August 2008 Archives

This noteworthy museum exhibit on Judaism and comics will be making its way to Belgium next year.

The UK Tourette Syndrome Association wins the 2008 Chip Shop Award for best charity ad. I'd love to see the equivalent in the U.S.; for now, we'll have to rely on South Park.

Via about:blank, which is always full of good stuff.

, originally uploaded by chillbill.

The U.S. has a storied tradition of uncivil protest. In New York's gentrifying NoLita, a resident living above the new restaurant Delicatessan has registered his objection in a most creative way: by urinating on its glass roof.

Unfortunately, as this sign indicates, the pissed off tenant seems to have missed the mark, forcing another tenant to replace an air conditioner.

Electric Bean, originally uploaded by Striderv.

These old ads provide a striking example of the relation between technology and language. A few decades later everything would "atomic." In the early sixties, "-tronic." Now--eThis and iThat.

It's something folks need to remember when talking about social enterprise. The movement's rhetoric is an expression of its time, and times--like Electric Beans and Electro Balm--do change.

I actually address this issue in my latest article. If you'd like a copy, drop me a line.

Make Your Own Records at Home, originally uploaded by Striderv.

From 1942, a reminder that the 2.0 generation is not sui generis, but the latest manifestation of a trend that has been building for well over the past century.

Back when I lived in a city where I drove to work, this always creeped me out. One main intersection on the way to work was near a high school; the intersection also had a gas station with its own commercial car wash. Rather frequently during the summer there would be a charity car wash for school groups where older guys would line up to get their cars hosed down by bikini-clad teen girls. Bad enough the charity car wash was taking business away from the gas station's; the overt Lolita dynamic skeezified the whole affair.

Y'know, where I grew up, despite their deep tradition of organized benevolence you never saw an Amish bikini buggy wash.

Index card via the ever insightful Indexed--bookmark it or subscribe if you haven't already!

. . . are the subject of my latest post on JustMeans.com.

DEATH OF COMMUNITY UPDATE:

Astroland R.I.P.

The Ephemerist finds a copy of a 1962 comic adapting the film The Underwater City--with the evolutionary material scratched out & replaced with divine creation:

Katy Perry--whose "I kissed a girl" has become an international hit--has a cast made of her breasts. The bust of her bust will be auctioned off for Keep-a-breast.org.

The FInal FBOFW, originally uploaded by Mike Boon.

The last daily was interesting, with an implicit slam on Lynn Johnston's ex-husband, who, it seems, left her for one of her own employees. Tomorrow's final Sunday has been scanned & Flickr'd, with happy endings for all.

Except perhaps for the dead guy.

From a 2003 interview on real estate investment trusts:

Saltzman: Investing is about relative value. There have been capital inflows to real estate because it has offered better returns than fixed income or stocks in recent years. No doubt real estate is getting bid up as part of that equation. Will real estate continue to be perceived as a good value or has it reached equilibrium? It's certainly possible that investor perceptions of relative value will shift once again.

"Black Creature" by Numskull. Available here for $1000 Australian.

From The Circle of Life: Rituals from the Human Family Album, Rasta kids smoke their sacred herb.

The world may now know Sarah Palin as the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, but folks in the charity biz no doubt remember her work in creating the charitable check-off provision for Alaskans receiving a Permanent Fund Dividend from the state's oil revenue. Under this new law, residents can donate part or all of their annual oil dividend to qualifying charities.

What?

You don't remember this?

Well, it was big news in Alaska, anyway. They even took a picture of her at the bill's signing, in a room with all the other residents of the state:

Were I to rename this site, "Pedigreed Bunk" would be in the running. Captain Billy's Whiz Bang is available here; its history is the subject of an eponymous essay that made a big impression on me growing up, in the landmark comics history collection All in Color for a Dime. My historical sensibility owes a lot to it.

In fact, I still have the copy of All in Color I bought at a flea market over thirty years ago. Back in the day I read it so many times the cover fell off & the book split in two.

Actually, Elizabeth, you won't, because your creator is killing you on Sunday.

Your doppleganger escapes from the Black Lodge on September 1.

From the AVN photo gallery taken at the world record lapdance for charity at Scores Las Vegas. NSFW, probably.

It's easy to say that stuff like this isn't really charity or social enterprise, but if that's your opinion, why not? On what basis should folks draw the line?

Speaking of which, porn star Tera Patrick has promised that if she wins the 2008 Booble Girl of the Year contest, she'll donate the $5000 prize to breast cancer charity B.A.B.E. Anyone who wants to demonstrate the power of web 2.0 fundraising can vote at the decidedly NSFW porn search engine Booble.com.

I really needed a break today, so for the subway ride home I picked up the copies of the Licensable Bear comics that I was delighted to find colonizing my postal lifeworld (thanks Nat!).

Brilliant! Piracy. Free culture. Anime. Social enterprise. And that's just the first issue--everything is fair game for this commercial satire. There's a lot here for folks in the charity biz, such as the library pitch above and the Licensable Bear PSAs. A collected edition is reportedly on the way; for now, be sure to check out all the fun--and licensable!--stuff on the LB site.

As the comics community commemorates Jack Kirby's birthday, here's the cover of what might very well be my favorite Kirby story of all time.

The premise is deceptively simple: in the future after the Great Disaster, Kamandi encounters a tribe of gorillas that worship The Mighty One. Legend tells them that The Mighty One disappeared when bearing the weight of a new continent he created to fill the void created by a destructive quake. The tribe awaits his return, with the stronger gorillas undertaking mighty feats so they can wear the only thing of Superman that remains: his super-suit.

For our purposes, let's set aside the obvious joke that perhaps the reason Superman hadn't returned was his embarrassment over flying around naked. Sure, that's funny, but there's something else going on here.

Think of this tale as a metaphor for the direction of comics--and fictional narrative--itself. Superman starts as a story, bears the weight of our ideals and becomes a symbol--or, in more commercial terms, a legend or mark that anyone can wear so as to associate themselves with what the brand represents. It's one reason you see the occasional superhero tattoo or clothing on this site--the hero has evolved from a narrative subject to a transformative sign. It's a cultural transition that we academics yack about with convoluted verbiage, but Kirby had it all right here in 22 pages 30+ years ago.

The Burlesque Hall of Fame is a Las Vegas charity dedicated to fostering an appreciation & understanding of the art of burlesque. Gothamist does the same thing in this interview with the Hall's 2008 Reigning Queen, New York's own Angie Pontani.

French Quarter - Graffiti, originally uploaded by microgiving.

Creative design on a city wall--art.

Bland moralizing--urban blight.

Current bid is 5000 dollars, but at least the shipping is free--and the designer fashion for the red carpet premiere is included!

If this is on-the-level, wow:

I attempted to get up to use the restroom, rather urgently, during the 7th inning stretch as God Bless America was beginning. As I attempted to walk down the aisle and exit my section into the tunnel, I was stopped by a police officer. He informed me that I had to wait until the song was over. I responded that I had to

"As soon as the latter came out of my mouth, my right arm was twisted violently behind my back and I was informed that I was being escorted out of the stadium. A second officer then joined in and twisted my left arm, also in an excessively forceful manner, behind my back. I informed them they were violating my First Amendment rights and that I had done nothing wrong, with no response from them.

"I was sitting in the Tier Level, and of course this is the highest level of the stadium and I was escorted in this painful manner down the entire length of the stadium. About halfway down, I informed them that they were hurting me, repeated that I had done nothing wrong, and that I was not resisting nor talking back to them. One of them said something to the effect that if I continued to speak, he would find a way to hurt me more.

