A Poor Excuse for a Post

Wow, that IS a poor excuse for a post!

This is one of those awkward times when our schedule has gotten away from us and we know we're not going to be able to make a "real" blog post, but don't want to just leave everyone with an IOU either. Soooo, we're taking the middle ground: rather than no post, we're giving you a mediocre one. How's that for transparency in journalism?

And we've got no great excuse for our poor time management skills. Oh sure, grocery shopping in the pre-Thanksgiving rush took longer than we thought it would. And offering some tech support for a friend was more time consuming that we expected (note to world: setting up an Amazon "tap" device is a special trip into Hell). And then we had to resolve a brouhaha with Amazon (again!) over their rejection of a tasteful and heartwarming Christmas shirt we designed for sale on their site.

And as long as we're blatantly filling space, here's the shirt...

It's available as a t-shirt (we finally convinced Amazon to see things our way), sweatshirt, or hoodie, though we're not making a sales pitch here because we think this stuff is too darn expensive on Amazon. But we make designs anyway because it's fun and we firmly believe in the principle of Ars Gratia Artis (literally, "Artists are grating").

There's plenty of stuff going on in the news, of course, but none of it much captured our fancy. Although we were really tempted to run with the story of the pinheaded California Democrat (but we repeat ourselves - thrice, in fact) who suggested that the way the government could force gun owners to turn in their weapons is to threaten them with nukes. And that, friends, is truly Defcon-One grade stupidity.

In other areas, various Democrats have finally run out of uncounted ballots to pull out of magician's hats (although we've got a pretty good idea that's not what they were really being pulled out of) and have had to admit electoral defeat. A good thing, to be sure, but a pretty frightening reminder that we need to get election fraud under control before 2020. This election cycle was a hot mess, and if we're going to fix any damn thing in this country, that should probably be first.

We'll wrap this up with what's probably the funniest story currently out there: Stormy "Stuff Me Like a Butterball Turkey" Daniels has declared in a Newsweek interview that her involvement with Donald Trump and politics has "completely destroyed her career."

As boinking for bucks seems like an evergreen career choice, we weren't sure what she was referring to. But apparently all the negative publicity has derailed her burgeoning career behind the cameras in porn, where she was blazing a trail as a scriptwriter. Not that it's the world's hardest job...

MAN AT DOOR: Pizza delivery.
WOMAN IN NEGLIGEE: I asked for extra sausage.
MAN AT DOOR: How about...this?!

Stormy was also making professional inroads "picking out the wardrobe" for porn shoots, which again doesn't strike us as highly skilled labor since the wardrobe usually consists of birthday suits, albeit with occasional fashion accessories like a ball gag, butt plug, and strap on.

Which, as long as we're free-associating, would make a good name for Michael Avenatti's next law firm.

Ladies Daze

Although it wasn't intentional, it seems that today's cartoons are all closely associated with women and women's issues. Not that we mean to assume anyone's gender...

Michelle Obama is back on the publicity circuit (not that we're sure she ever left it), and recently told oppressed billionaire Oprah Winfrey that, following Trump's inauguration, the former first lady boarded the departure helicopter and wept for 30 minutes. Which is apparently how long it takes to roll out the drink cart on Marine One.

She didn't mention if Barry also shed a few tears or, just possibly, banged his head on the floor like a spoiled toddler while screaming through the tears and snot cascading down his "angry face."

Michelle's current high profile is fueling speculation that she may be laying the groundwork for a presidential run in 2020 - a task she might find a bit easier now that another contender looks like he's going down in well-deserved flames...

In one of the quickest and most appropriate cases of Karmic smackdown we've seen recently, creepy porn lawyer (and Democratic presidential hopeful) Michael Avenatti has been accused of repeatedly punching a woman in the face, with security personnel witnessing the immediate after effects of the beatdown while Avenatti screamed at the victim in anger.

This is the same a**hole who talked aging porn performer Stormy "I'll Do Anything For $5" Daniels into suing Donald Trump (and losing), brought forth false testimony from a bimbo claiming that Brett Kavanaugh was a gang rape mastermind (which not even the Democrats believed), and now finds himself with yet another high profile political case: in a restaurant, a male board member of a feminist organization (!) berated newscaster Tucker Carlson's daughter as a "whore" and a "f*cking c*nt" when she committed the unforgivable sin of walking past his barstool. Carlson's son then threw a glass of wine in the nitwit's face and told him to get the hell out - which he did.

