Tracking Gobi Grizzlies - Douglas Chadwick

There is a sub-species of the brown, or grizzly, bear that lives in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. However, given that the confirmed population at the time this book was released (2017), was less than 3 dozen, they may not be around much longer.

Chadwick was the writer portion of a writer-photographer team sent to Mongolia for a piece about the Gobi grizzlies for National Geographic in 2011. Then he came back to help for another 4 field seasons. Similar to Imperial Dreams, the book spends a fair amount of pages describing the landscape and the culture of the area. That the Gobi is a desert, but it's a seasonally cold, almost constantly windswept region. In addition to getting very little rain - 4 inches is considered a normal annual precipitation, and there was a 15 year stretch prior from 1993 to 2007 where it averaged half that - this is not a desert of sand dunes, but of rock. Tough granite the wind gradually breaks into grit that gets into everything, including Chadwick's eye, as he gets eye infections two years running.

Still, Chadwick seems to love his time there, for how different it is from anything else he knows. He describes the size of it, the seemingly endless expanse, is almost disorienting at first, but he comes to feel more at home the more time he spends roaming in his down time.

Most of Chadwick's time is spent in a particular protected section of Mongolia, the Greater Gobi A Strictly Protected Area, as that's the only confirmed range the bears occupy. He discusses the lives of the local rangers and biologists, who protect and study the "GGSPA", the challenges they face in getting funding, the issues with demands to utilize the resources for other things.

This is not like a national park in the U.S., where people can drive in and gawk at the critters. Access is restricted, so it's not paying for itself in tourism dollars. Mongolia has a strong pastoral culture, so livestock herders are allowed to bring their animals into certain sections of the GGSPA in the winter months to graze. This at least keeps them from competing with the bears for food (the bears are hibernating), but it's probably more grazing pressure than the plant life can tolerate.

Also, the Gobi Desert is rich in minerals, and a lot of Mongolia's economy was based on mineral extraction. So there are companies trying to get the government to open the area up so they can tear it apart. And there are the "ninja miners", people who take advantage of the desert's size and isolation to sneak in and run covert, small-scale mining operations. If caught by the rangers, they might get a fine, and their equipment taken away. Even if they shoot the rangers, they may not face harsher penalties, if they know the right people. So Chadwick also discusses the push-and-pull of trying to get government officials on the side of protecting this place and its wildlife - apparently it also has the only population of wild Bactrian camels - and how quickly the level of support can shift with changes in the administration.

All that said, what this book has Imperial Dreams didn't is they actually find the bears. Not a ton of them; in an average field season maybe 2 bears get radio-collared after they end up in one of the feeder traps, though there are cameras set up around the feeders that capture images of many more. But enough Chadwick gets to see these animals up close, not just hear about them based on recollections of someone pulling up memories from half a century ago. They seem fascinating, if only for how different they are from what I picture when someone says "grizzly bear."

They're closer to the black bears we have in Missouri in size - the largest captured is slightly over 300 pounds, and there are a couple of young adult females that barely top 120 - and live mostly on plants. There's a stretch of a couple of pages where Chadwick describes trying to learn from one of the local biologists just what the heck these bears find to live on in this place, and since there's a language barrier, it comes to him pointing at various plants and miming like he's shoveling it into his mouth. (Apparently, one thing the bears eat in abundance is the tuber the local wild rhubarb have underground, but also the flowers of certain species.)

The nice thing with Chadwick coming back for several field seasons is you can see how the research group are trying to incorporate new ideas into their work, as they gain fresh information, and how well that does and doesn't work. The feeders are mostly grain pellets, but at one point, they try adding dog food to the mix to provide more protein, because the bears do eat flightless grasshoppers, gerbils, and small lizards. The bears ignore the dog food. Why? Unclear at that time, just like it's unclear why sometimes the bears will chew on a camel carcass (based on their poop), but other times they won't. However, adding additional feeders at the same oasis, but further away, so one bear can't monopolize the food source, seemed to give females with cubs more opportunities to get some extra calories they might not ordinarily have.

I also want to mention, this book has some outstanding photographs. Of the bears, and the people involved in the work, but also some double-page spreads of the actual terrain. I might not think so if I was actually wandering around out there, but it looks gorgeous, in a stark, austere kind of way. So maybe I would like it. I like open spaces; I'm the only person I know who likes traveling through western Kansas. 

'Trust me: semi-fresh grizzly shit full of partially fermented wild onion sprouts is definitely not a hoax.'

Summer Stalemate, Maybe

There was not much in the solicits for July that caught my attention. In the meantime, things I'm buying continue to wrap up, which means the list continues to shrink.

What's new? Can we just, fucking stop, with all the Godzilla crossovers? Marvel's been at it for a solid year, DC's on at least their second Godzilla and Kong meet the Justice League mini-series, and now IDW is going to have Godzilla rampage through Sonic the Hedgehog's world. I know we all long for a giant reptile to arrive and offer oblivion via the warm embrace of atomic fire, but enough already!!!!!

OK, OK, something I might be interested in. Boom! has Vampyrates, by Fred van Lente and Luca Pizzari, about a world ruled by vampires, and an overthrown queen who has to climb the ranks of a pirate crew. Feels like something I might wait for a trade on, but, if some of the other things I'm considering buying don't pan out, maybe this can take their spot.

Cosmic Lion, which seems to be one of several smaller publishers now operating under some larger heading, has a solicit for Side Quests to World Domination, which seems like a villainess and her lackey awakening in the present day and deciding they could get used to a world without magic? I don't know; I probably won't get it, but the pickings on new things were real damn slim.

Ablaze re-solicited the collection for Mark Russell and Roberto Meli's Traveling to Mars, about the first person sent to Mars being a pet store manager chosen because he was going to die of a terminal illness soon anyway. Russell's more "miss" than "hit" with me, but maybe if he doesn't lean so hard into his attempts at "clever" satirical commentary it could be interesting? Or I could just track down the back issues.

What's ending? Is Ted OK? wraps up, and I thought Moonstar was only a five issue mini-series, but the solicit for issue 5 says the final battle "begins." Is Marvel going back to doing everything in multiples of 6 instead of 5? At any rate, until I hear otherwise, I'm not ruling out that it's ending here.

Though it won't be out until August, Seven Seas Entertainment listed the 13th volume of Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General. And it appears Jin was able to resolve everything in this volume, so that'll be it for that series. How well he managed to resolve everything, I guess I'll find out later this year. 

And the rest: Fantastic Four is shipping twice, each issue by a different artist, and apparently the artist for issue 13, Sorrentino, uses AI to help with their art. I probably shouldn't buy that, since I tend to think "AI" is a sham, and people who use it are hacks. Too bad; Johnny asking Sue to make his skin invisible so people would think he was Ghost Rider sounded like a fun plot idea.

Also not loving Marvel going back to shipping titles twice a month like it's the late-2000s. Desperation pouring off them like Axe body spray off some douchey guy with a popped collar.

Batgirl is still trying to solve a murder that revolves around memories she's missing. In the realm of books Vampyrates might supplant, The Deadman's got to deal with some soul-eating alien demon, and I still don't know if that title is going to be up my alley. Oh well, another month of solicits to parse before the first issue arrives. Ditto Junk Punch, also on its second issue, as is The Matron, where one of the characters loses their job when the owners sell their restaurant. At least there's no shortage of sources of resentment to fuel a murderous spree.

Generation X-23 has Laura trying to lead whichever members of the X-series are still alive by issue 6, and Moon Knight is teaming up with Blade to kill an evil building. D'Orc's trapped in a crystal and the solicit is promising a guest star, which worries me. I don't need this book tying into some other title I've got no interest in buying. If Marvel can't pull that stunt off successfully with me, Image hasn't got a prayer.