"When we reached the exit of the stadium, they confiscated my ticket and the first officer shoved me through the turnstiles, saying 'Get the hell out of my country if you don't like it.'

God, country, city and sports exist on a continuum, something we'll chat about a bit more here later. For now, a commenter chimes with a sentiment felt by many in NYC:

I'm a Yankees fan and I am sick to death of "God Bless America." I wish they would stop playing it. You know how certain things lose their effectiveness through overuse? This is one of them. It may have been a nice gesture in the months immediately following 9/11, but come on, people, it's been seven years.

As a youngster I went to see the Clint Eastwood "Every Which Way" films--not because of the plot, of course, but because of co-star Clyde the Orangutan. Here's what I didn't know about them until today:

According to "Visions of Caliban: On Chimpanzees and People" by famed primatologist Jane Goodall and Dale Peterson, the original "Clyde" was trained with a can of mace and a pipe wrapped in newspaper. He was viciously beaten the day before filming started to make him more docile. Near the end of filming the sequel "Any Which Way You Can," the orangutan was caught stealing doughnuts on the set, brought back to the training facility and beaten for 20 minutes with a 3 1/2 -foot ax handle. He died soon after of a cerebral hemorrhage.

An application to Speed Racer follows in this Defamer post.

Sigh.

Catching up on summer reading, here's a Business Week article on social entrepreneurship joint ventures in Palestine & Israel. It's innovative and do-gooding, but so is this Oscar-winning short:

West Bank Story - First 4 Minutes

You can't really get more American than this, photographed on display at Salvatore's Italian Gardens in Depew, NY:

And in the spirit of the season, here's a tourist 9/11 meditation from Overheard in New York.

Scenes from a video collage of representations of the internet in film. This screenshot array is compelling in itself.

The artist's explanation:

A collage of footage from various Hollywood movies from mid 90ies and on, where internet is portrayed. What is shown is obviously not the real internet, but rather a meta internet, fabricated to work in favor of a certain plot or narrative. The imagery isn't necessarily very authentic, yet we have no difficulty interpreting this imaginary aesthetic. We’ve been taught to expect it, and we’re now completely immune to its disparateness.

Another intriguing work from Anna Lundh is Mickey's Trailer, in which she recreates in 3D a transformable trailer from a Disney film that has become a Christmas Eve tradition in Sweden. Be sure to check her explanation & the original frames for comparison.

Too twee for me. I swear, the next time I'm invited to a chari-tea or sustaina-ball, I'm gonna chuck do-goodery for weapons trading and strip mines.

Via Philanthropy 2173.

Above: a Peking Olympics-themed Dutch cartoon, "The 100 meters free speech" race. The Ephemerist particularly likes the "implicaton that free speech automatically entails uncouth language and verbal abuse."

The cartoon is actually pretty much on target. Swearing and other vituperative speech help build social norms and cohesion; allowing such speech strengthens the group. The title of this academic article reflects the broader research: "Swearing at work and permissive leadership culture: When anti-social becomes social and incivility is acceptable."

$#!%, even evangelicals are doing it!

"In the age of the bikini and of skin-diving, we begin to understand 'the castle of our skin' as a space and world of its own."

--Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media

Via EntreComics.com

Longtime readers of my sites are by now familiar with Marshall McLuhan's observation that in our age of convergence the skin is an extension of the self. The role of the flesh as a communications medium is nowhere more evident than in this stunning Wired slideshow of comic fans showing off their tattoos.

Above: Wonder Woman on the arm of Michael Boyce, a San Diego comic shop owner. His theme of choice: superheroines. "I want to have arms that look like comic book pages with the girls bursting out."

Below: Captain America, tattooed on a strip-club manager who is into the "whole patriotic thing."

The Democratic National Convention isn't the only nonprofit action in Denver. At a local nightclub party, local fire fighters lathered their muscles in baby oil and were auctioned off for charity. The beneficiary: Fired Up for Kids, which is also selling a calendar featuring buff (and partially in the buff) men & women from Colorado fire departments.

The charity's PR rep, Yvette Rebik, offers this post-feminist perspective on why the calendar is a sure-fire seller . . .

"It's the whole rescue thing," Rebik said. "Women can't help themselves."

. . . and the news coverage explains that some firefighters hold their tools while others don't, which, given the position of the axe head above, is probably a good thing to clarify.

With regard to gender parity, as the photo below illustrates the women in the calendar wear shirts, unlike the men--and unlike the women at this nonprofit event last Saturday in Central Park.

Superman and the March of Dimes, originally uploaded by trexfiles23.

A cause marketing alliance from Superman #27: a ten cent donation to the March of Dimes got you a free membership in the Supermen of America Club or, for current members, an autographed Superman picture.

"A nationwide promotion for a music festival's green credentials. We built a promotion get people to go and plant flowers illegally in towns across Hungary for a free ticket to the festival. We had 11,000 unique visitors to the microsite (http://www.zoldvadmuvelet.hu), nationwide press, and 63 teams of people who joined the promotion to go guerilla gardening."

Enjoy Capitalism T-shirt, originally uploaded by LibertyManiacs.com.

Or is it the other way around? Anyway, you can see this up-with-commerce logo on both city walls and t-shirts.

A few days ago on a walk through the city I spotted a sign for Ozymandias Realty & straightway said to my Esteemed Colleague, "Look on my works, New Yorkers, and despair!"

Jeremiah's Vanishing New York offers a revealing riff on this theme in this report on synagondos--"religious-residential hybrid buildings [that] may become more common as developers look to capitalize on a great location and synagogues look to improve their finances and physical conditions."

Social enterprise or social decay? The debate continues . . .

Camel--the official cigarette of the Olympics, originally uploaded by Woof Nanny.

Today, Michael Phelps gets swimming energy from his McDonalds diet.

Above, the 1940 Michael Phelps touts Camel cigarettes.

You can't afford to be skinny! A self-improvement ad from 1969, back when "convalescents" were apparently the third sex.

Day 9 of 365, The Infamous BAM!, originally uploaded by Jill Greenseth.

Long story short: High school creates giant comic strip to promote clean water charity; student takes panel home and it flies off into the highway, narrowly missing a car. Thus the painted BAM! almost manifested itself in real life.

What particularly interested me: the decision to represent the kids' charitable fundraiser--"Sunset Saves the World"--through a superhero expressing the school's "Sunset Apollo" identity.

But somehow I always seem to end up with water, fruit & a laptop.

Ah well.

I don't really have time today to write a full post on the current Mickey Mouse copyright buzz (I made a brief comment here). Folks interested in such things are no doubt familiar with Air Pirates and the Uncensored Mouse, but as a pop art aficionado I'd be remiss if I didn't call attention to another classic in the appropriated Disney genre: Eduardo Paolozzi's Real Gold collage from 1948, published in Bunk in 1972:

On sidewalk today: a United Homeless table selling Tropic Thunder & other bootleg DVDs.

Variety on the Democratic National Convention & social issues, via The Beat.

This Harvard Business Review essay by Pixar's Ed Catmull is essential reading for anyone interested in, well, life. His nod to academics is nice, but the real story is the way that Pixar--and Pixar University--have subsumed the traditional information processing role of the professor, or "one who speaks forth."

Can a German body-modder reclaim an ancient spiritual symbol from its Nazi appropriators, or does this tattoo Superman & swastika cross the line? The debate ensues in the comments on this BMEZine pic.

