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 3^rd, 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 3^rd, she only received 5 percent of the votes, which put her in 6^th place! She has quit her campaign; here at The Strangest Adventures, we’ll miss her. Meanwhile 4^th place Newt Gingrich, 5^th place Rick Perry, and 6^th 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. 

Candidates of 2012-Herman Cain

I’ve been struggling with creating a valid/an interesting image of Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain for months now-who really wants to see him try serving his stale $9.99 pizzas, um, tax ideas. What a darned shame that he’s not the CEO of Domino’s Pizza! “I am the Koch brothers’ brother from another mother … and proud of it!”  he said onstage in November of this year. Not that he is a bad guy as such, but I’m for the idea that President of the United States should not be the first office you get elected to. But then, with the recent attention Mr. Cain has received about events from a bygone era I was taken with the notion of depicting Herman Cain as a faded relic of the 1990s, M. C. Hammer!

M.C. Hammer was a pop star/early rapper that made his hits from using other people’s talent, such as music taken from a Rick James song.  Herman Cain is building his 9-9-9 “flat tax” idea on the foundations set by failed presidential candidate Steve Forbes but in this case Forbes is flattered by the tribute. M.C. Hammer became popular very quickly and almost as quickly became less so. Cain seems to be following that pattern, at least with his recent meteoric rise in the polls, though it seems everyone in the race (except Santorum) has led in the polls by having the singular quality of not being Mitt Romney!

Recently, Herman Cain’s campaign got very interesting; allegations of sexual harassment dating from the 1990s surfaced. While president of the National Restaurant Association, Mr. Cain was accused on several occasions of sexual harassment. The Association paid off several women for their silence. I hope these are groundless allegation but women were paid off, and a third party is willing to confirm harassment occurred so none of this looks good for Cain. Or does it? In the week or so since the “scandal” broke, Cain has received over a million dollars in campaign money. He still seems to test well with conservatives that believe the liberal media is persecuting Cain. In fact, if Romney gets the nomination I predict Herman Cain would be the most likely candidate for a third party run but since Herman has never been elected to any office I suggest that he concentrate on the world of music, where his sounds delight us instead of appall us. 

DC Comics Silver Age Reboot-The Super Squad!

This is the Super Squad, mentioned in this blog before. All-Star Comics was about the adventures of the Justice Society of America at least until March 1951. But in 1959, DC called upon Gardner Fox to create new group for a new age, to be published in All-Star Comics, composed of these recent “old but new” heroes, but Fox reasoned it would be good to advertise they had super powers in their group name thus The Super Squad was born! However, in 1959 America was still reeling from the Eisenhower recession of 1958 and as it turns out, it was an awkward year in the comic book industry; too early perhaps for a team book to be a true success. 

The Super Squad limped on for years, never becoming as popular as other groups such as The Doom Patrol or the Blackhawks. Eventually the Super Squad traveled to Earth-2 and trying to displace their originals there! Later they added The Ant, a wisecracking acrobat with arthropod-based powers. Times change and by 1966 DC had grown weary of his juvenile antics and used a depowered version of The Ant as a Teen Titans villain! The Super Squad faded out on its own, a victim of its own unpopularity. It was not destroyed by a wave of antimatter but rather a wave of indifference. 

By Special Request-Planet Wingnuttia

Longtime readers of this blog know Ed Brayton and his Dispatches from the Culture Wars. I don’t think I would have started this blog without his encouragement. Recently he requested that I create a new feature, Planet Wingnuttia, to highlight hypocrisy on the political scene, that we could share on both blogs.  So, for the first issue, we’ve gone with the concept of conservatives that tout traditional marriage while trading in wives as often as some people replace cell phones. It is also pretty unbelievable to me that Newt Gingrich is, at this late date, “running for president”. This “curio from another time” resigned in disgrace from congress and hasn’t held office since the 1990’s; in my opinion he’s only there to promote himself and his books. The most amazing story here, perhaps, is that four different women were actually willing to marry Rush Limbaugh!