Balls Up (2026)

Brad (Mark Wahlberg), and Elijah (Paul Walter Hauser) work for a condom company. Elijah has ideas, but is incredibly socially awkward, while Brad is good at a slick sales pitch, but is, as Elijah tells him, an 'empty suit.' Their attempt to get their company named the official condom sponsor of the World Cup falls apart when Brad puts too much peer pressure on Brazil's representative (Benjamin Bratt), causing the man to throw aside 9 years of sobriety in a coke and nudity-filled bacchanal.

They get fired, but Santos' promise to get them a first-class trip to the World Cup went through before his career and life were destroyed by Brad's frat house jackassery. So they attend the final between Brazil and Argentina, Elijah gets hammered, decides the Brazilian sausage mascot is actually a plant by the rival company that got named the condom sponsor and is taunting him, and charges onto the field. Brad, the empty suit, rather than sitting back and letting it happen, gives chases and ends up blocking what would have been a game-tying goal for Brazil, making the 2 "es Stupidos" public enemies #1a and 1b in Brazil.

Watching this was not my choice. I have an aversion to Wahlbergs. Some would call it pathological, others would call it common sense. Anyway, Alex's friend Mike threw it on during the Chicago visit two weekends ago. I feel as though, if it wrapped after their escape from the drug lord's compound, it would have been fine. Not great, but about as good as could be expected under the circumstances. It would still run certain jokes into the ground - the guys trying to swallow their prototypes condoms full of cocaine drags on too long - but there were a few funny parts. If the bit with the caiman was the final splash of absurdist humor, that would have been a relative high point.

But there's a whole bit after that with a bunch of eco-warriors in the jungle that, again, drags for how few laughs it produces. Eric Andre and the other guy whining to each other about not getting any from the girl they both joined hoping to impress is just sad.

The phone translator gag isn't bad, the karaoke scene's worth a chuckle, maybe, although Wahlberg's singing voice was, I assume intentionally, horrific. Alex sang along to some lyrics during his gig that weekend, and I compared it to a cat being strangled while imitating AC/DC's lead singer. That's about what Wahlberg's voice was. The payoff to the initial meeting with their rookie public defender was, if not something that made me laugh, at least clever.

Wahlberg and Hauser do a decent job playing characters who don't have much in common other than they need someone to cover for their weaknesses. It so happens they each meet the qualifications for the other on that score, but they're bad at accepting that when there's anything of real importance on the line. Which felt like the point of the karaoke. With something that ultimately doesn't matter, they work together great, no friction. Once there's pressure, each of them start trying to prove something and they mess up.

Still, it feels strange at times that Brad actually cares about or tries to help Elijah, if he's such a self-absorbed guy with no values. I guess the idea is he's not a psychopath, incapable of caring for others, and playing the empty suit that says whatever will get him what he wants. It's that he's afraid to express anything deeper. I'm not sure there is anything deeper, though.  

Oh well, Track of the Cat could use some competition for worst movie in next January's Year in Review posts. 

Hard Work Means No Play

Injae got the first win of his boxing career over the awesomely named Rock Kang. Unfortunately, now he must face Kang's big brother, Boulder Kodos!

OK, that's a lie, he's just shadowboxing with his memories of Bakesan (currently on his way to prison for 6 years.) The fifth volume of The Boxer shifts focus back to Yu's career. Now the lightweight champion, he's being aimed directly at the junior welterweight champion, Yuto Takeda. Most of the volume is focused on Takeda, emphasizing his contrast to Yu.

Where Yu's the epitome of natural talent, Takeda is described, even by his coach, as almost entirely lacking in talent. The epitome of hard work. What's more, he fully buys into the idea that if you just keep trying, you can overcome any challenge. He feels like he should protect and inspire others, give them hope they can persevere and triumph as well. This as compared to Yu, who gives zero shits about anything other than his cat.

Yuto's backstory is that he looks up to his father, who was a silver medalist in judo and became a cop. Misaki, who was a gold medalist boxer before opening her own gym, was childhood friends with Yuto's mother and father. When Dad dies rescuing a woman from some muggers, and Mom is claimed by a lifelong illness weeks later, Misaki's left with in charge of a child she has no idea how to raise.Yuto wants to protect people like his dad, so he's got to be strong, so boxing.

Except he has no talent. It's actually kind of a neat contrast with Jean-Pierre. We were told the lightweight champ would slowly go through the motion of throwing a punch, making himself aware of every bit of what his body was doing and what it should be doing, in pursuit of perfection. Takeda has to go through every motion, every piece of action that goes into throwing a single jab and memorize it to then cram each piece together, because otherwise he can't do it at all.

There's some ups and downs in Takeda's story. A classmate he tries to help, who ends up running away and looks on the verge of committing suicide. A gifted fighter that abuses his skills as hired muscle, that beats Takeda again and again and again (and again and again, and so on), until Takeda starts making abrupt leaps in skill.

I'm not sure what JH's is going for with the strange growth curve. Setting up a certain development in the title fight with Yu for one, but otherwise, I'm not sure what it's meant to represent, if Takeda is supposed to lack in athletic talent. Can you brute force talent into existence?

Either way, it's the brute force he and Misaki are counting on to defeat Yu, as the strategy is simply to keep the pressure on Yu, give him no room to breathe, take every hit without stopping, until Yu gives out from exhaustion. Will that work? Ehhhhh, no.

Sunday Splash Page #424

"Blinded by the Bling," in Marvel Boy #1, by Russ Heath (artist), writer, colorist, letterer unknown

I'm just going through these alphabetically, but it's a little funny I picked the two titles that lasted the least amount of time, as, per Grand Comics Database, Marvel Boy's book only lasted two issues. Gotta love the cover, though, where the blurb declares him the 'newest, most amazing,' in line 1, then finishes with, 'finally in his own magazine!' on line 5. How can it be "finally" if he just got created?

Friction between grammar and hype aside, Bob Grayson's scientist father decided to live on the Moon with his infant son after his wife was killed by Nazis in the 1930s. Except their rocket got redirected and landed on the uranium crust of Uranus' surface. Ah, 1950s astronomy, gotta love it. Now 17, Bob's developed some level of telepathy - presumably from all that radiation in the planet's crust - and his dad's sending him back to Earth to try and prevent the outbreak of violence over a new continent rising from the sea. Bob gets a costume, a big red flying saucer, and wristbands that temporarily blind people with 'atomic radiance.' But no killing, Bob's got to handle things the old-fashioned way: punching.

Then he fights pirates who happened to get beached on the continent as it emerged from the sea and thought they'd declare themselves kings, tries and fails to convince the actual inhabitants that surface dwellers aren't all like those guys, and watches the island sink back beneath the waves.

By the time Jeff Parker and Leonard Kirk were creating Agents of Atlas, there was a slight problem. Someone brought Marvel Boy back in the pages of Fantastic Four, as "The Crusader." He behaved erratically, attacking banks that wouldn't give him loans for medical supplies to take back to Uranus, and eventually was destroyed by his much more powerful wristbands (which later became Quasar's quantum bands.)

So Parker changed Bob's backstory. Not the part about him being from Earth originally, or his scientist dad wanting to escape the violence. But the people living on the surface of Uranus weren't true Uranians, who are an amoeba-like collective living deeper within the planet, but Eternals who tried to conquer Earth thousands of years earlier and were exiled. They were allowed to stay on Uranus by the true inhabitants on the condition they don't leave, their byproducts being useful to the collective. Bob's exploits as Marvel Boy were supposed to make him an ambassador of sorts, so Earth would invite them back, which is totally different from leaving, totally. As Bob puts it, 'the Uranians do not consider such fine points of detail.'

The Crusader was the child of the exiles, modified to resemble Bob, but brainwashed to be blindly loyal, who got hatched before he was ready when the Uranians figured out what the exiles were up to and destroyed them. Bob ends up stuck in a dying colony, until he's offered a place in the Uranian collective, where he lived for decades, leaving to help save Jimmy Woo. Which also means he left the collective forever. No going back.