Via Bill Kartalopolous' On Panel--an excellent source for the latest on comics as graphic literature--comes a link to this exchange from a Scott McCloud Q&A:

Now McCloud is taking audience questions, and here comes one that seems aimed in my direction.

What about those still-numerous naysayers, he is asked, who resist the idea that books filled with word balloons should be taken as seriously as pure prose? Isn't there a way to educate those annoying old fogies -- perhaps through some kind of "adult literacy campaign for comics"?

Sounds good to me. After all, isn't education what I'm here for?

McCloud offers a different perspective. Some people will never get it, he says.

"And it's okay. They'll die."

Steve Duin's Matt Baker Monday is a great way to start the week, and this one--well, it's pretty @#$! near perfect. The inversion of Rid Riding Hood, the styles (including the woman in the background), the hair color dynamics, and even the setting of the airport provide an exemplary mise-en-scene.

The setting in the airport has a particular relevance for my own work. One of the things we'll be exploring this year is why a change in environment can lead people to abandon otherwise normative ethical commitments--in other words, why folks screw around on trips, at parties, online, when a partner is sick or away, you name it.

This post at A Hamburger Today provides a modern analogue to the historic significance of fast food as health food in the U.S. Note also the arabic Coke.

Any complete account of the evolution of communications media in the twentieth century must include the Tijuana Bible--small pornographic comics featuring bootleg versions of popular comic strips and celebrities. Tijuana Bibles are arguably the secret origin of the contemporary comic book. While newsstand publishers were reprinting newspaper strips, Tijuana Bibles offered new adventures of pop culture icons in a cheap and easily replicable form. We're seeing this same dynamic today, of course, as porn drives innovation on the web.

Although Tijuana Bibles eventually faded away with the arrival of cheaper photo reproduction tech, their legacy remains. And as commonly happens with archaic media, they have been revived and adapted by the avant garde.

In Denver this week, delegates to the Democratic National Convention will have the opportunity to get printed versions of this Bush-McCain Tijuana Bible, presented as a replica of a prophetic 1934 comic from Lieberman's Lil' Squeezer Books. Whatever one's moral stance regarding porn & politics, it's a rather clever piece of neo-retro performance art.

OK, this is fun. I don't know if it would actually make me go green, but I would jump back and forth to play with the lights.

Happens all the time in college--a skeezy guy lures a girl to bed so he can teach her how to download mp3s. Afterwards, the arrival of an unexpected visitor leaves her wracked with guilt and shame, while he goes on to corrupt more innocents.

That's one of the plot lines in The Case of Internet Piracy, the first issue of Justice Case Files from the National Center for State Courts. It's basically an updated version of nineteenth-century morality tales. The piracy plot echoes the fallen woman trope; the eminent domain story is a variant on the innocent-threatened-by-heartless-greed.

Which reminds me . . .

"To a person using the whole sensorium, nudity is the richest possible expression of structural form. But to the highly visual and lopsided sensibility of industrial societies, the sudden confrontation with tactile flesh is heady music indeed."

--Marshall McLuhan

Pictured above: an on-the-street advertising campaign by Lush soap in Germany. The gimmick: to highlight the excessive packaging of other brands by getting Lush employees to go on the streets with less packaging on their own bodies.

Yes, this was commercial marketing with a social mission, but somehow I don't think I'll be seeing it repeated in New York anytime soon. And as Copyranter inquires, why only the women?

Federal securities law in the U.S. focuses on disclosure. It's a system of law built on questionable assumptions--particularly in the way it presumes that the root of bad investment decisions is fraud, a legacy of the Great Depression--but hey, it's what we got.

The New York Times' report on the SEC/Pax World settlement illustrates how the emphasis on accurate disclosure can lead to interesting unusual results. Pax World markets itself as a socially responsible investment fund. It has adopted a set of strict standards designed to screen out "goods and services" that do not "improve the quality of life."

Among the things screened out: military projects.

Unfortunately for Pax World, a few companies that violated the standards slipped through the screening process. The result: Pax World disclosed that its investments adhered to specific standards, when in reality some of the investments did not. Inaccurate disclosures are verboten, and the SEC took action that eventually led to this settlement.

The SEC action is noteworthy for at least two reasons. One, the federal government is requiring an investment fund to be socially responsible as opposed to simply maximizing shareholder value. Again, the only reason for this action is to maintain the accuracy of the disclosures, but from a corporate law standpoint it's an interesting act.

Also noteworthy: the SEC taking action against a company for investing in businesses with Pentagon contracts. From a different perspective, supporting the military is a public purpose, and thus charitable. Yet because it is inconsistent with Pax World's stated investment standards, investing in a company with military contracts becomes a basis for imposing penalties and requiring divestment.

These commercials for the arts may seem fun, but are they effective and ethical? Framing art as "good for you" only reinforces the image of broccoli for the brain. The ads also invoke questionable scientific claims--Classical music raises test scores? Staring at a Van Gogh is more educational than playing video games, which teach asset management, strategic thinking, graphic design and enhanced attention?

Beyond that, there's the matter of trademark appropriation in the name of doing good, a topic that all too many nonprofits simply ignore. There's also a disturbing race and class issue implicit in the ad below--are African American families truly harming their children if their kids lack a daily diet of 19th century German piano music?

Whatever. I grew up on comics, Devo, Dr. Who and Star Wars, so I'm guess that makes me ignorant.

According to the news story debunking the Obama/Bayh bumper sticker dustup,

Officials said the Obama campaign had taken the trouble to print material bearing the names of several potential ticketmates — thereby minimizing the significance of a report that a printing company in Kansas was churning out signs bearing Bayh's name.

Even if they're pulped, it takes water and electricity to recycle.

Not that I'm complaining; just observing. It's not all that easy being green.

For years, reason was synonymous with text. Images were frivolous, childlike, irrelevant. Now integrated text and image is the norm, with words on a page a legacy communications tech. Within a generation or two, the notion that an adult would belittle a medium because it was composed of pictures will seem incoherent.

Peanuts cartoon via Last Son, the blog for a new film on Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster.

I was looking at the catalog entry for a book I'm using in my research when I noticed one of the subject headings: Good and evil - Comic books, strips, etc.

Huh.

So I clicked the link. The numbers are tantalizing and reflect what I was discussing in my previous post.

I have a new post up on Blog@ re the newly rediscovered Superman stories, and the post includes another set of documents with truly historic stuff. Also up today is a wonderful set of unique Superman pages from a now lost project that Tony Isabella assembled for a museum exhibit in the 1980s.

Another thing that impressed me: Entre Comics has translated the entire Detective Comics/Siegel correspondence into Spanish & provided commentary. Another reminder that yes, you can write straightforward explanatory articles about corporate ethics, but stories and documents can be more powerful, not to mention more likely to be read.

The new group that's formed to deal with sexually inappropriate behavior at comic conventions: kudos! Other nonprofits can learn from this.

Finally, there's some good historical material about intersecting scifi & comics networks--plus a picture of the Siegel house--in this Collectors Society thread.

And yes, I know that the image in this post is a serious spoiler for the rediscovered museum pages. The reason I chose the image: the theme of obligation, particularly the language of "trust." Some folks in the charitable community have expressed bewilderment at my comics material on this site. Besides the organic connection between design and identity--much more about which this upcoming year--comics have done more to propagate the meme of social responsibility than most do-gooder groups. To understand why, read Marshall McLuhan's "neglected masterpiece" From Cliche to Archetype, which examines how so-called junk media change the world.

