Saturday, January 7, 2012

Our Story So Far

OK, here’s where the Presidential Campaign of 2012 stands now. First off, last month, unelectable Pizza Magnate Herman Cain “suspended” his campaign, in a fog of sexual misconduct allegations. The final straw was when Ginger White accused him of having a 13-year affair. So ends that sideshow. Newt Gingrich jumped into Cain’s spot as flavor of the month, but he quickly became distasteful to voters.  

By the time of the Iowa Caucus on January 3rd, 2012 Newt had lost his luster, coming in fourth. Unsurprisingly, Mitt Romney won with 30,015 votes, however the big surprise of the day was
Rick Santorum with 30,007 votes, only 8 less than Romney! It turns out Rick, who had only a small amount of money compared to the other candidates, had replaced money with hard work. He visited all 99 counties in Iowa, speaking to potential voters and it paid off. It's impressive enough that I almost regret how I have depicted him on this blog. Almost. Of course, he can’t use that approach in every state; there just isn’t enough time for that.

In third place, Ron Paul with 26,219 votes, more than double what he got here in 2008. This was as good as a victory to his cultish fans and much better than anyone expected. Between the three of them, this equals 70 percent (if you could combine them into one Super-Candidate it could in theory beat Obama) but bear in mind that this is 70 percent of 5.4% of the total voters in Iowa. Yes, this was a “record turnout” and it only drew that small a percentage of the registered voters!

Michele Bachmann also set a record; she had the largest drop in popularity in Iowa history from winning the straw poll to losing the caucuses. She won the straw poll in August with 28.6 percent of the vote but on January 3rd, she only received 5 percent of the votes, which put her in 6th place! She has quit her campaign; here at The Strangest Adventures, we’ll miss her. Meanwhile 4th place Newt Gingrich, 5th place Rick Perry, and 6th place Jon Huntsman continue on. Next stop, New Hampshire!



Justice Guild of America-The Streak!

I’m a huge fan of DC Comics’ superhero groups, like, The Justice League of America and The Justice Society of America. The JSA were the heroes of the Golden Age and of Earth-2, as explained in Flash #123 “Flash of Two Worlds” (written by Gardner Fox). I’ve always been drawn towards tales of the early superheroes, and became quite excited in 2002 when the Justice League Animated Series was going to do a JSA episode but when the episode (Legends) aired it featured a homage to the JSA, The Justice Guild of America. The JGA were thinly disguised versions of some of my favorite heroes, such as The Streak was obviously based on the Golden Age Flash. At the end of the 2-part episode, on the screen flashed “Respectfully dedicated to the memory of Gardner F. Fox”.

Eventually I decided a tribute to the JGA was in order, so I created a series of covers; these are the ones that got me started making faux comic book covers in the first place!
First one up is my favorite, The Streak. He has super-speed as well as fighting skills and is the leader of the JGA. I spent weeks making these early covers, often drawing 1 or 2 pixels at a time, before I developed some time saving techniques, still, I’m pleased with the results and hope you’ll enjoy them.