New artwork by Rick Celis: Andromeda in the comic shop!

Today I present to you the latest artwork by Rick Celis! Now when it comes to shopping, there's nothing I like more than shopping for comics!

Well, actually I like shopping for clothes first, then shoes... but comics are a strong and close third!

 I know what some of my GFs are thinking, but I have to disagree. Shopping for accessories such as jewelry, purses, and the like are actually fourth on my list of favorite shopping activities. As for shopping for make-up and hygiene products (soap and shampoos, that is) and the like - heck I actually would prefer to do the laundry, because a lot of that crap's expensive! That's why I buy that stuff at Wal-Mart!  But I digress..........

Know what I like most about the artwork below?  It's all the covers of actual comics!  How many can you name?  This is what a comic shop looks like.  I love it!  You're probably wondering why the comic shop owner is glaring angrily at me.  Well - it's because I've pulled aside so many comics.  In his mind, he's thinking, "Is she gonna buy all that, or is that half an afternoon that I'm going to spend getting off of my ass and putting them all back?"  By the way, do all comic shop owners look like that?  It seems to be a commonality.  Maybe it's a job requirement or something.

Anyway, This is a great artwork demonstrating the love of comics that I've been saying that I have for all this time.  I especially love the fact that the artwork looks like it should be in a comic book!  Once in a while, I like to go to the section with the back issues of comics or graphic novels and flip through those to see if I find something that I missed before.  When I find a good one, it's like finding buried treasure!  If I really enjoy it, then I'll look for other back issues. 

Thanks so much Rick!  This is so nicely done, and the actual comic covers are a bonus!   Whoohoo!  I'm still working on figuring out all the comic covers.  Don't tell me - I want to find out myself!  This is like giving candy to a kid!  :-D

Oh, one last thing, everyone.  On the side of the comics shelving is Rick's own character, Hazelel, wearing Hulk gloves!  How cool is that?  LOL

WotI #3 page 20 - a startling approach

On page 20 (posted below) of the latest War of the Independents (#3), the character El Gato Negro broaches a topic that is rarely brought up in comics - mainly because a vast majority of comic artists and writers are of a liberal bent, and usually of the kind that not only look unfavorably upon Christians, but some are downright hateful and hostile.  This does not occur here with EGN's discussion with the character Atomika. 

Before I continue, let me say that this is the first time I've seen Atomika, so I don't know anything about him, but I did find this site.  Because I don't know Atomika, this means that I don't know how significant it was for EGN to be having this particular discussion with him.  Anyway, I have to admit that I was a bit startled to see such - unhateful - discussion taking place about Jesus that didn't start out or eventually devolve into a venomous spiel about the evils of Christians and Christianity.

I had to think about what word to use there, and "startled" was the best I could come up with, because it was that unexpected.  I then had to think if that was a good thing or bad thing.  Had I become that accustomed to hearing only bad things about Christians and Christianity; even in the genre that I love?  Have the left-leaning writers and artists not only of comics, but other entertainment media drifted so far into pushing their ugly attitudes about Christianity into their entertainment creations that we now expect it?  I can't say anything other than yes, because that's the only explanation that I could come up with for my startled reaction.  Understand that like any huge fan of comics, I love plot twists and turns, but this was wholly unexpected to the point of being startling.

The thing is friends, I am fully accustomed to hearing angry, hateful, and hostile things being said about Christianity, because that was the attitudes that my Marxist parents had about Christians.  To my parents, Christians are lowbrow knuckle-dragging troglodytes that are barely literate and intelligent.  My exposure to these sorts of attitudes continued into the schools I went to and even into college.  This is the norm for me, in other words.  How I ended up being a Christian is really a tale for another time, but even after my conversion, I still expect to hear ugly things about Christianity in everything I read - even in comics.  As Christians, we expect it.  Not necessary accept it, but we expect it. 

Think about how ingrained these attitudes are.  When was the last time you heard anyone complain about how the Lord's name is taken in vain in all our entertainment media?  How many times have you heard G** damn - even in comics?  Any other faith system will get the "be respectful, open-minded, and tolerant" treatment from the left, but when it comes to Christianity (and sometimes Judaism), all that goes out the door and they feel fully entitled to unburden themselves of the worst sorts of ugliness that they can come up with - and boy, at times they let their imaginations and sick fantasies run wild!