Still, I did think about changing the picture, but then I remembered that this site is called Uncivil, so . . .

As Em & Lo note, the GI Jonny website is chock full of PSAs and play aimed at safe sex education fun.

But it's also filled with unabashed appropriation of the GI Joe trademark.

For social enterprises age 18-above; try at your own risk.

The ancient Greek Olympics were an adult expression of the human impulse to use play as an alternative to more destructive forms of competition. Wrestling, throwing, running--city-states set aside war to compete in war skills, and one can surmise that in so doing more than a few lives were saved as certain towns realized their potential opposition would kick their sorry soldiers' butts on the battlefield.

As I'm writing this morning I notice that NBC is showing artistic gymnastics, with athletes tossing jump-ropes in the air in a choreographed dance routine. Better than be double-dutched to death, I suppose.

Vanishing NY reports that the W. 8th St. Salvation Army Thrift Store is in the midst of a lease renewal negotiation that, judging from the sign in the window, doesn't appear to be going all too well.

The shop is known for its inexpensive designer fashion--"It may be one of the few remaining places in the city where rich, poor, and those in the middle can all go urban-treasure hunting together." Is communal commerce destined to be a thing of the past?

Above: the cover of the 1933 Siegel and Shuster comic, "The Superman." It's the only page that has survived of this issue, which was to have published by Humor Publishing. However, the company's previous comic, Detective Dan, lost money, so the book was cancelled before it ever saw print.

Below: Joe Shuster's concept sketch. Dial B and The Super Site provide more background, as does James Vance's intro to the Fantagraphics Superman Dailies collection.

A Viet Nam POW illustrates his torment. Andrew Sullivan makes a connection.

The sci-fi and comics communities have long been intersecting networks, connecting through both nonprofit and commercial media. The letter above illustrates the micro-interactions that come to have broader systemic effects.

The author: Julie Schwartz, the fan, agent and editor who became a major influence in both communities. His work included serving as the editor of the Superman line of comics during a critical point in the character's evolution.

The publication: Jerry Siegel's Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilizations.

The issue: Number III, January 1933, with the lead story "Reign of the Superman", illustrated by Joe Shuster and written by Siegel under the pen name Herbert S. Fine.

In the letter, Schwartz says that he is "anxious to see more of Artist Shuster's work."

A few years later, he would.

Defending Freedom is a project of the Nevada Benefits Foundation. The aim: to raise money for charities that benefit U.S. troops and their families. The project's home page is chock-a-block with the values of the American heartland--tradition, family, civic association, a fundraiser with the Girl Scouts, a wristband touting prayer.

Not featured: this benefit in the city where the American heartland goes to play:

Scores Las Vegas will set the world record for most lap dances given during a single song this Monday night.

Scores is working in a charitable partnership with DefendingFreedom.org on the first-of-its-kind event that will feature hundreds of dancers from around the country. All proceeds from the world-record dance will be donated to various charitable organizations that aim to give back to those who have bravely served in the armed forces.

The night's festivities will be hosted by Nathan Burton of the Flamingo Hotel & Casino's "Nathan Burton Comedy Magic" and adult star Carmen Hart, who is the reigning Exotic Dancer national champion. Hart is also on the cover of the August issue of AVN magazine which explores the synergy between the gentlemen's club industry and the adult film industry.

Leveraging synergies--social enterprise at work!

I've known places like this, except, alas, staking the guy was illegal.

The story's title? No, it isn't Freudian at all.

Andy Warhol Superman, originally uploaded by TheGirlsNY.

Anyone can see a licensed print. A museum photo that prompts a scolding from a guard is worth more, at least as an experience.

This will be of interest to folks who read this site for the comics material. I've just posted to Blog@Newsarama about . . .

Well, if you're into comics history it's pretty amazing. And something you've never seen before.

For those who aren't into the comics thing, you'll get a sense as to the connection between my comics writing and my work in social enterprise. It will all be unspooling over the school year, so your patience will be rewarded!

Via Radar Online's Secrets of a Hipster Hooker:

One of the guys took a seat next to Heather and, after some small talk, disclosed that he had just left his wife. "I'm looking to spend my money," he said. He was fiddling with a cash clip stuffed with $100 bills. She accepted his business card and later Googled him. The man turned out to be a honcho at a major investment firm; the New York Times had profiled a charity he had started.

The next morning she called his office. "I got shaky when he answered," she recalls, "but when he figured out it was me, it was better." That night she went to his apartment in Trump Tower. "It was pretty straightforward. He offered me $3,000 to let him fuck me. I almost leaped on him."

Read the whole article for a rather colorful analogy to charitable fundraisers and a blurb for sex worker charity.

I tried to post this as a comment on the relevant Blog@ thread, but alas, it was rejected as spam--understandable, given the digi-tons of linked junk that shows up in my own filters. Anyway, since I pulled this all together, here it is. No substantive comment for now; I'm working on some thought-intensive projects that are going to keep my blog posts for the next week or so confined to shiny things I run across in the course of my work. However, I will note that cases like this illustrate why I emphasize the value of savvy due diligence and explore worst-case scenarios.

For those who want to check out the original source material, here are the the Fox complaint, Warner Brothers' response, the disputed legal documents and the judge's order.

Arguably the most explosive sentence in the order: "It is particularly noteworthy that nothing on the face of the complaint or the documents supplied to the Court establishes that Gordon, the claimed source of Warner Brothers' interest in 'Watchmen,' ever acquired any rights in 'Watchmen.'"

As several reports state, Warner Brothers faced a similar situation before, when, in 2005, the same judge granted a preliminary injunction that would have kept The Dukes of Hazzard movie from being released, prompting the studio to agree to a multimillion dollar settlement. The plaintiff's lawyer in the Hazzard case: Marc Toberoff, who is now representing the Siegel heirs.

FOR THE RECORD UPDATE: Since a number of people are interested in the documents in this case, for the sake of completeness here are the studios' responses regarding the motion to dismiss and, for real inside baseball, the motions and order regarding whether the court has jurisdiction to hear the case. If you don't want to wade through all the legal arguments, a couple of the documents stand out: Fox's chart of alleged misstatements by Warner Brothers and the original 1990 purchase agreement between DC Comics and Fox.

OK, this will probably not mean anything to folks who come here just for the charity stuff, but Ultra Man is another show I was obsessed with as an infink that helped shape on the way I look at the world today. Transformation, science, fate, limited power, exile, death, tragic choices--it's all there if you know where to look.

Well, that and guys in rubber monster suits whomping the hell out of each other.

BRUSSO_1_335, originally uploaded by seapaddle.

Gothamist explains why the East & Hudson Rivers were full of surfers standing on their boards. SEA Paddle NYC has more pics and video.

Germany provides an image we're not likely to see again in the U.S.

Well, the top 10, anyway, prompted by this BET blog post about a woman who canceled a date due to an increase in driving distance:

The day of our “planned 1st date” he sends me some text message changing the plans. DC . . . I had to hit the breaks. Driving to DC was not part of my planned carbon footprint especially driving further than I wanted to go to a place I didn’t want to be with a person who was already teetering on the edge of date-ability.

TeenSource.org is a website run by the California Family Health Council to provide young adults with "information on healthy and responsible sexual lifestyles." Their latest awareness-raiser: a contest in which teen artists designed condom covers. Vote here.