Marvel’s Had Some Reboots Too

There’s been a lot of hoopla lately about DC Comic’s recent reboot of its entire universe, erasing over 70 years of continuity. And this isn’t the first time this company has done this, but certainly it’s the highest profile change they’ve mustered over the years.  What less people know about though, is how Marvel Comics also rebooted characters, and Stan Lee took the credit for creating new, original characters. Let me explain.

In May 1942, unknowns Walt Peters and Jake Simms approached Timely, the forerunner of Marvel, with a stable of characters that they called The Amazing Marvels. Timely liked what they saw but were unwilling to fully commit to the concept, so they printed a limited run. They sold every issue they printed but were still cautious so continued only printing limited runs, reasoning that if the characters caught on they could just reprint them. Just to hedge their bets they had the duo include The Angel, an already established character as a member of The Amazing Marvels. They did indeed develop a moderate level of popularity but one thing Timely hadn’t counted on was Peters demanding triple pay for him and his artist, Simms. Timely, of course, would do no such thing, and the result was a lawsuit. The result was, the two took had creative control of their characters, but now had no publisher. They shopped their heroes around, but no company would hire them; no one wanted to risk a lawsuit. Destiny was not kind in this case, a tragic fire in Jake Simms Brooklyn home in 1943 resulted in his death and the destruction of all the original artwork. Walt Peters had no drawing ability, and could find no artist that would work with him, so that signaled the “death” of The Amazing Marvels. It was all a moot point anyway, as Peters died of pneumonia in 1945. None of this escaped the notice of a young Stan Lee, who was working at Timely as a gofer in those days. Eventually Stan, knowing that in essence no one alive owned these characters created his own versions of them, for the modern age, and so far, he’s gotten away with it. And now the story can be told. These two comics are the only surviving issues of The Amazing Marvels privately collected. Marvel, for its part, does their best to pretend these characters never existed, except for The Angel. 

Noncandidate of 2012-Chris Christie

To some Republicans, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey can do no wrong. Elected to replace yet another corrupt administration, Christie has had the herculean task of taming the out of control New Jersey state budget. How he did this was extreme budget cuts most notably in social services and in the state Department of Education. One reason he has become such a hero to the current GOP is, he made these cuts in education in order to create tax cuts for those making over one million dollars a year! Those cuts were estimated to have cost the state treasury, by their own estimates, $900 million, which would have covered the $820 million that was cut from the education budget. Christie contends that the millionaire surtax would drive millionaires away from New Jersey, but there is no evidence to support this, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

As we now know, the GOP begged him to run but, to his credit, he decided to stay on as governor, the job he was, after all, elected to do. That makes me wish that every governor had felt that way; they were elected to do a job and they should see that through. Not that I’m referring to anyone we would know, mind you.

I felt this Christiemania needed to be commemorated in comic book form. This is how I saw the situation in my mind’s eye; the GOP, horribly disappointed in their current crop of candidates, reaching out for an alternative. I’ll salute Christie for knowing when to stay out of a dogfight; I just hope he never delves into national politics. 

DC Comics Reboot-Silver Age Sandman

Raymond “Whitey” Sands was a dreamer who had always dreamt of incredible battles, fantastic weapons, and strange vistas. He always felt the dream world seemed more real than reality itself. He dreamed of fighting secret menaces in the Dream Dimension so one day he awoke and crafted a costume and began his career as Sandman, seeking out nightmares come alive. He created his Sand-Blaster, which not only shoots sand, but also sleeping gas. He uses other gimmicks as well, such as grit bombs and instant quicksand. Later it was revealed that he was seeing a distorted version of the original Sandman, Wesley Dodds, and his sidekick Sandy, through the Dream Dimension Mirror. Later he journeyed to Earth-2 where he met and worked with his inspiration. He was a member of the Super-Squad from the beginning, he was the first one Starman recruited. As for his own title, it didn’t last 15 issues. For some reason, this version of Sandman never caught on. Later Sandman was killed by a shadow demon in Crisis on Infinite Earths; most consider it a mercy killing for this unpopular character. 

The Obama-Palin Debate of 2012!