So Parker and Kirk go away from the superhero aesthetic, leaning on the '50s sci-fi vibe. He's still got a flying saucer - silver-grey instead of red - and the sort of vaguely rubber spacesuit look you might see in The Day the Earth Stood Still or something similar. No more wristbands and fisticuffs; Bob leans on his technology and his telepathy, which has advanced from some low-level mind-reading to linking thoughts and creating illusions/altering perceptions.

Decades as part of a collective of a species very different from humans has changed him. In the early issues of the mini-series, he keeps speaking in an alien language and admits human minds are difficult to fool, because they're so strange to him now. His reactions and emotions seem muted; Venus observes that he used to blush around her, but now he barely reacts. Even as he settles in with his old friends, he maintains a detached air, with some occasional dry humor, mostly at M-11 and Gorilla Man's friendship.

I'm a little surprised having been part of a collective for so long, that Bob isn't more tactile with his teammates. Instead, he tends to stand apart, hands folded behind his back. But he also extends his esophagus to eat, and his helmet produces a Uranian atmosphere, so maybe it's a safety issue.

Saturday Splash Page #226

"People's Committee of Exposition," in Yellow Claw #1, by Al Feldstein (writer), Joe Maneely (artist), Stan Goldberg? (colorist), Irv Watanabe? (letterer)

When I started the splash page series in 2017, I tended to keep the entries short, before deciding I had a lot to say in some cases, and it was my blog, so I should go ahead and say it. But by then, I was already past Agents of Atlas. However, the hardcover of the original mini-series had the first appearances of each member of the team, and those are the only issues I have of those titles, so that's how we're spending the next 3.5 weekends.

I'm less enthused that the first entry gives us Yellow Peril and Red Peril nonsense, but that's '50s comics for ya, at least here in the States. Hopefully it was better elsewhere in the world.

Set sometime after Mao's Communist forces pushed Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist forces out of China, they're looking to invade Formosa and finish the job. But they can't possibly defeat the mighty American Navy directly, unless the legends of this ancient mystic the Yellow Claw, and his strange powers, are true. So a general goes looking, finds Claw, gets a demonstration of his mind control and crystal ball, and goes away thinking this is going to work out great. Except the Claw intends to use them to aid his own conquest of the entire world, starting by bringing down the U.S. from within.

Maybe the funniest part to me is the Claw enters the U.S. via a rubber raft from a submarine. Why not just enter the country in full splendor and mind control your way through any issues? Just to cinch the Claw's criminal bonafides, he tracks down the former commandant of Auschwitz and threatens to expose him if he doesn't help. Jimmy Woo only appears in the last few panels of the last page of the introductory story, far less than the Claw's grand-niece Suwan, who seems unsure of his plans, but unable to resist his powers.

This was just the first of two or three stories in the first issue, but unfortunately, it's all that's in the hardcover. Yellow Claw's the Fu Manchu, inscrutable Oriental stereotype with his insidious, underhanded schemes and whatnot. Woo doesn't have enough page time to establish much beyond being an FBI agent whose parents used to tell him stories about Yellow Claw. Presumably it was difficult for them to finish these stories, as every peasant we see runs screaming into the hills at the mere mention of the name. Suwan would, I guess, carry on a star-crossed lovers thing with Woo, trying to buck her grand-uncle's will.

Agents of Atlas ditches the obnoxious coloring and de-ages Claw a bit. Which, if he supposedly learns from some lama how to prolong his life, why let himself look 2 trillion years old? "Yellow Claw" becomes an Americanized bastardization of his true title "Golden Claw", and that's separate from his name, which ends up being "Master Plan." Which year, is cheesy, but fits into the notion Parker's playing with, that everything that's going on has been part of an extremely long-range scheme the Claw's been up to and had to adjust on the fly to various complications, mostly related to Woo's career path.

Because Woo did end up getting some use in Marvel in the '70s and '80s, but basically as just another SHIELD agent. You know how it goes, a writer creates a new agent they think is really keen, but every other writer has their own preference, so it's nice for creating a bench of actual SHIELD agents with faces and personalities, but none of them ever really rise to prominence. At least, not for anything good (looking at Maria Hill and her Gyrich-level obnoxiousness and incompetence.)

And that gets folded in. Golden Claw was supposed to be a villain Woo would defeat that create a legend for himself, but government bureaucracy - and racism, and the myth of meritocracy - being what it is, he got shunted into some dead-end desk job and that was it. So Woo aged, and stagnated, and grew frustrated and probably resentful of how his life turned out and seized an opportunity to be the big hero, expose a conspiracy, and got his team incinerated. Bob restores him, but to his last mental impression of Jimmy, recorded by his headband in 1959.

So you get young Jimmy Woo, hotshot secret agent type, in his prime, who also gets to be the "man out of time," having lost decades of his life. It's an opportunity to do things right the second time, minus the desperation and regret. (It also puts him behind in regard to how much things have changed for other people he once knew, which comes back to bite him in the ass when he goes looking for Suwan, who had a very interesting 50 years of her own.) Jimmy's operating outside the law, his team pulled together by trust and respect rather than an order from Eisenhower. Which also means they can't be disbanded on a whim by the shifting political climate. The work can continue for as long as they want to work together.

What I Bought 4/22/2026

I may be just about recovered from the Chicago trip. Of course, I have to go out for 2+ days next week for work. The annual spring inspection trip where my boss comes along. At least his presence saves me from having to talk to the operators, since he loves to do that.

Marc Spector: Moon Knight #3, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Stegman kind of Kelly Jones'ed Moon Knight's outfit there.

It's Moon Knight versus Bushman in a fear gas addled bout, with Zodiac being the most annoying pro wrestling announcer you can imagine. Yes, worse than Jerry the King Lawler screaming about "puppies," or Michael Cole existing on a plane of reality where he can interact with the rest of us. Honestly, Zodiac's glee at the violence just makes me wish Arcade was in the book. There's a guy that knows how to put on a show.

Moon Knight's losing, Bushman hacking him up while doing a whole spiel about how he created Moon Knight, and that'll always be true. Bleeding badly, Marc gets a visit from Steven and Jake, looking more ghostly than normal (Rosenberg colors them a sort of Ghostbusters ectoplasm green), who tell Marc Bushman's handling the fear gas' effects by causing fear so he doesn't feel it.

So Marc turns it around. That, actually, he haunts Bushman. The guy Bushman killed, who came back and kept kicking his ass. Who cut his face off, all that jazz. Moonie starts carving into Bushman, while Zodiac sounds about ready to achieve orgasm, and then, stops. Because he won't kill for anyone, not Bushman, Khonshu, or Zodiac. He will, however, kill Zodiac. Don't get my hopes up, man. Also, turns out something's going on in the city, and that's why none of the supporting cast found Marc.

Moon Knight's explanation for why he'd kill Zodiac but not Bushman is clever enough, but I think it's simpler, or maybe more selfish, than Marc makes it seem. He just doesn't want to give Zodiac what he wants, and Zodiac wants him to kill Bushman. So he won't do it. Which I guess means Zodiac better hire someone to cheer on Moon Knight killing him when (if) we get to that point.

Gullible's Travels - Cash Peters

This is the story of Cash Peters' last six months as the guy a radio station sends to check out weird or quirky roadside attractions and theme parks. Like the Sound of Music theme park, in Salzburg, which Peters has been sent to on at least 5 occasions.

OK, actually it's his last 18 months as the guy a radio station sends to check out weird or quirky roadside attractions and theme parks. It was supposed to be six months, but he was either really bad about shifting to another career path, or not working at it very hard.

This doesn't really include the Sound of Music theme park, outside a brief description of it as one of his periodic dissertations on how his job is not nearly so fun and keen as you imagine. Well shit man, I knew that as soon as I saw there was part of a chapter spent on the Precious memories park in Carthage, Missouri. I have driven past that place more than once for work, I can guess what hell exists within its confines and there is no realistic amount of money you could pay me to visit.