One entry offers Super C, a character from an alternate universe where Superman comics were scripted by Larry Niven:

While another riffs on Spider-Man:

"Let us find new ways to use the arts as a vehicle for convening diverse groups of fellow citizens."

--Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone , 411

Music plays a central role in sexual choice and reproduction, and then we get old and sing for prostate cancer charity.

Stripping, charity and children's education converge at Theatre Yawp, an Los Angeles charity (through Fractured Atlas) whose programs include plays, weekend burlesque shows, international outreach and, in the works, a (non-burlesque!) play for LA schools.

This new venture distills specialized education into its very essence: learning how to fake being real.

"Reality TV is the decay of civilization," he told me in a tone of academic authority.

"But you're a part of it now, right?" I asked.

He jumped down on one knee and made rock-star symbols with his hands. "Yeah!" he cried.

Ashamed, originally uploaded by Freedom Toast.

"Got drunk, swore, broke a tree, now ashamed to look people in the face."

This PSA brought to you by the Communist Party.

It's easy to find the problems with the above PSA, but this billboard is also a pretty accurate representation of the conclusion drawn by teen-age me upon seeing a number of my peers drop out of high school or give up college due to unplanned pregnancies. Of course, that was many moons ago, when a drugstore was the place where smitten couples went to get ice-cream sodas.

05 Tokyo DisneyLand 040918, originally uploaded by batang_igat.

Celebrated as a new trend, it's actually an extension of a familiar strategy used by law firms to recruit associates.

What's really important is not the lure, but what happens once the fish is caught. Otherwise it's just hi diddle dee dee, the pro bono life for me!

From the syndicate's Peanuts FAQ. Y'know, as in frequently asked questions:

Q. As a Peanuts fan, I often come across content on the internet that uses the Peanuts copyrights and trademarks in an unfavorable fashion, and I don't think it is authorized by United Media. What actions does United Media take to protect the work of Charles Schulz and the Peanuts property?

Might have been slightly more believable if they'd shown a picture of the question on a postcard in crayon from Heather, age 6.

Below: a Snoopy mock-sushi bento box

The Mike and Mad Dog radio show was a New York sports talk institution, until a salary dispute led to Mad Dog's sudden departure Thursday night. Yesterday Mike conducted a final show under that name, and the tone was emphatically funereal--people crying, recounting their memories, expressing condolences.

And then, pure whack.

A guy sent in photos of his recently deceased mother--one, on her deathbed, and another, as ashes in the first ever official Major League Baseball Yankees urn. The pics were shown to the camera for the TV simulcast as a way to make her an honorary participant on the last show.

Mike and the Mad Dog is a show that generates 15 mil in ad revenue a year, and the Yankees exponentially more. Yet they are both communal media, extensions of the self for fans who identify with them.

Even if it sometimes seems a bit much.

Canada Dry Ginger Ale ad, 1930s, originally uploaded by bayswater97.

Picks you up, aids digestion and gives you red hair.

sp.oly.7-4-08.02.jpg, originally uploaded by oregonianphoto.

In the Olympic track tryouts, Charles Clark wore Superman wristbands.

Unfortunately, he did not make the team.

Planet Out, the pathbreaking LGBT media company, has seen the value of its shares plummet to the point that the company may be delisted by NASDAQ. They've been shedding properties and adding debt, so the immediate prospect of a spike in share price isn't great. I'd have to read the terms of their existing commitments and do a bit more diligence, but I wonder if some of the bleeding couldn't be staunched by spinning off some of the remaining less salable ventures as charities.

Sigh.

• A lawyer advises the adult industry that sexual harassment remains a live issue despite the nature of their work. Tip #2 is common advice--keep #s of employees below the Title VII threshold--but as a strategy I find it rather skeevy. My own focus: eliminating the illegal behavior in all organizations regardless of size.

• John DiBello calls for the San Diego Comic Con to announce a policy & reporting mechanism re sexually inappropriate behavior directed toward attendees. Some responses here. As you can guess from my post on the rape chic tees at SDCC, this is a matter on which I agree--again, not just to avoid a lawsuit, but because it's the right thing to do.

• Yes, the cake above is from a real office, via Cake Wrecks.

Crystal Ives is a USC med student working with Oral Cancer Awareness in India. Her project: drawing a comic book on the hazards of smoking. Her honest assessment of it for CNN:

Google can only do so much to communicate culture, and I could never be sure that the images I was drawing would make sense to Indian children. Do they even have tombstones in India? I wondered. Do hospital beds look different? How will they react to the villain? Would boys have soccer cleats? Does a skull and crossbones have the same meaning? I had to question nearly everything I drew.

Now that we have been to several schools, I would say that the comic is neither a glaring success nor a complete failure.

It isn't as popular as the game, but then I could never expect it to be, for it is a more passive entity by nature, and not as immediately "fun".

On the other hand, the characters themselves have been useful as colorful "faces" for our campaign, adding a certain style and playfulness to our posters and game board. Also, the reception among the children has been favorable, and they do seem to read and understand it.

Whether this means development hell remains to be seen.

Grant McCracken offers a must-read look at the tribalistic schizophrenia of mainstream corporate analytics. Some folks are redoubling behind quantitative metrics; others abandoning them for qualitative assessment. Key exchange:

I was talking to a guy who does marketing research for a big brand. He said, dismissively, "

"We no longer collect any numbers. Things change too fast. We don't know what to measure. We do ethnographies and stuff...to find out what's going on out there."

Last night I was talking to a graduate of the Sloan business school at MIT. He doesn't think about something unless he's got the numbers.

It's weird. It's seems to me that the corporation is becoming more quantitative and more qualitative.

It ties into a recurring problem in social enterprise--a hyper-simplified idealization of how business actually works.

Undies on the outside = win, originally uploaded by goosmurf.

This kind of office stuff doesn't work for me, but here it is.

Mecha Manga Bible Heroes is, surprise, a Christian mecha manga adaptation of the Hebrew Bible. The gimmick: to remain scrupulously faithful to the literal text, except for the setting in a "futuristic world of aliens, robots and advanced technology." As co-creator Tom Hall explains,

"David is a young kid who has to go toe-to-toe with a giant super robot," said Hall. "Other than that, everything is what the Bible describes, down to the small details that most Sunday School versions gloss over."

Fun coincidence: the press release is datelined "Flanders, New Jersey."

A local marketing firm designed subway ads for a local medical practice. The hook: to give the ad a 2.0 vibe by using empty comic-style speech bubbles to represent the prospective clients thoughts:

Now, in all honesty we expected our ads to be written on – that was a bit of the point. But we didn’t design them to encourage vandalism; being subway riders ourselves, we simply recognized that boredom + creativity + mischief often leads to ads being written on and remixed (sometimes with hilarious results), and we decided to capitalize on it.

And as predicted, within hours people started filling in their feelings . . .

. . . prompting the firm's media placement company to yank the campaign.

Boo. It was fun. And clever.

Hearing about this makes me wish I were down in DC--there's a new exhibit on the Negro Leagues in the District, with lots of cool stuff. (There's also a permanent museum a little further away.)

Once again we see moral ambiguity and the fluid boundary between for-profit commerce and social enterprise. While the Leagues were a by-product of segregation, they also provided a means for these players to make a living by playing the game they loved.

Flobots' Handlebars captures the spirit of the age in three minutes, thirty-one seconds.