For example, last year on Bill Maher's show, even NOW had to weigh in on one of his guests stating that he hopes that Michele Bachmann's husband "fucks her angrily" (apologies for the f-bomb, but I thought you should read it as it was said).  Can you imagine such rape fantasies being expressed publicly about Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, or Barbara Streisand, and it being allowed to slide? 

However you feel about Bachmann and her views, that was a pathetic and disgusting thing for Maher's guest to say about her, and yet these hateful attitudes are so ingrained in our society that it got barely a peep from the left - and it certainly didn't spark anything like the sort of outrage that came out of them over the Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke issue.  I think Maher's guest hoping that Bachmann's husband "fucks her angrily" would warrant a more outspoken reaction from the left than Limbaugh calling Fluke a slut, but I guess that's just me.

This illustrates how far we've come in accepting hateful attitudes towards Christians and Christianity.  It's gotten to the point that I was actually shocked to see something positive being said.  And for that, I feel very sad for our country, our entertainment media, and for the state of our educational system that has fallen so far in how it educates our students.  I feel disappointed, like I should be doing more, because what have I done besides bringing it up on my blog and on FB?

I also think that those on the left who do truly adhere to the ideal of being open-minded, tolerant, and respectful towards others should do more to speak out against the sorts of ugliness that comes from their side of the aisle.  I truly believe that there are more of them out there than we know who are disappointed and maybe even angry over the hostility that their fellow ideologues have for Christianity, but for some reason, they can't muster the courage to say so; probably because they risk getting labeled as a "closet conservative" and thus will lose all cred with their liberal kind (not to mention being fatal to their career ambitions). 

The barbarians have taken over the marketplace of ideas, and those of us on both sides of the aisle who hate this turn of events seem to be able to do nothing more than vent about it on the Internet. And here I catch myself being startled about a page in a comic book that exposed to me how much I've accepted this, and it leaves me feeling ashamed - because I feel that I am failing to do more to defend the faith that I say I love.  And that's where I'm at right now; asking myself "Now that I have come to this realization, what shall I do next?"  Well, I guess the first step is to blog about it!  LOL

Friends, this is why I love comics.  A lot of people out  there think of comics being just for kids, but those who think that way are those who haven't read comics since they were kids.  Comics today broach all kinds of adult topics.  Comics can encourage, inspire - and yes, even startle - just as much as any other entertainment media.  To the creative staff of WotI, I say "thank you", from one comic nerd to another, for making me fall in love with comics all over again.  :-)

As for the discussion in WotI that is at the center of my own discussion in this blog post, I will say that I am curious as to what direction it goes from here.   Again, I don't know anything about Atomika, so I don't know how significant his discussion is with EGN.  EGN has previously expressed his Catholic faith in the past, waay back in his origin story (yes, I have that book, thanks to the boss!).  It's good to see that he still is a faithful Catholic, so kudos to EGN's creator, Richard Dominguez, for keeping him that way.

I will say that if Atomika did know Jesus back in the day, then I think that he probably would have seen him as one of many "Messiahs" of that time that had gained popularity and then lost it.  Jesus might have drawn at least some interest because of his miracles, but then being crucified would have "sealed the deal" in Atomika's mind as to how genuine he was in being the Messiah.  Who has ever heard of a Messiah being executed - much less crucified as the common criminals were at that time?

It would have been very easy for Atomika to dismiss Jesus after that, but how would he explain how his followers continued to evangelize their crucified prophet, and how they kept getting followers after that?  There's a disconnect here, because if Atomika is immortal, then he would have seen the rise of Christianity a long time ago, and yet he tells EGN simply that "your God is dead".  Perhaps this will be explained in future issues.  Anyway, I love it when comics make me think.  :-)

And again I say to you all, go Occupy Marvel and DC by buying these WotI comics!  Show support for the 99% of the comic artists and writers who get left out of the "1%" that are the Big Two!   Support the Indys! 

Super bras and bra ninjas!

At the Department of Superhuman Studies where I work, we have a clothing designer who also happens to be superhuman.  His code name is Alloy, and his power is the ability to combine materials that can't otherwise be combined and make an all new substance that has the property of both. For instance, he can combine cotton cloth with something like steel to make steel cloth, which has the softness of cotton but the sturdiness of steel.