Though if there was a realistic amount of money, and I went, the end result would probably be much like Peters, in terms of people sending me e-mails telling me what an evil, horrible person I was. The difference is, Peters actually seemed fairly charmed by the set-up, whereas I would be on the verge of running out screaming, clawing at my face and speaking in tongues.

For the most part, Peters is taking a humorous, exaggerated approach. He's pretty evenly split between places he's excited to visit (the Museum of Dirt) and places he's basically going under protest (the barbed wire museum.) And in those categories, he's fairly evenly split between places he ends up enjoying (the National Bird Dog Museum,) and those he ends up hating or being swiftly bored by (the Museum of Dirt, Graceland.)

Either way, there are certain recurring gags. His tendency to seize on any opportunity that's free; he calls almost every PR person he encounters "Lisa," because apparently all PR people are named that; his 10 rules of life, of which there are 32; his phobia of confrontation because he's British. I was not aware that was an issue. I thought the British did confrontation, but in a very faux-polite, backhand insult manner. Like, you aren't sure if they're actually pissed, but you know they're looking down their nose at you? Well, learn something new everyday.

I think the parts I enjoyed the most were often the effort he expended trying to reach some of these places. When no one could confirm a place existed, and he starts calling around or accosting random people on the street or harassing his producer for help finding the place. Or when he thought he was getting a tour of a particular farm in Minneapolis, only to learn he was getting a formal tour of Minneapolis. So disappointed. Whether he actually finds the place, or whether he actually enjoys it once he gets there, is beside the point. I'm not sure there was one place he visited in this book that I would want to visit myself. But getting a front-row seat to his Sisyphean task of finding this place or that place is entertaining.

'I snapped shut my notebook and swore by the seven golden fleeces of Sinbad to track down this Museum of Dirt that nobody would let me see. It might take me a few days, but I would find it, oh yes, and when I did I would fix up an appointment with the curator personally, and insist that he give me a guided tour. And Lisa - well, Lisa could go screw herself-f-f.'

Dream Scenario (2023)

Paul (Nic Cage) is a biology professor at a small college, who learns one day that he has started showing up in other people's dreams. His daughter's, old acquaintances, his students, complete strangers.

At first this brings him fame, and he thinks it will help him to publish a book about ant shared intelligence or something that he's been talking about for decades. But as things don't work out the way he wants - he doesn't want to use his celebrity to hawk products, especially not Sprite - the nature of the dreams shift. Instead of Paul just standing around, watching what's happening to these people in their dreams, he starts killing them. Turns out people take being murdered in a dream by someone personally, and Paul becomes a pariah. Which he exacerbates by being defensive and playing the victim.

I think you have to enjoy cringe comedy to watch this movie. The first half in particular is just an endless stream of Paul humiliating or embarrassing himself by being awkward, passive-aggressive, milquetoast, and so on. The thing is, I don't enjoy that stuff. It's painful to watch, to the point I almost gave up on the movie 50 minutes in.

The second half, once things start the downhill slide, is actually better. Things are actually happening, instead of people just talking about how Paul never does anything. Students flee from him and vandalize his car. Waiters ask him to leave restaurants. And at least it feels like Paul's reacting genuinely, even if it's him being aggrieved and focusing on how much he's suffering. He's an ugly, selfish man with a victim complex, but at least he stops hiding it. When he gets kicked out of the house because he makes his daughter's school play all about him by insisting on attending when he was asked not to, at least he actually did something, even if it was just about the worst possible thing.

What I Bought 4/18/2026

The Chicago trip. . .went pretty well. We didn't see much - though I always suspected the plans to visit an art museum or Chinatown were far-fetched - but we got some excellent Italian food Saturday, same a few cool stores, and the weather wasn't bad, outside some heavy rain during the first night. And we were safely inside during that. The crowds at his gigs were good, outside of a lot of people lying about it being their birthday during the second night. He'll play your request even without it being your birthday (unless the song sucks!)

Although I told him he played a song the first night that I had never heard before, but now that I had it was trash ("HYFR".) When he (naturally) started playing it the second night, I decided it was a good time to go walk through the rest of the club. Except right as I entered the front half of the place, the live band's lead guitarist asked if there were any fans of Creed in the audience.

That turned me right back around, so I think I detoured to the bathroom to give him time to finish that song. But now I'm home, and the storms didn't cause any damage, and I am seriously running a sleep defecit after I got up an hour earlier than I needed to on Friday (because when Alex says he'll get somewhere and when he actually does are 2 different things), and only got 4 hours Saturday (because my brain doesn't care I fell asleep at 4, it still isn't letting me sleep in), and two hours, if that, Sunday morning (because I handled a big chunk of the drive home.)

It's going to be a long week. 

Babs: The Black Road South #3, by Garth Ennis (writer), Jacen Burrows (artist), Andy Troy (colorist), Rob Steen (letterer) - Put a leash on that flying sperm, Babs.

We get the introduction to how this fictional world's version of Sauron gained his power and immaterial form and, as you would expect, it involved the guy being a complete fool. But most of the issue is an exercise in thinning out the herd, and flogging a dead horse. Not literally on the second one, as Babs spends a lot of panels mocking Lilith Lazuli, the enormous, blue-haired barbarian woman rocking the Red Sonja look, and sporting what Babs assures Izzy are two fossilized stegoballs in her chest.

Of course, Babs is careful to say these things out of earshot, or what she thinks is out of earshot, proving she's not as stupid as her poor track record with money and choice of employers might suggests. And maybe the insults are fair, as Lilith appears to freeze to death because she refuses to find a cave to shelter in during a blizzard. Though her eyes are still open when Babs figures out a way for Lilith to be of use in an escape, so I expect she'll turn out to have fallen off the horse because that's how LILITH LAZULI goes to sleep. Abruptly, and with her eyes open.

The first part, however, about thinning the herd? That was literal, as most of the party except Babs, Izzy, Lilith and Culpepper die when the bridge they're crossing suddenly collapses. The work of the angry little hobbit.

We're at the halfway point, and I'm trying to figure out what the joke is going to be. I feel pretty confident Babs and Izzy will not recoup their money. I expect Ennis may go the route of having the hobbit die in an embarrassing fashion - possibly involved the punchdrunk dragon - without Babs ever knowing her was gunning for her. There's got to be something about why Lilith acts the way she does, but all the answers I think of are the type that make me groan and mutter, "Ennis. . ." So hopefully he catches me completely off-guard there.

Sunday Splash Page #423

"Monsters," in Punisher: The Tyger, by Garth Ennis (writer), John Severin (artist), Paul Mounts (colorist), Randy Gentile (letterer)

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that in Garth Ennis' telling, the Punisher is the culmination of everything in Frank Castle's life. Not strictly the loss of his family. Not strictly Castle's 3 tours in Vietnam. Not even the final tour specifically, which Ennis and Darick Robertson depicted in the Punisher: Born mini-series.

(A digression. I occasionally see people say the end of Punisher: Born implies Frank made a deal with the Devil to survive the climactic battle at Firebase Valley Forge, because, as he's leaving the airport with his family, something is speaking to him about (paraphrasing) how, some day, it'll collect what it owes for keeping him alive.

I think it being the Devil is a bit too supernatural for Ennis' MAX imprint take on the character, and believe the implication is Frank unlocked something dangerous inside himself to survive. Similar to in the Avengers movie, when Stark suggests the Hulk was a manifestation of Banner's will to live, because the gamma radiation would have killed him otherwise. The monster saved Banner's life, but now that monster is loose on the world.

Frank Castle found something inside not only terrifyingly good at killing, but able to do so without remorse or hesitation. Something that would never relent. But having let it out once, it was never going to go back in its cage and stay there. Essentially, if Frank's family hadn't been killed, it would have been something else. Digression over.)

To that end, we have this one-shot from 2006. It begins and ends with Frank sniping some mob guys from a snowy rooftop, presented as his first as act the Punisher. The captions on Page 1 are, 'They'll blame it all on Vietnam. And they'll be right. And they'll be wrong.'

