  Saving my blog only saved the template, which I haven't changed much from the select few available options.  (I'm not much of a technological innovator, and am somewhat of a luddite when introduced to new technologies)  After finding out the proper procedure, I ran into another complication - I didn't particularly like the save function involved, which required clicking onto every single individual post I'd written, and either e-mailing them to myself, or another individual.  Instead, I opted to right-click the whole page, choose the "Save as" option, and save the entire Webpage there for every month I'd written.
After making sure that the image was back to its larger dimensions,
I chose X-Large to put the picture back to more reasonable viewing level.
The only flaw with this plan was that some articles of mine that I'd done were so long that they reduced the natural boundaries for a typical 10-post viewing on a single page.  So, my early years where I had multiple articles in a month required multiple savings of the same month.  Especially annoying were those where I was off by one or two posts, and needed to save those separately.  Another flaw was that this didn't account for the few posts that I'd put behind a cut to save on space, and those posts needed their individual pages.  The pictures at least are now of larger size, if considerably reduced to readable thumbnails.

If this blog disappears shortly after, you'll have some idea of the Draconian nature that rules the online world.
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Symbolic Anime Openings

March 8, 2016, 8:10 pm
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When I first started watching fansubbed Anime, I was a little surprised and annoyed by how long the opening song was.  They seemed to be taking their sweet time getting the show started.  Just when I thought the song seemed to be winding down, it would suddenly resurge with another stanza.  Compared to typical cartoon openings which last around 30 seconds, a typical Anime opening can go upwards between 1 and 1/2 minutes to two minutes long.  Once I knew how long they were, I used this diversion to take quick drinking fountain breaks.  Then, gradually over time, like Seinfeld's jingle of ♪Cost-stanza♪, I began to enjoy these poetic renderings, since they were the closest thing to Music Videos that I could appreciate.*

It's a strange thing, knowing that you're irrevocably divided by a chasm between yourself and pop culture, and being unable to bridge that gap for unavoidable reasons.  Weirdly enough, I was able to greatly enjoy the fansubbed lyrics to many 80's Anime openings and ending theme songs, despite never having any access to pop music, and my only prior experience being cartoon openings like Ducktales and Garfield & Friends.  And just like other music fans whose tastes are hopelessly mired in the era they grew up in, convinced that their musical age was the best, and today's latest pop songs are just cranked out junk, I greatly preferred those to the lyrics pumped out in later years.  (I appreciate a few songs here and there, like Durarara!'s ending song, Trust Me, but the majority aren't catchy enough)  Though to be perfectly fair, ALL music is noise to me.  I just pay attention to the English text, and don't pay much attention to the Japanese lyrics.  Some of my old-school favorites include Nadesico, Maze: The Mega-Burst Space, and Yawara! a Fashionable Judo Girl.

Normally, I can't stand poetic renderings, since I'm unable to appreciate the lyrical flow of words, and I'm impatient for the poet to simply get to the point.  But if these flowery lines were peppered with moving images, chances are I'd be more interested.  Some people have esoteric collection of items that aren't normally collected, such as stamps and bottle caps.  My hobby was collecting fansubbed Anime openings/endings.

Since I had a limited amount of items I could borrow from the Anime club library, I was more willing to take out videos I'd never seen, rather than waste my weekly slot with a video I'd already seen.  For the most part, this meant trying to transcribe the lyrics as they were coming down on the screen, and revising them from memory.  I would have hastily scribbled down notes of what I was able to remember, and try to fill in the gaps of some of the longer sentences that would sometimes flash by in the span of half a second.  (Not counting misspellings and punctuation)  What I SHOULD have done was make VHS copies of the opening and ending themes for posterity, but I lacked the courage and fortitude to do so.  There WAS a tape from another Anime club that managed to put together a collection of various Anime openings for promoting their club, but when I later inquired about this video, the members said that it'd broke.  I've often lamented not taking advantage of this when I had the chance.

Typically, when commercial Anime is brought over, they're generally chopped down from their lengthy running time to a shorter number with a generally catchy theme song.  The Japanese DragonBall Z opening lyrics for instance, was changed from hope and blue wind to the more repetitive Dragon, Dragon, Rock the Dragon.  But even for a Martial Arts brawler, there were instances of surprising imagery.

This confusing collection of meshed wires was later cleared up with the outline of an arm, surrounding arteries and veins.

But that's just an example of surreal imagery that eventually becomes clear seconds later.  The real challenge comes not from teasing previews of characters that haven't shown up yet; but from symbolic imagery that isn't obvious at first sight.  Usually when symbolism in Anime is discussed, it's more along the usage of images in the show itself, such as the various random events in Revolutionary Girl Utena or Serial Experiments Lain.

Using DragonBall Z again, the action goes as would be expected.  Then, at the 0:55 mark, there are what look like three teardrops of blood, slowly descending to the ground.  This is quickly forgotten with the next series of unrelated images, but then perplexingly, shown again later, at 1:39, lower this time, before erupting into a volcanic shower, and the main cast shows up for their dramatic pose.