Can this ever happen? Will Sarah Palin ever declare her candidacy for the office of President of the United States? Well, she gave an impassioned speech this last weekend in Iowa; she was the keynote speaker at the Tea Party of America’s “Restoring America” rally.

I caught the beginning, she oozed energy and confidence, Obviously she had practiced and though I disagreed with much of what she said, she did well in delivery, her content broke no new ground and made me realize; given the current slate of candidates, perhaps Sarah Palin is no longer the craziest person in the room!

Aside from recent bus trip shenanigans, Governor Palin has, since 2008, been in the business of promoting Sarah Palin by promoting her books, her reality show, and her stint as Fox News political pundit. In 2010, she became “involved” with the race for the GOP to take the House of Representatives by supporting certain candidates, which she felt held to high tea party standards. By the numbers, Palin did well in supporting candidates that won with several notable exceptions, included her hand picked Alaskan protégé Joe Miller-defeated by write in votes! -And Christine “I am not a witch” O’Donnel!

On to the matter at hand, I suspect this scenario of an Obama Versus Palin debate, will remain the realm of fantasy; it seems to me Sarah Palin relishes her role as media attention grabber, self promoter, king maker. I don’t think she is ready, nor may ever be, for the rough and tumble world of presidential politics, or the pay cut!  I hope she is smart enough to realize how badly the general public will receive her! 

DC Comics Reboot-Silver Age Doctor Mid-Nite

In the 1960's, ince DC was radically reworking heroes for a new age, The Silver Age, it was decided to create a new Doctor Mid-Nite that was both a woman and a Non-American. Brilliant surgeon Dr. Karla Mitternacht led a busy life as an emergency surgeon in a rural Bavarian hospital, until she removed black glowing shards from a dying patient; exposure to the eerie energies gave her amazing powers, night vision, flight, darkness casting, moon-beams, enhanced strength and endurance. Her powers wax and wane with the day, she is weakest at noon and strongest at midnight, even becoming visibly stronger looking. She is nearly strong enough at midnight to take on Superman! By Issue #16 the writers, Otto Binder on this issue, referred to "The Golden Age" in the villains dialogue! She later went to America, to join The Super-Squad, where she was a member for 37 issues, 12 issues more than her own title lasted, until being replaced by Starman Junior. Ouch!

Later a younger version of Karla was time-lost, ending up in the 30^th Century and teaming up with Night-Girl, Shadow Lass, and Phantom Girl in “The Darkest Mission!” She was later erased from existence when it was revealed she came from the Time Trapper’s Pocket Universe.

Status–never referred to again except in Super Squad Reprints.

P.S. I have been exposed to the new DC Universe, rebooted this month! Oh wow, they don’t wear their underwear on the outside anymore! They have lines on their clothes, is that amour? Same characters, including some mired in history such as Rocket Red or Guy Gardener.  I was prepared to be outraged, only; so far, it looks just like the slow paced type of Action Hero Story you must endure in this modern era. Um, The Copper Age? The Tin Age? Or, The Last Gasp of the Paper Age? 

The Strangest Adventures T-Shirts!

If you are still reading at this point, perhaps you enjoy this type of humor enough to want a The Strangest Adventures T-Shirt. I’ve tried to include the main candidates in the 2012 Presidential election in this homage to the Justice League/Justice Society/All-Star Squadron team-up of the 1980’s, Crisis on Earth Prime. This is my first “official” foray into T-Shirt design, aside from home printed and applied iron-ons for myself and others, an early noble design experiment. I would appreciate any feedback, positive or negative, that anyone could provide. And note, I have provided inexpensively priced shirts for the tight of budget as well as premium style shirts. Wear this shirt to tell others you think the candidates are as much of a freak show as I see them to be, well at least in my fevered imagination! Your support would be appreciated; this would supplement my meager earnings from freelance work.