He makes all the costumes of the superhumans who work for the DDS, including the virtually indestructible one that I wear.  Anyway, I am going to send the comic strip below to Alloy, so that he can make that bra for me!  LOL  (from the webcomic, Wapsi Square By the way, the ninja in the comic is a bra ninja! LOL)

New art by Daemion Elias George-Cox (insert giddy, gleeful girly sounds)

Well hello!  Look below what I found on my FB wall!

It's an artwork by Daemion Elias George-Cox, who had previously done a variant costume almost two years ago.  Just like the last time that he did an artwork of me, this one also came out of the blue.  And I tell you, I love nice surprises like this!  Apparently what prompted this artwork is the fact that I've had the same profile pic for awhile.  Has it been really that long since I rotated out my profile pic?  LOL

During the time that I've been FB friends with Daemion, I've watched his artwork progress from awesome to - well, more awesome!  I really enjoy it when he posts new artworks to his FB wall, and they're a real treat, especially when he switches from one art style to another like I would change shoes and continues to amaze.  And now, I get to see myself done the Damo style!  Whoohoo!

Check out this art.  I love the fact that the face doesn't look drawn, it looks sculpted!  And the hair is so thick and flowing that I feel like I could run my fingers through it.  And the earrings are lovely!  What I find so fascinating about this is that it looks like a frozen piece of animation.  I'm waiting for the eyes to blink and for the hair to move like the wind is blowing in the face.  Oh, and for the earrings to be moving to the wind, dangling and sparkling as the sun hits it at the right angles.   It's like he snapped a photograph of me as I stood there posing.  I love it!

But along with that is the use of negative space around the cleavage hole in my costume.  This gives the artwork a touch of elegance.  You have that white hairband at the top being balanced by the white negative space at the bottom of the artwork.  And the shoulders frame the cleavage hole so that it doesn't look like it's just floating out there.  Folks, you are looking at a lesson in art in the use of negative space! 

Daemion, thank you SO much, my friend.  I'm genuinely flattered that you would do this for me.  It is my sincere prayer that you get all that you aim for in your art career.  You so deserve it!  (By the way, is it me, or does your name seem to get longer each time I see it? LOL)

And now to post this to my FB album!  :-D

Review of The Avengers

The Avengers is rule-breaking for me in two ways:  For one, I saw it in the theater.  Regular readers to my blog know that I tend to stay away from theaters because I don't want to reward Hollywood for putting out overdone, over-hyped, and ultimately shoddy films.  However, the reactions I was hearing from varying and different sources were so in the positive that I decided to forgo this rule and see it in the theater.

It was also rule-breaking for me in that I saw it in 3D.  Normally I don't see movies in 3D because I feel that it's Hollywood's way to squeezing out even more of our money for a movie that didn't really need it.  In fact, I think most movies in 3D nowadays don't need it.  Toy Story 3 was an example of this.  I got talked into seeing it in 3D, and I was upset with myself afterwards for having wasted my money!  LOL  Anyway, The Avengers is worth seeing in 3D. 

Okay, now for the obligatory:

******WARNING! Spoiler alert!******
  

The rest of this blog entry contains spoilers from the movie The Avengers!  If you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want what's in it spoiled for you - especially the ending! - then

STOP READING NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Notice all the exclamation points!  I'm totally serious about this! 

 YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

First, let me say that I was most impressed with the characterization of all the people in the movie.  Every one of them had their own personality that wasn't forced, contrived, or gratuitous.  Most excellent!  The story flowed like water, and made for a fun, fun ride!

Gosh, where to begin?  Let me start out by saying that the actor who played Loki did an excellent job, which he had to do, because he was carrying this movie as the reason that this group of borderline antisocial oddballs had to join together to stop him.  He was even better than in the movie Thor.  In Thor, you could partially understand why he turned out the way he did, but what Loki most suffered was a personality flaw - plain and simply, he was jealous of Thor, and that's what showed here.

And I still can't get over how fun it is for Robert Downey Jr. to play Tony Stark!  He was made for the role - especially given that he and the character he plays both suffered bouts with substance abuse - so maybe that's why RD Jr works so well as Tony Stark.  He's a odd and very entertaining combination of smug and yet self-depreciating with a dash of a perfect sense of timing when delivering his lines. 