Unless you were already familiar with the mechanics of the Manga, you wouldn't know that these red drops were likely representative of the Saiyan spaceship capsules they used to travel in.  The fact that all three don't arrive at once isn't important - just the presence of one is enough to shake the mechanics of the typical status quo of the DragonBall world with implications that couldn't be possibly imagined.  This is sandwiched between images of Gohan cheerfully running and gliding with his father, most commonly seen in the closing credits for the American version.

In fact, there's a fair number of Anime openings that feature lead characters flying through the air, even though that's not their defining feature or power.  Azuma, a baker from Yakitate! Japan is seen gleefully jumping out an open window in the second opening.  Most likely, instances of characters jumping off sheer precipices are left out in American releases, so as to discourage small children from emulating Superman.
Don't try this at home, kids.
One thing that I didn't expect that when these fansubbed titles would be officially licensed was that the translation attempts would be considerably condensed for a more general audience not accustomed to reading loads of text on the screen.  Unlike the majority of music fans who pine for recordings they heard in their youth, I have no equivalent access to viewing my nostalgic songs, since I still greatly favor the fansubs to the commercial version, faults and all.  It's not like I can simply download the musical recording to get the same effect - I need the yellow subtitles in conjunction with the Anime opening.  And finding those clips is becoming increasingly difficult when the few available videos keep getting taken down.

I'm still upset over the butchering done to the opening to Vampire Princess Miyu.  As if covering up the Japanese text wasn't bad enough, they somehow decided to go further by reducing the silhouettes of Shinma (Monster of the week) from twelve to four.  (Preferably choosing those who weren't covered by Japanese credits)

But another comparable sin is making Anime openings less diverse rather than faithful to the source material.  If you look at most Japanese openings, there are moments of contemplation, wistfulness and pondering in addition to general cheerfulness.   But all American Anime openings want to focus on is the action.  Changing the theme songs for merchandise-driven titles such as Pokemon and Digimon is understandable, since their targeted audience is young children, but changing openings for Anime with an older audience is somewhat insulting.

An example would be Grappler Baki, the most over-the-top fighting Manga (that's STILL ongoing after the "climatic" rematch with his father).  For some reason, the Funimation opening decided not to show the majority of the original, relying instead on clips from various episodes, and left out the sensual images of Baki's mother, in a series that mainly focuses on manly men beating each other up.  The Yasha ape gets more attention than she does.
This was never going to be shown on Television,
so why bother self-censoring themselves?
Then, shortly after her face fades out, there's quick succession shots of a lone rose lying on the ground, a foot crushing it, and a close-up of Yujiro Hanma's sneering face.

This doesn't mean much for a new viewer who's just getting their feet wet, but this imagery doesn't become clear until SPOILER ALERT! Yujiro kills Baki's mother from saving her son from his father's wrath.
When the episode finally plays itself out, there's a growing sense of comprehension of what the subtle imagery was trying to convey.  Once the painful connection is made, the reason for her showing up suddenly makes sense.

If American Animation is about Motion, then Japanese Animation is about Emotion.  There's even a company logo based on that very premise, with stone-faced Moai statues, natch.

Of course, that's just an overt example of what's eventually shown.  Not all shows are privy to that, and the failed attempt at Science Fiction,   Lost Universe certainly comes to mind.  Hajime Kanzaka had success with his humourous Fantasy series, Slayers, but Lost Universe was plagued with production problems from the start.  Several early episodes were lost in a fire, resulting in rushed production jobs to play catch-up, and resulted the infamous Beach episode, which still connotes negative comparisons today.  The lack of advance time could explain why the original opening included the appearance of two individualistic villains near the end, who wind up being less than important, and amounted to little more than cameo appearances.

Excluding two bit players could be understandable, as not to delude audiences of dashed expectations, but there were other contrarian instances that were more interesting.  Throughout the opening, shortly after seeing Chibi ornament plushies, we're treated to various items: a Sewing machine, a locket, a cherry blossom tree in front of a house, the sewing machine again, then various pictures of what's likely the protagonist being hugged by his mother.  These are very personal objects not suited for interplanetary travel.

Most likely, there was going to be an alluded longing for childhood and his home, but that was never apparent in the narrative, which opted instead, for typical space exploration and group shenanigans.  However, even if they'd opted for going the emotionally honest route, Lost Universe wouldn't have worked anyways.  The humour was mostly flat, and the ship's ditzy Holographic Maid couldn't possibly compare to Voyager's more charismatic Holographic Doctor.

I'm sure there've been other Anime openings with symbolism in them, but I'm not aware of other titles that've been roughly edited as these two.  Having these scenes removed by dumbing down the material ruins the subtext somewhat.  Not having everything spelled out and explained is what makes the alluded background interesting.