So serial liar and alleged woman-beater Avenatti has subsequently taken the male feminist who believes women are whores and c*nts as a client, in order to charge both Tucker Carlson and his son for assault and battery using an unexceptional bordeaux.

Oh sure, it all sounds crazy. But when it comes to truly spectacular lunacy in Washington, there's a whole new show in town...

Socialist Representative-elect Alexandria "Way Too Much Caffeine" Ocasio-Cortez is already dismayed with Washington because, during early orientation, people keep assuming that she's just a young, clueless intern instead of a young, clueless member of Congress.

We've already heard from her own frighteningly toothy mouth that Cortez foolishly believed she would be "inaugurated" into her new job, and that she would suddenly have the power to sign bills into law. So perhaps she also assumed that she would have automatically received an aura of political power and authority which the rabble would be able to recognize from afar, no doubt shielding their eyes from the magnificent glare as they hastily knelt in her presence.

But nooOOooo. It turns out she just looks like any other ambitious, over-amped jerk in a city which was already crawling with them.

We sincerely look forward to her future crushing disappointments.

The Jarlsberg Diaries: Stan the Man

Stan Lee, the man who pretty much reinvented superheroes and comic books, died recently at age 95. That's a good long run for anyone, and considering all the joy he brought into the world this doesn't seem like a time for grief so much as remembrance and celebration.

Stan Lee was a prolific writer whose work was paired with that of a spectacular array of comics artists: Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Wally Wood, and too many others to name. Together they created Marvel comics, which were simultaneously more fun and more serious than the "kid stuff" comics which preceded them. Stan the Man was the driving force behind cultural phenomena like Spiderman, the Avengers, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, the Black Panther, the Incredible Hulk, and dozens (if not hundreds) more.

Unlike previous superheroes, those written by Stan Lee had greater complexity, insecurities, and identifiable problems which superpowers alone couldn't solve. Not that their superpowers weren't spectacular and satisfyingly kinetic.

As a youth who could be charitably described as a waddlesome nerd some 55 years ago, I loved the Marvel titles and collected them religiously. My idea of Heaven at the time was to buy the latest issues at the drug store (comics were priced at about 12¢ then) and scurry off to my basement bedroom, frequently with a bag of BBQ chips to enhance the number of senses being stimulated at the same time.

I thought I was just having fun, but it turns out I was also learning a lot about concise, visual storytelling. This served me well in later years when I was writing and laying out picture books, as well as scripts for television and film (stories for another day). But did those comics do more for my career than four years of college? In all likelihood, the answer is yes. And here I am, more than half a century later, still telling stories with characters who live in little boxes and speak in word balloons.

I still have a lot of those old comics, lovingly stored in individual plastic envelopes. And it's a good thing, because new Marvel comics really aren't what they used to be. Oh, the films are alright if you're in the mood for big, dumb, eye-popping CGI spectacle (and sometimes I am). But the comic books themselves have taken a hard left political turn and are now primarily vehicles for the wish fulfillment of their Social Justice Warrior writers and artists.

You have superheroes fighting Trump stand-ins, storming the battlements with (not against) Antifa types, and fighting things like income inequality and inflexible gender roles rather than city-devouring monsters, evil scientists, and planet-conquering aliens. Many of the classic superheroes created by Lee have been "updated" with minority figures in the name of diversity. And there's nothing wrong with diversity, but when Stan Lee wanted a black superhero, he damn well created one who was black rather than simply transferring the costume of an existing hero to whatever ethnic stereotype was the flavor of the month.

And I don't have a problem with Ice Man from the X-men coming out as gay, but do we really need page after page of him flirting with other guys instead of saving the world? Is Captain America a better hero for our times since Marvel declared that this super-patriot has actually been an undercover Nazi all along? And is The Mighty Thor quite as awesomely god-like now that he's been given a vagina? A process which sounds like it would leave you mighty thor, as Daffy Duck might say.

Mind you, all of this SJW stuff is absolutely killing Marvel financially on the comics shelves. Unsurprisingly, no one wants to read this crap.

Stan Lee gave us heroes instead of whiners. And in so doing, became something of a hero himself.

Stan Lee has a cameo in almost every Marvel film.