http://www.cafepress.com/TheStrangestAdventures  

Candidates of 2012-Rick Perry

Rick Perry replaced George W. Bush as governor of Texas, after Bush became president. Most of us not being Texans are unfamiliar with this guy, so, who is he? He started off as a Democrat in the Texas State Legislature and supported Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 1988; in 1989 he became a Republican. Coincidence? Eventually he became Lieutenant Governor, then Governor, where he has remained to this day. In the last election, the Bush family ran Kay Bailey Hutchison against him but she lost. Rick seems to be attracted to the Tea Parties, or at least he is pandering to them. On April 15^th, 2009, fired up by a Tea Party gathering he said, “Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that... My hope is that America and Washington in particular pays attention. We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that.” That sure sounds like he was threatening to have Texas secede from the US. Some would call that treason. How ironic then, that within the first 48 hours of declaring he said of Federal Reserve head Ben Bernanke, "If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y'all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous – or treasonous in my opinion." Way to go Rick, threatening a federal official. Governor Perry zoomed to the top of the list on at least one poll and seems to be the charismatic candidate many were waiting for. He has charisma but I find the way he touches people to be a bit off-putting, certainly when he patted the cheeks of a CNN camera man that seems to be one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen a politician do. Perry touts job creation in Texas; during the past two years Texas has accounted for at least one-third of the new jobs created in the United States but as it turns out, those were all government jobs! D’oh! This guy seems a bit dense and self deluded, but here at The Strangest Adventures, we like that. I’ve presented him as a western gunslinger, going after the president; they were both campaigning in Iowa on the same day, recently. Makes sense to me, Perry is known for being armed most of the time, even while jogging!

DC Comics Reboot-Silver Age Hour-Man

The next Golden Age DC Comics hero to inspire a new version for the Silver Age was Hour-Man. Carleton Chronos was born into the Chronos Family legacy; the oldest male would receive The Time Cloak! The wearer, and a few companions, can travel through time, to any era, for one hour. He can also emit time waves, which can, as needed stop or speed up people or objects. His earliest adventures seem to be misadventures, as he has trouble controlling his powers at first. Later, his powers mastered, he worked for a time as a temporal agent and has worked with the Legion of Super-Heroes. Later, he was the founder and leader of The Super-Squad. His power was sufficient to transport the members of the Squad when needed, but his greatest asset was his inborn leadership. His own title had a spotty history, selling well in the 1960’s but getting progressively less popular as time went on. In the 1980s, after a series of lackluster time traveling adventures with third rate guest stars (think Brother Power the Geek) his title was finally, mercifully canceled, and Hourman was unceremoniously killed in Crisis on Infinite Earths. 

Bachmann Begins

Ah Representative Michele Bachmann, the gift that keeps on giving. She is currently running 9% to 12% behind Romney is various polls, but that still puts her in second place. Not bad, and, unexpected. She IS the darling of the tea parties, and their champion in congress, so certainly that may account for her numbers. She always claims to be against government spending (apparently not the cases for her husband–more on that in a moment). Pretty ironic by the way that she’s an anti-tax advocate who once worked as an attorney collecting taxes for the IRS. Representative Bachmann claims to have the solution to all our woes. She wants to revoke the federal minimum wage. She believes that eliminating this and other regulations would “virtually wipe out unemployment.” Could this work? I don’t know, I doubt the answer is that easy. Though I wonder how Ms. Bachmann would fare on minimum wage. And then there’s the curious case of her husband Dr. Marcus Bachmann. He has collected Medicaid monies for his clinic, Bachmann & Associates. One thing is clear enough, Marcus Bachmann collected state aid, and he got these state funds and used them for, among other things, counseling gays to change their sexual orientation. He said last year on Point of View Radio Talk Show that "barbarians need to be educated" when asked how parents should deal with their homosexual children. “They need to be disciplined, just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road.” What he’s referring to is “reparative therapy”, the crackpot idea that gays can be cured through therapy. I believe people are who they are, and can’t be “fixed” nor should they be. Most mental professionals agree with me, attempts to change orientation can be dangerous and lead to suicide. So far Bachmann has remained silent about this, perhaps hoping the furor will die down. We’ll see. Maybe we can return to merely pointing out Michele’s foibles such as when she confused John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy! When asked why she launched her candidacy from Waterloo, Iowa, she said, "Well what I want them to know is just like John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That's the kind of spirit that I have, too." Yikes!