The meat of the story, however, is set during a summer sixteen years earlier, when Frank was a kid. It revolves around Lauren Buvoli, a girl Frank knows in the neighborhood, and Vincent Rosa, son of the local mob boss, though Frank doesn't understand that at the time. That's the needle Ennis tries to thread, showing us glimpses of Frank's personality or mannerisms that persist into his adulthood of extra-judicial mass murder, while also acknowledging there are lots of things a kid his age wouldn't understand.

So we see young Frank has a tendency to linger in the shadows outside the living room window and listen to his parents' conversations, which is how he hears that Rosa was also involved in something that got the Donegan girl into trouble. But when he asks the girl's little brother (after saving him from a bully), the kid can only say Rosa "made" his sister get a baby. He doesn't understand what that means, and neither does Frank. Frank sees a man on fire come tearing out of the factory where his father works, but doesn't understand it wasn't an accident, or what Lauren's older brother means when he asks how you hate someone that much.

Severin uses a heavy line, but with indistinct edges. Things are a little blurred or fuzzy, being pulled from Frank's memories. His father's eyes may be nothing but a thin line in one panel, Frank's attention seized by the burning man. Lauren's features are rounded and without blemish, shifted to something almost angelic in his remembering, while Vincent Rosa is definitely trying to imitate Dean Martin with his cigarette hanging loose and the curly hair done up. Mounts uses mostly soft tones, except for the violence, the fire, where the oranges and reds jump off the page in contrast to the more muted blues and blacks of men's work clothes and jackets.

The title of the story is reference to William Blake's poem, as Frank and Lauren are in an after-school poetry class taught by one of the priests. They read "The Tyger", and Frank interprets Blake's question of who created the "tyger" as suggesting there are things in the world not created by God. The priest naturally objects to the notion anything could exist God didn't make, but the notion lingers with Frank through that summer and apparently into adulthood. I'd say it depends on how merciful you envision your God to be. Old Testament God creating something like Frank Castle? Yeah, absolutely.

The one-shot isn't essential, except as part of the overall tapestry of Ennis' take on the Punisher, but it's a stronger story than The Cell, leaning less heavily on the brutality and shock value, and more on the idea there are those who prey on others. They may disguise it behind a winning smile or nice clothes, but they still regard you as food, and knowing that can be terrifying.

Well, it took over 7 years and 648 posts, but we finally made it through the alphabet. But as time - and the comics industry - wait for no one, now I've got to go back to the start and pick up all the stuff I bought since then. First, a special splash page project for the next 3.5 weekends.

Saturday Splash Page #225

"Cruise Liner Security," in Quasar #7, by Mark Gruenwald (writer), Mike Manley (penciler), Danny Bulanadi (inker), Paul Becton (colorist), Janice Chang (letterer)

Wendell Vaughn got hold of some alien bracelets that at one point belonged to Golden Age hero (and future Agent of Atlas) Marvel Boy. (Sort of. It's complicated.) At some point, he got tagged by an alien named Eon (that looks like a floating root wad with a face) to be the new "Protector of the Universe." And Quasar did protect the universe over the course of his 60-issue ongoing series, although he also died in the process. Maybe more than once.

(Dying fighting some big threat and then being resurrected later has kind of become Quasar's thing.)

I know the book has some folks who vouch for it. That writer Mark Gruenwald delved into a lot of strange corners of the Marvel Universe for locations and threats for Quasar to confront. The Stranger has an entire planet for the menagerie of unique beings he's collected. Maelstrom ends up being some great threat. There's a cosmic race with most of Earth's speedsters, that ends up being won by an amnesiac guy in ragged red clothes who appears in a lightning bolt and is supposed to Barry Allen after his big heroic death in Crisis on the Infinite Earths. I think Wendell ends up pregnant at one point?

That said, the only issues I own are the Acts of Vengeance tie-ins. They do act as a pretty decent intro to the set-up Gruenwald's established. Wendell Vaughn has his own security consulting firm, which needs clients, but the hero thing keeps interrupting. Eon's got him investigating sources of alien energy on Earth, because of some portent about an alien menace. (This actually leads him to Spider-Man, unknowingly rocking the Enigma Force, in issue 7.)

Wendell's a polite guy, as he spends much of his fight with the Absorbing Man trying to convince him these fights are a waste of time and getting the man nothing. (This does not work.) When he chases the Living Laser to the Moon, he knocks on Uatu's door (with a giant glowing hand) before entering. When the Laser jumps through a portal to escape and possibly kills that timeline's Thunderbird in the process, Quasar apologizes to Uatu for intruding. Uatu teleports him out without saying a word. Dick.

Overall, it paints a picture of Wendell as curious, conscientious and clever. He takes his time to try and figure out ways to quickly handle his opponents, rather than overwhelm them with sheer power. Which might work well on your standard Earth super-villain type, but maybe wasn't a great approach for the sorts of cosmic menaces a Protector of the Universe has to confront?

Random Back Issues #169 - Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme #89

Dr. Strange is out of his head again. 

We're near the end of Strange's '90s ongoing series, a particularly tumultuous 30+ issues where his approach to magic and his look changed almost as often as his writers. An ongoing thread has been Wong's inability to let go of his beloved Imei, who died at some point. So Strange brought him to a place between Earth and the afterlife to say good-bye.

Then fucked off who knows where, leaving Wong floating alone in a swirling void of souls after he and Imei say their good-byes. Wong considers trying to enter the column of light that carries souls into eternity to follow her, but the living aren't allowed, Stephen reminds him, after Wong gets the bejeezus shocked out of him.

They return to Earth, to the Tempo building that housed the tech company a shade of part of Stephen's soul started during an earlier stretch of the aforementioned tumultuous run. Stephen was going to dismantle it, but changed his mind. Wong, who been swinging between being Stephen's pal and wanting to kill him, thanks Strange for helping him see Imei one more time. Strange, looking really damn goofy, is happy to have Wong's friendship again.

And then Stephen Strange bursts from his own skull like Athena from Zeus. He got ambushed something and nearly absorbed. The creature, which calls itself Afterlife, hates the living, but Stephen's too strong, so Afterlife decides to melt through the floor and go hunting. Strange, rather than give chase, summons the Eye of Agomotto to better understand his opponent.

By the time he catches up, Afterlife has stolen the energy of several people, and Strange's attempt to contain him in a field of 'white light, drawn down (at no small effort) from the seventh plane', doesn't seem to work, as its tongue punches through and tags him. Wong jumps in, trying to buy his friend time, and Stephen gets back on his feet. He and Wong use the magic deep in their souls, where they are highest and purest, and Afterlife changes into a gold cocoon.

It hatches, all the stolen energy return to its victims, and Afterlife is now some shiny golden thing. No, not a Super Saiyan, it's got butterfly wings and brown hair and is generally androgynous. Apparently it was an angel that used to walk the Earth helping those in pain, but prolonged exposure to all our crap poisoned it, and made it into Afterlife. It thanks them and disappears, having trashed the building. So much for keeping the business going.

Oh, and Victoria Montesi, who's been in some sort of slow-time bubble Strange made 30 issues ago so she wouldn't give birth to Chthon, is visited by someone who intends to speed the pregnancy along. See what happens when you put shit on the back burner, Strange? 

{4th longbox, 30th comic. Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme #89, by J.M. DeMatteis (writer), Mark Buckingham (penciler), Kev Sutherland (inker), Kevin Somers (colorist), Jim Novak (letterer)}

Imperial Dreams - Tim Gallagher

Gallagher was part of a search in the mid-2000s to determine if the ivory-billed woodpecker still existed in a remote tract of swampy forest in Arkansas. They supposedly spotted some and later there was even a video taken, though that evidence is apparently disputed by many authorities and the broader consensus is seemingly the species is extinct.