*Another complaint I have is when certain series are brought over to DVD, they don't bother to label the lyrics to the songs (unless they're close-captioned) leaving me wondering what I'm missing out on.  Apart from Weird Al's Patterns for the Edutainment Math show Square One TV, I've never experienced the enjoyment of understanding a Weird Al song, save maybe the lines to Jurassic Park, which was present in an issue of MAD.  Sure, I could look up the lyrics online, but have you ever tried to match lyrics to a song sight unseen?  Chances are, the tempo and rhythm would be totally different from what you'd expect.**

**Oh, and another thing, to further add insult to injury, Foreign languages will also be transcribed as "Speaking French/Italian/Spanish/Russian/Japanese" without giving me any clue to the words being said.  I know I wouldn't be able to understand it, but I'd still like a transcript, since I could make out the general gist from words here and there.
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Coffee, Tea and Yea

March 13, 2016, 9:13 pm
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When it comes to pick-me-ups, none convey this more than a cup of pitch-black coffee.  For most people, having a drink of this devil's brew is oftentimes, is the only thing that gets them up in the morning.  An acquaintance of mine who works from early in the morning to late at night keeps his energy up by downing triple-booster caffeine energy drinks to keep him wired.

On the other hand, I avoid conveying the typical writer cliche, since I generally avoid consuming coffee in the first place.  Neither coffee or cigarettes appeal to me - both are simply too smelly for me to concentrate.  And I can barely sip soda drinks without recoiling from the fizzy sensation, let alone attempt to down any beverages.  (I am absolutely terrified of losing my inhibitions after years of keeping my overreactions in control)  A simple dose of chocolate is all the caffeine input I need to keep my energy up.

Of course, despite all warnings about how dangerous consuming large doses of coffee is, people who are busy busy busy have a hard time cutting back on their production without increasing their intake to include Ritalin and tea in the mix, which is understandable, given my selective ignorance on chocolate not being healthy.  (Even now, you're actively avoiding the link on Valentine's chocolate)  For the few brave souls who've decided to wean off to more reasonable rates and quitting altogether, as a gradual cold turkey, they find alternatives in staying awake and being motivated.

It's actually very hard for me to make recommendations for a drink I actively avoid, but my mother has been brewing a morning brew for herself that's something she takes pride in.  Recently, she showed her recipe to someone, and I took the opportunity to ask how she made this cheap procedure for making your own home-made Soy Mocha Latte with the following ingredients:

  • A pot of coffee already prepared
  • A large coffee mug
  • Skim Milk - accept no substitutes!
  • Chocolate Soy Milk
  • One microwave
  • One battery-charged frother

First, you get your coffee mug and fill it with 1/4 Skim Milk.  It HAS to be Skim Milk, and no other.  2%, 1% and even rice milk won't work as well for the frothing later.  Fat by itself simply doesn't froth.

Once your milk is in your mug, put it in the microwave until it's warm.  This will be dependent on the type of microwave you have, which will likely vary.  My parents have been using the same microwave for over thirty-five years, and it still works.  But it hasn't gone through such a long period of avoiding planned obsolescence without suffering a few knocks - the opening knob's held on with scotch tape, and some of the numbered buttons wouldn't work.  A repairman came over to fix the wiring... and wound up making things WORSE - now, only the "3", "6", "8", "9", "0" and "Start" buttons still work.  The "Clear" and "Time" buttons work too, but those are less essential than being able to warm up our bread in the morning.  And every time we suffer a power failure, or have to change the time due to Daylight Savings / Wasting Time, we have to wait until 3:00, 3:03, 3:06, 3:08, 3:09, 3:30, 3:33, 3:36, 3:38, 3:39, or 6:00, 6:03, 6:06, 6:08, 6:09, 6:30, 6:33, 6:36, 6:38, 6:39, 8:00... (you get the idea) before we can get the time right.

And that's only step one!  Moving on to step two!

Once your skim milk is warmed up, next comes the task of frothing the milk to a fine lather.  Normally, this would be done by using an extra-large cappuccino machine costing in the realm of $60-8000.  However, my parents weren't too crazy about having what amounted to another coffee machine taking up valuable space in the kitchen, and found a cheaper alternative from using a battery-charged handheld milk frother for just $5-10.  Plus tax.

Using this electric toothbrush-like device in the middle, you spin the Skim Milk at the bottom with a hearty FZOOOONT until you've built up a nice head of foam.

After that, you add 1/4 Chocolate Soy Milk to the mix, and put it back into the microwave again, until it's hot.

Then, once your concoction's hot and ready, you fill the remainder of the empty mug space with coffee until it's full.  The froth will rise to the top and avoid being spilled over.

If done correctly, you should have something along the lines of this:
Yes, that's a beer mug there.
If done incorrectly, chances are you used milk that was likely past the expiration date.  Get some regular skim milk not found in the bargain section of the store and try again.  Drinking with a straw is highly recommended to avoid getting a face full of foam.

Sprinkling cinnamon or chocolate powder on the frothing for extra taste is optional, though the froth sinks upon itself as a result of the extra weight.

After that, all that's left is to take a sip, and see if you want to try doing it again.
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