The Surreal Sweater of Alan Moore, The Audacity of Marvel, & Other Terrifying Tales of Terror

Dear you,

I know I'm not much at keeping in touch... but I swipe too many lines from obscure texts...

It's like this: My thinking becomes too disorganized to keep stopping by your place with gems of delight. Fingers in too many pots, and all that. Trying to quit smoking. Taking the aggression that produces out on my weight set. My arms won't fit in my shirts, soon.

The good: Last weekend I was, thanks to the generosity of a dear friend, one of the handful of live participants in the Alan Moore video chat, which was done for the purposes of raising funds for the Harvey Pekar memorial statue, at the Cleveland public library.

Alan was, as ever, brilliant, thoughtful, funny, and articulate in a manner that we Americans will never master.

He was also wearing the most unexpected & daring sweater. Go here to see the full chat, along with his sweater, and a peek at his boots (made from tiny cows).

The bad: I want to call for a boycott of the new Ghost Rider film, but who the hell is going to go see it anyway?

Oh, wait... probably a lot of people, seeing as the first Ghost Rider film grossed $228,738,393, worldwide.

That's a whole lot of cheddar. If Marvel is pulling that kind of skrilla in off of one diabolically bad movie, then explain to me how this shit is OK?

I get that he signed away rights of ownership. I don't like the system which designed that fact, but legally he's got no claim. That said, how in the name of something incredibly crude -which I shan't type, for fear of religious retribution- was it reasonable for the defendant (which is worth enough money that Disney was willing to buy it for $4 billion, in 2009) to lay a counter claim against Gary Friedrich, for $17,000?

To the defendant & it's parent company, $17,000 is an insult tip.  To Gary, it's a whole lot more money than he has. I met Gary at Comic-Con, when he was receiving an industry award, for his outstanding contributions to the field, last year (yes, that recently). A recovering alcoholic, and a devout Christian, he is a sweet, incomparably genuine man.

And broke.

This is the long way of begging you to donate to the Hero Initiative.

Oh, and Roy Lichtenstein can continue to kiss my ass.