This book, however, is about several trips Gallagher and a variety of other interested parties made to Mexico's Sierra Madre mountains in the early-2010s, searching for signs the imperial woodpecker, the ivory-billed's bigger relative, still existed. While there are scattered reports of sightings from the 1940s up to a few years before Gallagher's trips started, what real information we have on their habits, in terms of breeding, diet, social structure, habitat preferences, came mostly from a Norwegian named Carl Lumholz, who spent a couple of years in the 1890s riding a mule the length of the Sierra Madres, writing mostly about the people he encountered, but also the wildlife. So if we want to learn anything further about imperial woodpeckers, including whether there's a species to preserve, time was getting short.

SPOILER ALERT, Gallagher doesn't find any imperial woodpeckers. I imagine the book would have been somewhat different if he had. Probably more like what I was expecting. But if you can't find it, you can't find it, so the book focuses on the people and the place they inhabit. It's in some ways a history, as those mountains have long been isolated enough to be used as refuges for a variety of people. Pancho Villa hid out there from the American military for a time, some of the last holdouts of the Apaches in Mexico lived there. Gallagher travels through several villages he presents as not having changed in their ways of living in centuries. No electricity, no phones or anything like that. That isolation likely worked in the woodpeckers' favor, as basically all the evidence we have says they preferred old-growth pine forests at altitude.

Unfortunately, time marches on, and where there's old timber, there will be people trying to get to it and cut it down to sell. Which is what Gallagher thinks may have done the imperials in; the logging industry destroying a lot of their habitat. He speaks to a lot of people along the way, looking for any hints of places that might hold imperial woodpeckers. Which gives the reader a good sense of what a longshot this is, when the people he speaks with are in their 70s or older, talking about how they remember those birds vividly, but they haven't seen one since the 1960s or even further back.

The other thing that apparently moved into the region is drug cartels growing opium. Their looming threat hangs over the entire book. Gallagher often mentions people who advise him against going on this trip, or tell him he absolutely can't search beyond a particular mountain range, because that's Zetas cartel turf. There are more than a few encounters with men in SUVs or trucks, often with AK-47s, demanding to know what they're doing, or wanting to see identification. There are people he planned to speak with who are too grief-stricken because one of their relatives was abducted and murdered days earlier. To an extent, the book is Gallagher slowly coming to realize that risking his life to try and find this woodpecker might be a little crazy and/or stupid. 

'It's hard to say what motivated him to embark on such grueling and dangerous journeys. He had an excellent income from his dental practice, a nice home, and no children, so he and his wife could afford to indulge themselves. Instead, he chose to drive south with a few buddies and spend up to two months at a time roughing it in the outback of Durango, living on beans, booze, and tortillas.'

Overdue Movie Reviews #11 - Identity (2003)

A prisoner is being transported for a last-second hearing that may save him from execution, if the psychologist (Alfred Molina) can make a convincing argument. At the same time a disparate group of people find themselves stranded at a shitty motel in a downpour. Among them, an ex-cop turned limo driver (John Cusack), a family of three (the father played by John C. McGinley), a pair of newlyweds, a sex worker planning to open an orchard (Amanda Peet). Oh yeah, and a cop transporting a prisoner (Ray Liotta and Jake Busey, respectively.)

Then people start dying.

This may be the shortest of these entries, but I did give my copy of this movie to Alex years ago, then accept it back on an impulse when he was about to get rid of all his DVDs, so maybe that's to be expected. The movie revolves around a twist. Possibly two twists, though the second builds off the first. Once you know the first twist, there's not much else going for it. The characters are broadly-sketched outlines - actress disconnected from reality, hooker with a heart of gold, creepy convict, burnout ex-cop, cherub-faced little kid, etc. - so it's hard to say I feel any investment in their attempts to survive. Especially knowing the first twist.

The attempts to find the killer isn't really the focus, because the movie is busy dropping hints and clues leading towards the twist. Busey escapes and thinks he found a place to hide in another building he spied in the distance. Once inside that building and looking out the window, he's back at the motel. Dun-dun-dunhhhhhhh! And how is he on the loose at the motel, but another prisoner shows up for the hearing? Why do they all have the same birthday?

In practice, Cusack and Liotta spend a lot of scenes walking past motel rooms as rain pours over the gutters, while Peet periodically gets fed up with the suspense and runs into the rain to scream at the guilty party, whoever they are.

The ending is second twist, in that you thought there was a happy resolution but, surprise! It's not! You know what? Fuck beating around the bush, the movie is 23 years old. I'm spoiling ALL the twists. The people at the motel are personalities within the mind of the prisoner on death's row, (mostly) unwittingly fighting it out to see if an innocent one can survive. You think Peet was the last one standing and is going to have her orchard (inside this serial killer's head, but whatever), but no, here's McGinley's cherub-cheeked little kid, not blown up as the others suspected. Because the prisoner was traumatized as a kid, so that's where the murderous rage is. The kid engineered all the deaths and he kills Peet. In the real world, he now has sole control of the body, kills Molina and the transport driver. End movie.

Except, he's a pre-pubescent kid and she's a grown woman. He is standing there, holding some sort of rake, looking menacing, so it's not like he struck from the shadows. Beat his ass with a sack of your oranges. Or the limes, whichever. Give him a wedgie and then jam him headfirst into your fertilizer pile until he suffocates. Run over his throat with a wheelbarrow. Fucking do something other than cower, goddamnit!

Making Friends is Madness

By all means then, let that guy teach children. What could go wrong? 

Volume 4 of Soul Eater: The Perfect Edition, consists of the second half of the fifth volume and all of the sixth in the original release, and is focused entirely on the students at the DWMA trying to stop Medusa and her lackeys from releasing the Kishin.

Spoiler alert: They fail. The Kishin gets loose, takes out Black Star and Death the Kid in one hit each, then eludes Lord Death by getting beyond the bounds of the city that Lord Death's soul is tied to. that said, the way that the Kishin is portrayed is pretty cool. It apparently exudes madness so strongly that people start hallucinating once they get close, even while it's still sealed up.

Yeah, that right there? That witch-lady is hallucinating that experience but have your face tore off in weird, hand-shaped strands would be a trip for sure. 

However, most of the material in here revolves around two fights. In one, Dr. Stein and Maka's dad try to take down Medusa, the powerful witch behind all this. It's a back-and-forth fight with Stein's strengths running to close combat, but Medusa having abilities that make getting close dangerous. There's also the fact Stein's got more than a little bit of a dark side in him, and so Medusa's offer to join her might be more appealing than he lets on.

The remaining attention is on Maka and Soul's rematch with Crona, the Demon Sword. The last time around, Soul got badly injured protecting Maka, which caused some tension between the two of them. Despite Maka changing her approach to stop trying to cut her opponent and try bludgeoning instead, they aren't making much more progress. Crona shrugs off their best hits.

So Soul accepts the offer of the weird little demon representing the black blood he's infected with, confident he can get the power without the madness. But, because he and Maka are in "soul resonance" she's involved as well. Which is fine, because she thinks if she's crazy like Crona, she can reach them.

Which makes for a bizarre fight, Maka cackling and staggering about like a drunken boxer, getting stabbed with a sword in the middle of her forehead and just shrugging it off. It's a sharp change from how she's fought up to that point, where she's usually charging straight ahead, all business.

End result, this somehow gets her able to connect and slip inside Crona's soul. Which is a big desert where he confines himself to a tiny circle and won't answers questions his shadow asks. The shadow is his fear, or self-doubt? I'm honestly not sure. It seems to give up and, as it puts it, go on ahead. I'm not sure where it went. Like this was a spiritual death, some part of himself Crona couldn't accept or embrace because he's too afraid to be open with anyone, even himself, and so it's gone?

Anyway Maka barges in, obliterates the line, and makes a friend. So that's one thing that went right. If Medusa was actually dead, it'd be two things, but unfortunately there's at least one snake left.