Then there's the Hulk!  O! M! G!  That was the Best. Hulk. EVER!  That scene in which he first Hulked out and was chasing the Black Widow was by far one of the most scariest and most exciting scenes I've seen in a long, long time!  Damn, it was terrifying and yet fun!  That scene, by the way, reminded me of the very first Indiana Jones movie, in which Indy is being chased by that huge boulder.  But a rampaging Hulk in pursuit is far scarier!  More of this Hulk, please!  He totally made you forget the other Hulk movies! 

And Black Widow's reaction afterwards was so perfect!  Here she was played as a tough-ass hard-as-nails woman who could stare down Dr Doom, and immediately after this chase, she was curled up almost in a fetal position and shaking, trying to compose herself!  It was when she was called for assistance when she finally got her wits together and went back into the fight.  But still, who wouldn't have this reaction after being chased down by the gosh-durned friggin' HULK!

Speaking of Black Widow, I worried that she was just going to be the token hot chick for the movie, but she had that one excellent scene in which she used Loki's arrogant and condescending personality against him to reveal his true plans!   I loved it! 

It was really great to see Captain America in action, being the athletic super soldier that he was made to be.  The one thing that I wished they explored is his adjustment to being almost 70 years into his future.  He seemed very well adapted to modern life after being out of circulation since 1945.  Imagine suddenly waking up in the year 2082 and see how well you adjust to the changes!  Still, this movie wasn't about exploring Cap's adjustment to 2012 as it was about a group of extraordinary individuals banding together to stop the takeover of the world. 

Cap, however, was in one of my favorite scenes.  In one scene, he was barking orders to everyone, and when he got to the Hulk, he pointed to the Hulk and said: "Hulk!  Smash!", to which the Hulk simply grinned an evil grin, and the kind of grin that would make even an Asgardian god shit his pants! 

Well, I could go on about the individual characterizations, but I should go ahead and hit upon the story itself.  One line that I must bring up here was when Loki demanded that a group of people kneel to him.  One older gentleman said, "Not to a man like you!"  Loki sneered, "There are no men like me!", to which the older gentleman replied "No, there are always men like you!" 

How many of us would have that kind of courage in our day and age, especially since so many of us have been lulled into basically a compliant stupor because of the many abundances that we enjoy?  What would happen to us as a society if it was all taken away?  I think a great many of us would die at the onset with a great many more dying immediately afterwards in the chaos that would ensue after some great cataclysmic event.  Anyway, kudos to Joss Whedon for putting that line in there, because I think there's too many of our society forgetting that there was a Holocaust, or at least forgetting the lessons that came from it.

Joss really kept us on the seat of our pants, and it made you forget that the movie was 2 hours long.  The lesson here, though, is that in the face of the kinds of menaces that can inflict our world, we all need to put our various and personal agendas aside and unite to fight a common foe.  While this movie was about people with extraordinary abilities, such a responsibility for the defense and protection of our world belongs to us all - whether or not we can throw semis half a mile or shoot lasers from our eyes. 

It's a message, in other words, that we should heed today.  In our day and age, we are getting increasingly tribal; clustering into our individual interest groups and creating all these little worlds in which we get more and more isolated from each other; which is ironic, given that technology has given us all a greater means of getting in touch with each other.  I see lots of people getting together for lunch, but they spend just as much time texting and tweeting on their cellphones as they do talking face to face with each other.  Do we need a Loki in our lives to shake us from our comfortable little worlds and back into reality?  Let's hope that it won't take that before we wake up from our self-induced stupors, because when you think about it, if the attack on 9/11 didn't shake us to our senses, then I dread to know what will. 

On a scale of 1 to 10 in which 1 is a bomb and 10 is THE bomb, I give The Avengers a 9.5.  Friends, it's that good.  And you can bet your Spiderman Underoos that I'm gonna buy the DVD when it comes out!  Whoohoo!

Which movie should I see next?

Tomorrow in a Saturday Special blog post, I will review The Avengers!  Whoohoo!

But if you need to know now rather than later as to whether I think you should go see it, then I say GO!!