DC Comics Reboot-Silver Age Starman

There has been much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth over DC Comic’s decision to reboot their entire line of comics, restarting with number one on all titles. Yes, Superman, Batman and all the rest of them are starting over, from day one, now. No back-story, no history. However, I’m sure Superman will be from Krypton, Batman will live in Gotham City etc. Of course this isn’t the first time the DC Universe has been restarted; In the late 1980’s, after Crisis on Infinite Earths erased 50 years of continuity, Superman and Wonder Woman started from scratch, other characters were revamped, often drastically. However, the most important reboot occurred in the 1950s, when new versions of Golden Age heroes appeared in the pages of DC Comics. After concentrating mostly on Westerns, Romance, Detective, Military, and Pirate comics, editor Julius Schwartz felt 1957 was the right time to bring back superheroes, but DC played it safe, creating new characters for a new age that had names that hearkened back to the Golden Age. The first of these new heroes was Starman.

The new Starman was astronomer Ray Nelson, who had crafted a device, the Cosmic Converter, capable of harnessing the power of the stars, only, he taps into something else, too; it’s something alien he must learn to control. It’s all told in Showcase # 11, written by Gardner Fox. The cover is by the incomparable Wally Wood.  The editor took no chances that buyers would be confused; this was, according to the cover, the best comic book you could buy! The marketing ploy worked, this was a top selling comic!  After all, see how Starman easily decks Batman with a Star-Burst and shoves Superman away using Red Sun energy! The editors were putting the slow selling Batman and Superman on notice; sell more copies or get canceled! The arrival of Starman signaled the beginning of The Silver Age. After this million-dollar debut he had a long and storied history eventually gaining a sidekick, Starman Jr. Perhaps someday I’ll cover their careers, but next time, I’ll discuss Silver Age Hour-Man. 

Debt Ceiling Blues

Back to the Big Bad Debt Ceiling Debate. Ah the debt limit, in place since 1917, has been raised multiple times, 7 times under President Bush, 3, so far, under President Obama, and 18 times under President Reagan! Doesn’t sound like the Tea Parties would approve!

Most economists agree that we must raise the debt limit or risk getting a lower credit rating. Times are so bad that the USA is having trouble with creditors! Obama sure wants to raise it but didn’t want to raise it in 2006 when he was in Congress. He calls that “a political vote”.  You can get a great overview of the whole debate here. Now of course the House and the Senate have dueling bills. Three days left. Let’s see who caves in.  Or, will it be 50/50? Or will Obama step in? Stay tuned, true believers!

Genesis of my Style–Part 2 Blast From The Past!

In Part 1 I discussed the 13 Deadly Sins of Desktop Publishing. Here, I highlight the sin of using hyphens in place of bullets, featuring a gleeful, gun toting Vice President Dick Cheney, right after the infamous errant gunshot incident! The parody may be a bit broad and sophomoric, but that’s “not out of my wheelhouse”. Some would consider my current work I also created promotional buttons as well. Ah, I should have began this blog in 2006, so many foibles to cover in those days! But then, current events give me sufficient fodder, and, so it goes.

Tales From the White House-End of the World!

President Obama has been haunted by some scary specters lately-House Republicans! They and Obama have been tussling lately on the details of raising the debt ceiling and the consequences of not doing so. Regarding the results of the debt ceiling not being raised, Salon has a better explanation that I could ever give; I only provide original graphics and meager commentary; I try to speak to a broad audience despite this being a niche concept (so far)!  Obama and the Democrats are willing to cut some spending but insist on revenue increases IE: Tax increases OR as proposed cutting tax loopholes for "millionaires and billionaires". In several polls, 70% of Americans polled want a combination of spending cuts AND revenue increases, however many Republicans are intractable on this matter, no new taxes period.  Many of them were voted into office on a wave of antigovernment, antispending, and anti-taxing fervor in the election of 2010. Oddly enough, sometimes you get the impression that Speaker of the US House of Representatives John Boehner , an old school Establishment Republican is being held  hostage by newer, more extreme members of the house.  This will be a real nail biter. If they don’t raise the debt ceiling in time, the US could get a poor credit rating-expect the possibility of a second recession, or worse!