Sunday Splash Page #422

"The Big Chair," in Punisher: The Cell, by Garth Ennis (writer), Lewis LaRosa (penciler), Scott Koblish (inker), Raul Trevino (colorist), Randy Gentile (letterer)

While Ennis was writing his MAX imprint Punisher ongoing series, he also wrote an assortment of one-shots and mini-series. The Cell takes place at an undefined point in Frank's story, where he surrenders himself to get into a prison with five particular mob guys, who are finally all together after many years.

Most of the story is spent on Frank engineering circumstances so he can get time with the five of them. Which involves manipulating the sadistic head guard - not difficult, the man's both aggressive and aggressively stupid - and igniting a race war among the prison population. The reveal at the end - coming after Ennis writes a bit where 4 of the 5 admit to something awful they each did, even by their standards, in the idea they need to confess to atone, but really feels like Ennis either going for shock value or to really sell us on the notion Frank should kill these guys - is these 5 are responsible for killing Frank's family. The consiglieri tried to whack the don, there was a lot of shooting without regard for anyone else in the vicinity by the hitman and the two bodyguards, people died.

The five die, although even in a MAX book, the violence is kept largely off-panel. Frank kills the brothers that were the don's bodyguards by beating them with a nightstick, but LaRosa just shows us the nightstick rising and falling as blood flies. He also continues to use Eastwood as a visual reference for Frank (and Danny Trejo for one of the bodyguards.) The don chokes out his consiglieri himself, but has a heart attack in the process. As he dies, Frank tells him that he can escape the prison whenever he wants, and go right back to killing criminals, until there's none left. Which is in conflict with what he told himself in The Slavers arc, that he knew he couldn't stop them, any more than he can the drug trade. He knows there's always going to be more of these guys.

Also, the don strikes me as a person that wouldn't really care what happens after he dies, but whatever. Frank's having a ball, I guess. "Look what you unleashed on your people, old man."

But it makes for a interesting tie to Punisher: The End, which Ennis did with Richard Corben. I don't own it, but I read it when it came out. Basically, some point much further down the line, the world is dying. Nukes, I think. Frank's been locked up a long time, but with everything falling apart, another convict helps him escape, hoping Frank will protect him long enough to find an underground bunker the wealthy have somewhere in the city.

Frank ultimately kills the people in the bunker, I think because they helped engineer all this. Even when they plead they've heard nothing from the other bunkers, meaning they might be the last of the human race. That done (and the convict who led him there also killed) Frank, dying of radiation exposure from the journey, heads back onto the surface, to spend his remaining time killing any other criminals he finds. There's no such thing as extenuating circumstances, no reprieve or possibility of redemption. That's something he told Micro in the first MAX arc, after Micro helped the CIA catch Frank to try and sell him on working for them. Frank ended up blowing Micro's head off.

At least in that sense, Frank does keep his promise. He keeps killing until all the men like that godfather are dead. Unfortunately, it's possible everyone else is dead, too. If so, to him, that just means there's no one left who requires punishing. The mission is complete, or he's dead. Which, in a sense, is also a way of completing the mission. Frank might not see it that way, but he almost certainly meets his own definition of needing punishing. During The Cell, he doesn't acknowledge that someone could be incarcerated and actually be innocent. He kills one guy simply because the man is a cellmate of the guy Frank wants to kill to ratchet tensions in the prison. Doesn't even know the guy's name, just kills him because he's in the way and in prison, so he must be guilty. 

Saturday Splash Page #224

"Question of Faith," in The Question #3, by Dennis O'Neil (writer), Denys Cowan (penciler), Rick Magyar (inker), Tatjana Wood (colorist), Gaspar Saladino (letterer)

Steve Ditko created The Question at Charlton, but I've not read his work with the character. DC bought Charlton, and Denny O'Neil and Denys Cowan went a very different route with Vic Sage.

O'Neil's Sage is a reporter, in Hub City, a rotting post-industrial city that is a national joke for its crumbling infrastructure, drunk mayor and bent cops. Cowan shows us dirty streets, apartments with holes in the floor, peeling wallpaper, boards over windows. The streets aren't crowded, but most of the people we see are either looking to commit a crime, or appear too exhausted to even contemplate that. Just worn down, lines etched deep in their faces.

Vic has a rep as a reporter who is fearless in exposing corruption, with the Question as his method to get information, but also as a cheap thrill. An excuse to release the anger inside him through violence. He gets in over his head after Lady Shiva beats him nearly to death, and then gets shot, but something about Sage impresses Shiva enough to bring him to Richard Dragon.

The Vic who returns to Hub City a year later is a changed man, at least temporarily. He moves differently, thinks differently. Speaks in circles. When people ask who "No-Face" is and he replies, "A good question," you wonder if it's a joke, or something he doesn't know himself. Zen, letting answers and paths come to him, rather than always trying to force his way through. As I said, at least for a while, but we'll come back to that.

Sage's supporting cast consists of basically three characters: Aristotle "Tot" Rodor, an elderly professor who serves as Vic's Alfred. Patching him up, asking questions so Vic can explain things to us, providing information from his various backgrounds. Myra Connelly, an old flame of Vic's who begins the series married to the useless, drunk mayor, but later runs for mayor herself. Lastly, Izzy O'Toole, a particularly bent cop who cleans up his act after the Question saves him from being killed by a couple of crooks Izzy objected to robbing a suicide victim. 

If I had to summarize the foes the Question faces, it would be people looking for meaning, or maybe acceptance. The Reverend up there is looking for some meaning in what he saw as a chaplin in Vietnam. He uses a bomber at one point, a thin, glasses-wearing, quiet, boy, desperate to live up to his father's idea of what a man is. Desperate enough to burn his own face with acid, to prove he's not a "sissy boy" for a father he loathes, a fat, sweaty, ignorant brute who taunts his son for being shy around girls. Disillusioned soldiers, trying to prove their strength, or that their strength has some meaning or purpose behind it. A doctor who treats patients with great humanity - and kills the ones who hurt them because he thinks there's a balance to redress. A sadistic Latin American drug kingpin that hopes to use a particle accelerator to transmute himself into something better, like turning lead to gold.

How effective the Question is in dealing with these threats in up for debate. Many of them end up dead, though not by his hand. (The reverend dies by Myra's hand.) Perhaps by his voice. Vic Sage is a bit of a silver-tongued devil. Maybe it's something about what he went through that opened his perspective. Grants him greater understanding of others, but also lets him see the flaws in their philosophies. The doctor didn't consider that the people he killed were not simply evil, that they could change, as Vic had changed from his directionless, violent youth. The soldiers realize they're not following a man with some higher purpose, just one with a desire to prove he wasn't weak when he broke as a POW. But all of them end up dead, so what purpose did the Question challenging their perspective accomplish?

That's something Sage struggles with, the limit of what he can do, and how best to do it. Because as the series progresses over its 36-issue run, Vic backslides. His anger returns, his calm recedes. He may not go out as the Question for thrills, or strictly to hurt people, but he begins to see problems only in the manner in which he can use violence to solve them. He ignores what he can do as a reporter speaking to the people of Hub City to make them aware of issues. When Myra's opponent in the mayoral election hires a bunch of bikers to try and intimidate people at the polls, Vic opts to try and fight an entire, massive gang, rather than make it publicly known this is happening. Given the choice between using his fists to do all one man can, and using his voice to possibly get thousands to act, he chooses to go it alone.

Myra wins, but it's questionable how much Vic or the Question had to do with it. She fires her campaign manager - I think replacing him with her make-up artist - speaks honestly, speaks bluntly about the problems the city faces. The Question does convince Izzy, who's by then built his rep back up as an honest cop, to give a public message supporting her, but it's ultimately Myra who gets herself elected. A real poisoned chalice. When we first see her, Cowan draws her like a fashion model. Long hair with lots of bounce to it, sweaters that hug tight to her figure. She's more Vic's old flame than anything else, a woman trying to survive a bad situation for the sake of a daughter that stays at an orphanage. By the time Myra's running for mayor, her hair is cut short, she wears suit jackets and business skirts. Cowan's lines get harder, making her jawline sharper, the bags under her eyes more prominent. She's trying to seize control of her life, do something with it, but being mayor of Hub City is like buying a house while it's in the process of burning to the ground.