In her must-read expose' of the AIDS biz The Wisdom of Whores, epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani talks about the practice of "beating up" data in order to gain support for a cause. As Pisani explains, beating up data isn't straight-out lying; rather, it's all about presenting information in a way that creates the desired rhetorical effect, even to the point of creating possible if unproven statistics that persuade people to take the desired action.

Boinkology provides a provocative discussion of the beat-ups & design flaws in the above PSA from Chicago's Prostitution Alternatives Round Table.

This Everett True comic paints a revealing picture of the investment environment during the Roaring 20s. So many interesting contrasts--the large old-schooler, reflecting the ideal body type of the previous generation's male elite, vs. the thin new breed. The whirring new machines and the ubiquitous new electrical tech that the old guard sees of no use except as a way of hoisting the new generation on its own petard. Not much different from the late 1990s and the 2.0 boom, really.

TMZ reports that chic boutique Kitson couldn't sell clothes by The Hills' Lauren Conrad, so it gave them away to a Caitlin's Closet, a charity established by "Miss America's Outstanding Teen 2008" that provides prom dresses & such to kids who can't afford them.

You know, when I created my charity, Caitlin’s Closet, I made a lifelong commitment to help other teens. I wanted to make sure that every girl in high school, regardless of her economic status, would have the opportunity to attend her prom, homecoming dance, academic awards or sports banquet. And while I know that what everyone sees is the dress, this is about SO much more than the dress. Caitlin’s Closet gives teens the chance to gain confidence, create lifetime memories, practice social skills and fully participate in school events. I’m so excited to be involved in that transformation!

The comments in the TMZ thread indicate that the reason for the donation could be somewhat more personal & that LC's clothing line still sells well in Bloomingdale's. Whatever the situation, let's hope that Caitlin's Closet got good stuff, because it's a worthwhile project.

Higher education has a muddled history with distance learning, with several high profile ventures flaming out. Maybe if we'd tried this . . .

Adweek features a new Fruit of the Loom commercial that doubles as a parody of Cirques du Soleil: "Viewers will come away with the impression that the brand's Cotton Stretch Collection is more than merely utilitarian."

Yesterday we saw a woman who became a porn star in order to leave the corporate rat race. Today, Image Comics' Robert Kirkman explains his reasons for leaving Marvel Comics. It's a revealing meditation on commerce and meaning.

Part of my job entails hearing older folks tell younger folks how we older folks screwed up the world but we're oh so inspired by how the young will save it.

Makes me think of this classic Peanuts cartoon.  The cycle continues.

Scenes from Andy Warhol's classic Batman Dracula are now online, in a mashup from Andre Perkowski, the filmmaker who created the silent Batman movies posted here last week.

!

HT: Teenage Disco Misery.

freedom should mean more than profit T-shirt design, originally uploaded by jkbmaze.

Tera Wray is 21 years old. She has just announced her retirement from porn after a two-year career in which she reportedly became an instant star. But now she's married and that's that.

What caught my attention wasn't the retirement, but her reason for going into porn in the first place. Note the linked phrase below:

She began her career as a Hooters Girl, advancing with the company until she reached a position as a corporate trainer.

She traveled the country and helped to open new restaurants for the company. Upon becoming tired of the corporate rat-race, Tera contacted Pleasure Productions through representatives of her local adult video store and her career was launched almost immediately.

Soviet Saturday! (4) USSR 2110, originally uploaded by 80sAustin.

The Red Cross is in a difficult position--ostensibly apolitical, but nonetheless subject to complex political pressures. The International Red Cross has publicly apologized for its silence during the Holocaust, and now, thanks to the research in Tim Tzouliadis' new book The Forsaken, the American Red Cross is being criticized for its response (or lack thereof) to reports of American POWS being held in Soviet prison camps:

The most revolting and murky twist to the story is the treatment of another wave of American captives: prisoners-of-war in Germany who had the misfortune to be freed by Soviet troops and were deported to the Gulag. Clues abounded, chiefly from defectors and former Gulag inmates who reached the West. Yet the files remained secret. Neither their fate, nor that of Americans captured during the Korean War, received attention. The American Red Cross brushed aside a request to intervene, saying that inquiries about Americans “domiciled” (hardly the right word) in NKVD camps would be a source of “annoyance, if not embarrassment”.

New York Magazine Cover, originally uploaded by Often Absurd in the Humid City.

When I was a tyke, I covered my comics cabinet with Wacky Packs stickers, little knowing that they themselves were the work of some of the era's greatest comic artists. Now Wacky Packs pop art classics and example of the influence of junk media:

"Anything that happens when you're eight years old can mark you for life -- just ask Sigmund Freud!" Spiegelman says in the book's introduction. "Wackies were a young child's first exposure to subverting adult consumer culture."

"It was all done as Part of a Day's Work, much like the way early comic books were made: they certainly weren't made as art, they weren't sold as art, and they weren't thought of as art . . . . Wacky Packages just formed an island of subversive underground culture in the surrounding sea of junk."

The FCC is considering a proposed new rule to require licensees of the 2155-2180 MHz band to dedicate a portion of its network capacity to making broadband Internet access available for free.

However, there's a catch: the licensee has to filter out "inappropriate content." And what is that, you ask? A few things to note from proposed Section 27.1193, Content Network Filtering Requirement:

(a) The rules requires blocking "images and text that constitute obscenity or pornography." Note the "and pornography," which seeks to expand the scope of the prohibition beyond what is obscene.

(b) The licensee must also block "any images or text that otherwise would be harmful to teens and adolescents," i.e., "children five through 17 years of age." Yes, that's right--the FCC wants to make the five-year-old mind the regulatory standard for internet content, which I guess would make this the golden age for poop jokes.

(c) Per proposed section 27.1193(b), these rules also apply to material transmitted via peer-to-peer file sharing--and if the license finds it impractical to review every file shared, it has the right to "use other means, such as limiting access to those types of communications." In other words, because people can use P2P and other modes of transmitting data to provide access to material not suitable for a five-year-old, an ISP has the right to shut 'em down.

Needless to say, these rules would affect far more than obscenity and kiddie porn. Web comics, Flickr, Youtube, Hulu--shoot, this effin' blog would pretty much be toast.

Adolph's Meat Tenderizer, originally uploaded by SA_Steve.

The discussion continues re managing creatives, and I can see why--the Siegel letters provide stellar examples of how an employer can grind down talent. Sometimes it's vituperation and threats; others, insincere praise, such as the backhanded congratulations for getting interviewed by a newspaper in Cleveland.

A point well taken: the comics industry is not alone. Even in academia I've felt the tenderizing flakes on my head any number of times.

Still, it is also worth noting, per The Comics Reporter, that a good number of comics fans have weighed in against the Siegels and others in their situation. It's something I'll chat about more some other time.

My Cartoon Museum:Fougasse, originally uploaded by delthorpe.

A WWII propaganda poster by Cyril Bird foreshadows Bill Maher.

Art, education, charity and burlesque--that's Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School, whose "syphilis-like spread around the globe" shows there's more to being a social entrepreneur than Excel and good intentions.

There's a lot of excellent stuff on the Dr. S and Molly Crabapple sites; I really like this line from the FAQ: "If you take photos without permission, you will be kicked out, with no refund. Models are not zoo animals."

Uncle Scrooge awaits, originally uploaded by trexfiles23.

This quote from Carl Barks (via) really hit home, given the ongoing discussion of creative oversight sparked by the latest Siegel documents:

Barks said he had no fear of death nor any belief in an afterlife. "I think of death as total peace. You're beyond the clutches of all those who would crush you."