Go, young nerd, go!  Go even if you're an old nerd (and I know there are a lot of you out there!)

Like I said on FB, I have one movie left on my movie gift card that the boss gave me for my birthday, so I ask you all this: Which movie should I go watch next?  Should it be:

The Dark Knight Rises,

The Amazing Spiderman, or

 Brave ?

 Is this going to be a fun summer of movie watching or what?!?

"Busty" blogs are busting out all over!

Thanks to a GF and to FB, I came across yet another blog in regards to going around in life while busty!

Check out Busty Girl Comics!  Once a day, the artist posts yet another one panel cartoon of either the problems or the perks of being a busty girl.  I love it - especially since I can relate to the cartoons!  LOL  I'll be posting some of them below.

There's also a blog about reading comics called Has Boobs, Reads Comics.  The title is self-explanatory, and with a title like that, what's not to like? :-D

And yet another blog about the difficulties of finding tops, bottoms, and everything else when you're Thin and Curvy. Like the woman says, it's not a contradiction. You don't have to be overweight to have curves - but dang it, those curves makes it more complicated to find something that fits AND looks good.

And of course, my own blog of the difficulties of superheroing while busty!  LOL   X-D

The thing is friends, women end up getting caught up in the body image trap very easily.  I don't know if it's genetic, or cultural, or subliminal, or a combination of the above, but eventually nearly 100% of women will get caught up stressing about their looks.  She can be liberal, conservative, moderate, black, white, Hispanic, atheist, or believer, we will still fall into that abyss. 

Is that a good thing or bad?  It's a bad thing if she totally obsesses over her looks - and it can be damned expensive, too!  It can also be a good thing, because a change in fashion can go a long way in making a woman feel really good about herself.

Back in my days of a very liberal upbringing, I was told that no woman should let clothing determine her sense of self-worth one way or the other - that it's the brain, not the clothes, that make the woman.  While that is true in theory, in practice, it's a whole 'nother story.

Let's put it this way: Would you take a male cop seriously if he came to arrest you wearing nothing but skimpy Speedos - especially if he was a big, overweight dude?  Eventually you would have to take him seriously no matter how he's dressed, but a cop in uniform sends a much stronger message of his authority than if he wore only Speedos.  Not only that, he would FEEL more authoritative making an arrest in his police uniform than he would in Speedos.  So clothes do matter, whether it's a man or woman.

And yet, you don't see men obsessing over their looks nearly as much as women do.  And nearly all women can get to the point that they are genuinely upset or even depressed over their looks.  It's not easy to say what to do to get a woman out of that rut.  However, one thing that does help is talking about it with someone else.  In the pre-social media days, women had their little circle of friends for something like that.

Today, in addition to the circle of friends, there's also FB and blogs!  The social networks help to further emphasize that this obsession over their looks is pretty much universal.  And with blogs like Busty Girl Comics, we can even laugh about it!  Along with laughing about it, you dudes can also see what the ladies go through.  Yes, most of you already know that through your female friends, family members, or your lovers, but blogs like this will further emphasize that point that behind those looks (and behind those big boobs!) are women with thoughts, brains, and feelings.

Despite my liberal and feminist upbringing, I have decided that the issue of women and body issue is entirely unavoidable.  It can't be programmed out, and I'm proof of that.  There is just no separating us and the issue - no matter what kind of indoctrinating and reprogramming my former liberal instructors would prefer to do.  The best thing is to accept that body issues will come up and that they will be a part of life for pretty much the rest of our lives.  Once we accept that, we can then learn how to get past it, and part of that is by blogging about it so that we can all see that body issues are not only universal, it can be overcome.

And besides, as seen in a couple of cartoons below, being busty has its benefits!  LOL

My thanks for the creator of BGC for making this webcomic, and for the creators of those other blogs as well!  When we share these experiences, we all benefit!  By the way, you've been added to my sidebar of cool links!  ------------->

Woot!

(just looked down at her chest like in one of the cartoons)  DAMN!  They are big!

Monica and her sleepy boobs

Monica from Wapsi Square has very - unique - problems with her boobs!  Boobs can get bigger - but sleepy?  I suppose they could.  However, the way she's drawn, if her boobs get any bigger, then they're going to be making up half her body weight!  LOL