And that's maybe the most interesting thing O'Neil does with the book: Hub City breaks Vic. The Question can't save the city, and he can't use fighting for it (or in it) to save himself. The questions he has about himself, where he came from, who his parents were, why they didn't want him? He's not getting those answers, and that uncertainty about himself erodes whatever foundation Richard Dragon helped him build. Ultimately, he has to be carried out and taken away. To South America, if I remember the stories in The Question Quarterly right. Myra stays, Izzy stays, to keep fighting for the city, but for Vic, it's over.

What I Bought 4/8/2026

I feel I've hit a wall on most of the games I'm playing. Granted, I'm not playing anything all that often, but whenever I try, it seems like a lot of quick deaths and no progress. I'm learning things in Outer Wilds, but I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with the information I'm learning.

D'Orc #3, by Brett Bean (writer/artist), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colorist), Nate Piekos (letterer) - Well, pull on a dwarf's beard and you ought to expect them to try and drive you into the ground like a tent peg.

The angry dwarf is hunting D'orc. This plays out as D'orc doing helpful things and the dwarf then killing the people D'orc helped. A white mage offers some new intel, but it doesn't help the dwarf. Except in terms of giving him more people to terrorize, which was probably not the mage's intent, since the mage is actually D'orc.

I'm unclear on what D'orc was hoping to accomplish. He says he's ready to deal out a beating to the dwarf for the damage he's done, but dude, some of those people got damaged because you sent him in their direction! Why didn't you just kick his ass sooner?

Oh, because you can't actually kick his ass. All attempts at sneak attacks fail, but the beating gives D'orc a chance to swipe the potion meant to erase him, and hit the dwarf with it instead. The dwarf says it's supposed to burn away any mistake it's hit with, but he just kind of falls over the cliff when he takes it in the face. So, did the Bone Witch who made it sell him a bum deal, or is it just a strict definition of mistake? 

Moonstar #2, by Ashley Allen (writer), Edoardo Audino (artist), Arthur Hesli (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Aw crap, Papa Smurf has gone to the dark side, and he's grown to enormous size!

Moonstar and Kian travel to China, because there's some vessel deep in a cave that will let Kyron collect more souls. There's some arguing, and then they reach the bottom and - the vessel is gone. Great work! There's a meaningless fight with some undead - unless each of them saving the other at some point is going to be significant later - and Kian stalks out to try and contact some people.

And then Dani's grandfather appears, carrying the cursed sword and talking about how she didn't avenge him, so he's gonna do it himself. By killing Dani? I know I'm not well-versed in her backstory, but I think I'd have heard about her murdering family members.

OK, it's actually Kyron, trying a disguise. They fight a little, Dani grabs the sword, gets some sad backstory for Kyron about watching a sister die of some illness and him not accepting that nothing could be done. And then the sword got it's hooks into him, with some spiel about how it would keep everyone he cares about safe inside it forever, rather than letting their souls go wherever it is souls go in the Marvel Universe, I don't even know any more what the theological cosmology is after Ewing made such a big literal thing about The-One-Above-All in his Hulk stuff.

Anyway, Kian saves Dani from getting killed, but the sword still took her soul? I think. Well, Strong Guy ran around without a soul for awhile, right? No big deal. Though I guess he lacked empathy, which might be an interesting twist on what we've seen of Dani so far. If she didn't care about the cost of being wrong, and just dove into whatever plan she'd settled on. Though there'd still be the question of why she was bothering to stop him at that point. 

The Many Faces of Art Forgery - William Casement

Casement divides his book into 3 parts. The first is a broad history of art forgery, what we know of, anyway, going to back to people in Rome creating sculptures and then carving the names of famous artists of ancient Greece on them. This section covers not only forgers, but what he calls "copyists", who apparently make reproductions of famous pieces, but are open about it. You know it's not an actual Rembrandt or Donatello, but something done to look just like one of their pieces.

As he moves into the 20th Century, he delves into greater detail about the backstories of known forgers, their techniques, preferred styles to work in, their trials (if there were any.) This was the part that dragged the most for me. He includes photographs of forgeries in the book, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about art to be able to tell anything, even when he puts a picture of the original alongside the fake.

Part 2 is largely a discussion of the concept of forgery, or perhaps the idea of what makes the actual artwork. Early on, Casement discusses how some people define a "fake" as someone reproducing an original, a copyist that doesn't admit it, while a "forgery" is when you make an original painting, but in the style of a more famous artist, and try to pass it off as one of theirs. Yet others would reverse those definitions. So Han van Meergen made Vermeer paintings, including one, Supper at Emmaus, that Vermeer never actually painted. Forgery, or fake?

This was the part I found most interesting, as it also looks at the notion of work-for-hire, or having "studio" artists like Rubens or Warhol, who may create all or part of the actual painting based off a conceptual sketch or design by their boss. From there, it looks at the notion of appropriation, first in taking an image or work someone else created and repurposing it into something else, and eventually cultural appropriation, in terms of who gets to make art in the styles of various cultures, but also, who gets to define what is the art of a given culture.

Casement talks a lot about Indigenous Australians in that section, and a Richard Bell who points out there are many Indigenous Australians who live in urban settings and whose work reflects that life. Does that mean their art isn't part of their culture because it doesn't match the conceived notions of what their art is "supposed" to be?

Although the main takeaway I had from Part 2 was that I consider conceptualism, where guys like Damian Hirst and Jeff Koons argue they're the artist even all they contribute is the idea and someone else actually paints or sculpts it, bullshit. When I go to a comic convention and ask someone to draw me a picture of a character, I'm not the artist because I suggested the idea, the person who actually drew it is. But Hirst and Koons come off as hypocritical tools in this book, arguing it's fine for them to appropriate other people's work, then getting huffy at the slightest hint someone might be doing the same with their work.

Part 3 is a discussion of moral arguments around forgery. Those used by forgers or others to justify their actions, but also the question of authenticity and historical value. Little bit of a Ship of Theseus situation over at what point in restoring an old painting is it no longer the original, but in fact a reproduction? Is it more important to leave the painting as is, allowing it to degrade over decades and centuries but always being the work of the true artist, or touch it up to try and maintain something approaching its original state, recognizing it may be subtly altered in the process? That gets into a discussion of the "perfect fake", whether such a thing can exist, the relative aesthetic value of such a fake relative the original, and so on.

The aspect I hadn't ever considered was the potential historical damage. On a individual scale, a forger can provide a false impression of an artist's style or focus based on the forger's level of skill and what pieces they choose to reproduce or create. If Vermeer didn't actually create many paintings, but van Meergen paints several that he passes off as heretofore unknown Vermeers, that gives people the wrong idea about what Vermeer was doing. Or suddenly we think van Gogh's "blue period" was much longer or more prolific because someone makes a bunch of fakes in that style.

But Casement also discusses a guy who created fake sculptures of Mesoamerican peoples that we don't necessarily have much art from. And in some cases, the sculptures weren't based on anything other than the man's own whims. Not knowing those were fakes, archaeologists and historians were reconstructing belief systems for those people that incorporated deities and styles that were never part of that culture. So that was a new thing to consider.

The writing is a little dry at times, but Casement seems to be pretty thorough in examining the different sides of arguments and theories, providing direct quotes from forgers, artists, art historians, critics and legal statutes, where applicable. And the book certainly did not fill me with the desire to create forgeries, especially since it sounds like the actual forger usually makes a fraction of what the art dealer who sells the forgery does. 

'Eric Hebborn, in making a thousand fake Old Master drawings, capitalized on the fact that the artists he faked seldom signed their works on paper. He was known in London and Rome to be knowledgeable about art and active in searching out old works, and often approached potential buyers with "finds" while leaving the determination of authorship up to them.'