This week's Mad Men--a show that's essential viewing for anyone interested in communications media--featured killer performances by Rich Sommer and Patrick Fischler. Also appearing: Utz, a recurring character in snack life while growing up in Pennsylvania. I decided to check out what's up with the Utz folk and found out that they too have gone green, a color not otherwise encouraged in the potato chip realm.

My quest for unqualified decadence continues. Only then will I find rest.

A plea deal has ended this controversial federal case, in which a woman was convicted on federal obscenity charges for posting violent stories about children on her website as a way of working through her own sexual abuse as a child.

On my list of things to do this year is to write about this issue in more depth, because it truly is a minefield for today's creatives, especially after the Supreme Court's recent rulings on child pornography.

Rule #1 in PSA Land: don't make the behavior you're condemning seem so cool that folks will want to try it. Now *I* want to meet the Cryptkeeper

Via

Peter Feld at Advertising Age offers a useful look at how Obama has successfully adapted to the Gen Y social environment--and in so doing sparked resistance among older folks. Has moving beyond the Boomer kulturkampf given rise to a new one? Wouldn't be the first time that sort of thing has happened.

When selecting images for the most recent Siegel post, I left out a bunch of panels that, while illustrative or amusing, weren't exactly on point or were merely variations on the tropes evident in the pics I provided for the post. A contributor to Scans Daily has posted one of 'em--another panel from Superman #7 that takes on a whole new meaning now that "gay" has pretty much become associated with a lifestyle and not lightheartedness. In 1940 the term "gay" had still not settled into this semantic well; "lah-de-dah" was at that point more standard, at least in heterosexual circles, although its days were numbered.

This 1936 ad touts the health benefits of beer:

Schlitz, with Sunshine Vitamin D *, gives you the sunny source of health you need the whole year around. Beer is good for you— but Schlitz, with Sunshine Vitamin D, is extra good for you. It has all the old-time Schlitz Flavor and Bouquet brewed to mellow ripe perfection under Precise Enzyme Control, with new health benefits . . . and at no increase in price.

Drink Schlitz regularly—every day — for health with enjoyment.

Via Modern Mechanix

1966 was the year of the pop superhero. Having premiered in January, Batman was all the rage, mirroring Warhol who in turn mirrored the craze. Not coincidentally, when Truman Capote decided on the theme for his notorious Black and White Ball he chose . . . masks. The image above: the cape and tights homage of Penelope Tree, an iconic 1960s model who has since gone on to do charity work for Lotus Outreach and the Khyentse Foundation.

The hit of the evening, though, was the ingénue Penelope Tree. More naked than dressed in her flowing black tunic and form-fitting tights, Tree caught the eye of every person in the room. Jean Harvey Vanderbilt, the wife of Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, described Tree's ensemble as "stark, like a Halloween ballet costume". Her entrance signalled the presence of a new generation at the ball. Tree was discovered by the fashion world that night. Cecil Beaton and Richard Avedon were so enchanted by her unspoiled beauty that they conspired on the spot to turn her into a cover girl - which is what she soon became.

This is far from the only historic superhero and fashion reference missing from the recent Met exhibit.

Ebert's entire essay is brilliant & subtle. Quote of the day:

The closest sight I have seen to Friday night's spectacle, and I mean this objectively, not with disrespect, is the sight of all those Germans marching wave upon wave before Hitler in "Triumph of the Will."

Shooting a bullet through time into the heart of old media, Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage transformed into a gun.

In this week's Friday dramatical, a video mashup creates a 1920s silent Batman movie. Included in the mix are a couple cited as an inspiration for the character. Part 2--including must-see footage from The Man Who Laughs--is below. Together they illustrate how the Batman franchise has proven to be such an enduring and resilient set of archetypes.

For some, Renaissance Weekend is a place to meet headline-making world leaders in politics, journalism and social change. For me, it's where I met Michael Silberkleit.

Silberkleit lived Archie Comics. If you ever had a chance to speak with him or to see him lead a panel at a convention, you witnessed a living example of why I resist drawing a distinction between social entrepreneurs and commercial business. Yes, he was running a company that had to make a profit, but he was also passionate about the values it upheld.

In our last conversation we talked about a project of mine whose theme was directly inspired by watching him at work. I'll miss being able to continue that discussion.

The depiction of women in comics has received its fair share of criticism in recent years, most notably in Gail Simone's Women in Refrigerators and Valerie D'Orazio's Occasional Superheroine. Comics have likewise sparked some controversy in regard to images of heroic homosexuality. But as the latest documents released in the Jerry Siegel case illustrate, these issues have a long history.

The documents in question: correspondence between Detective Comics and Jerry Siegel from 1939 through 1947, entered into evidence as part of DC's attempt to establish that all the work done by Siegel & Shuster during that time was work for hire. The case still has a while to percolate--the judge has postponed the hearing on unresolved trademark/copyright issues until September 15--but the material itself is a gold mine for folks interested in the comics history.

Even apart from the gender issues there's a lot of amazing stuff here--the recurring savage criticism of Joe Shuster's art; an early critique of Wayne Boring as an artist unsuitable for Superman; the hiring of Winsor McCay, Jr. as Superman ghost-artist-in-training; the insinuation that Superman was not significantly more popular than Zatara, Pep Morgan and Tex Thomson; and the prohibition on depictions of a flying Clark Kent are just a few of the historical moments in the mix.

Yet it is the sex stuff that really stands out, providing a rare insiders' perspective on the comics writing culture of the past. One of the true highlights of the newly released correspondence is the black-and-white sketch of Lois Lane included in this post. The artist was Siegel's and Shuster's editor, Whitney Ellsworth, who was attempting to get the duo to make Lois Lane less curvaceous.

A little backstory is in order. Although we tend to associate comics censorship with the 1950s, in actuality the complaints arose almost as soon as superheroes made comics a ubiquitous pop phenomenon. In a letter dated February 19, 1941, Ellsworth makes clear that this was foremost on his mind when he says to Siegel, "You know as well as I do what sort of censure we are always up against, and how careful we must be."

Which made a curvy Lois a bit of a problem. When drawn in an especially tantalizing way she posed a risk of drawing the attention of the moral watchdogs, a risk that Ellsworth tried to forestall in 1940 by ordering the duo to "de-sex" her.

After Shuster showed no sign of taking this admonition to heart, Ellsworth made an argument that seems shocking even almost seventy years later. Shuster's Lois was so "unpleasantly sexy" that her pulchritude made her seem a bit too heavy--a problem for which Ellsworth and Murray Boltinoff had an easy solution:

[W]hy it is necessary to shade Lois' breasts and the underside of her tummy with vertical pen-lines we can't understand. She looks pregnant. Murray suggests that you arrange for her to have an abortion or the baby and get it over with so that her figure can return to something a little more like the tasty dish she is supposed to be.

And the criticism didn't stop there; editorial also had problems with her hair style and her clothing,

which looked like you have apparently dressed her out of a Montgomery Ward catalogue. [Jack Liebowitz] suggests Vogue, Vanity Fair and Harper's Bazaar as likelier spots for dress-research.

A look at Superman's DC Archives shows that these admonitions had their intended effect. The previous two images are from Superman #7, complete with breast shading and vertical lines in her, um, lower tummy. In contrast, here she is a few months later, with a much slimmer waist and bust-reducing lapels:

The criticism did not stop with Lois, however. Another alleged problem with Shuster's artwork is that it made Superman look gay--or in the period slang of Ellsworth's January 22, 1940 letter, "lah-de-dah" with a "nice fat bottom"--

What's worse, the pose in the second panel also reminded Ellsworth of "certain FLIT ads done by a cartoonist who signs himself 'Dr. Seuss.'"

For a cultural historian, documents like these are a treasure trove, providing insight into attitudes toward women, standards of beauty, images of masculinity, censorship and the interplay between comics and other illustrated media.

For Siegel and Shuster, such critiques were serious business. If you want to understand why they took the risk of suing DC in 1947 to regain the rights to Superman, read these letters--time and again the company warns them that their work borders on the "unacceptable"--"the situation is serious enough to warrant your doing some real worrying," as DC might "make other arrangements to have [the work] done." Since DC seemed to be building a case to get rid of them, a lawsuit--no matter how risky--seemed to have better odds than the prospect of winning over the publisher.

Charles Schulz's Desk, originally uploaded by FrnkSmth.

"[Schulz's] heavy, black-rimmed glasses, quick smile--and equally quick frown--made him look like a professor. Tracey dreamed of marrying a professor, with summers off to read and write together . . . "


--From David Michaelis, Schulz and Peanuts, 448

This Times of London op-ed by Alice Thomson is dead-on.  Her thesis echoes a warning I've given in every speech I've made this past year:  virtue is a luxury good, and a bad economy will make it seem too costly to folks who aren't true believers.  Yes, there a positive externalities--people buying vintage clothes instead of new ones, f'r instance--but these are more a function of necessity than commitment.

Read the whole thing, not just for its argument but for its instructive examples.

Whatever my tag line may say, the ultimate takeaway should not be that green is doomed, but that we need more compelling reasons to do good.

An instant classic:

20-30 henchmen needed for moderately-sized supervillain organisation with large expansion potential (fortresses built into geological structures, corruption of government officials, possible genesis of 'nemesis' vigilante). Electrical theme.

Applicants must be willing to learn new skills, including but not limited to operation of specialised 'lightning guns'. Applicants will also be required to wear specialised uniform when at work (functional rubber suits with my logo on front), except in cases where deception is required (posing as hostages in order to ambush vigilantes, etc).

Desired (but not necessarily required) in applicants:

-interesting deformations/obsessions/powers(?) giving rise to interesting nicknames (e.g. Claws, Pyro, Buzzsaw, and similar)
-unwavering loyalty
-being a corruptible government official
-ability to work as part of a close-knit team (unless interesting obsession is of the 'lone wolf' variety)
-grudge against any well-known vigilante
-flexible moral code

Equal opportunies employer. Both henchmen and femmes fatales absolutely welcome.

Great promotion opportunities - right-hand-man position constantly being unexpectedly opened. Would look good on any future supervillain resume/CV.

Send an email with details of any prior henchman work, or details of what is driving you to join the ranks of a supervillain organisation. Will reply to all serious applicants. Hope to hear from you, and with luck, welcome you into a rewarding and promising career!

- Jacque (The Zapper) Zerapi

No, not those kind of earmarks--I mean donations made to a charity but designated to benefit an individual. Typically such gifts are not tax-deductible, since the gift is going to serve specified persons rather than an indefinite charitable class. But this law-related fundraiser going around the blogosphere is claiming otherwise. The cause: a blogger alleged by his ex-wife to be an unfit parent because he is bisexual.

I'm not going to state an opinion on the case itself, but I personally would be a bit more cautious re the claims of deductibility in the fundraising. The IRS does not tend to look kindly on deductions for personal earmarks, and if it gets the sense that the charity is little more than a flow-through fundraising for private parties going through divorce and custody battles it could get a bit cranky with the 501(c)(3) as well.

There's at least one way you could structure the distribution so that it that might--no guarantees--survive an audit or appeal, but who wants to go through that? At the very least, I'd omit the second sentence in the following appeal, which is something of a red flag:

Please consider a tax-deductible contribution to help us help him and others similarly situated. Contributions earmarked for this case will be disbursed accordingly.

Of course, your legal mileage may differ, as the SFLDEF's apparently does, so do what you feel you can and don't listen to me, because, let's face it, I'm just some dopey blogger. If you want to learn more about the case itself, here's a post that folks are linking back to as a hub for the effort, but you might not want to click there unless your boss is into vividly illustrated online Sex Carnivals.

Death, originally uploaded by quinn.anya.

Brilliant to the last:

Q: Are you afraid of death?

Solzhenitsyn: No. When I was young, the early death of my father cast a shadow over me – and I was afraid to die before all my literary plans came true. But between 30 and 40 years of age my attitude to death became quite calm and balanced. I feel it is a natural, but no means the final, milestone of one's existence.

Q: Anyhow, we wish you many years of creative life.

Solzhenitsyn: No, no. Don't. It's enough.

Monopoly Cowboy, originally uploaded by yerffej9.

The Texas legal world is interesting, to say the least. For example, a few years back the State Bar argued that Nolo Press legal guides should be banned because educating people in the law constitutes unlicensed practice and is thus illegal.

Now the state's teachers union is taking a similar position vis a vis education nonprofits, arguing that a new government program to curb the dropout rate is illegal because state officials "do not have authority to grant public money to 'nonprofit organizations' to provide direct student services."

I love the quote marks around "nonprofit." They make me feel so dirty.

This cartoon in the latest New Yorker is revealing on a couple levels. One, of course, is that the New Yorker is long past cartoons that locate the humor in adults reading a comic--now comic book characters are stock cultural references.

Beyond that is the implicit reference to current continuity. The friction between Superman and Batman is a relatively recent trope; for decades they were best friends.  Superfriends, in fact. Familiarity with the current tension narrative helps the joke work.

For more work by Jack Ziegler, click here.  You might also want to check out the whole issue, which besides having more cartoons has useful articles on interest groups & the anticommons as well as a !#@$in' scary one on superbugs.

The words "profound" and "blog" rarely occur together, but "Russia Abandoned" is a distinct exception to the rule. Empty buildings reveal dimensions of the human experience seldom seen in daily life.

Above: table with clock and a portrait of Vladimir Vysotsky, the legendary bard and actor of the Soviet era. The scene reminds me of this classic song, which, mutatis mutandis, might have an application or two in the U.S.:

In pieces the crown has been scattered,
Without authority, not even a throne.
The life of Russia and of law---
Everything's gone to hell.
As for us, it's like we've been chased into holes,
Trapped, like thieves,
With nothing before us except blood and shame.

Temptation Island 200: Tom is er klaar voor., originally uploaded by thefirstfoursjoerds.

From an EW interview with the host of Temptation Island and Moment of Truth:

We were helping America one couple at a time on Temptation Island, so I feel like there was a higher calling. With Moment of Truth, I just look at it like this: As a microwave heats bacon quickly, we bring people to where they're headed much faster. In both cases, I'm providing a service.

Life on Mars, originally uploaded by woordenaar.

So I'm listening right now to the NASA news conference on martian perchlorate, and I can't stop thinking . . .

Al Qaeda on Mars!

and

The next step is obvious: lawyers in space.

that smell, originally uploaded by weef kichards.

Marshall McLuhan observed that in an era of integrative media, the technological extension of our human senses would extend to our natural scents. This has typically been dismissed as one of his crackpot rabbit trails, but once again, time is bearing him out.

Exhibit A: Fashion V Sport, opening today at London's Victoria & Albert Museum. Staged to coincide with Olympics, this new exhibit does more than just show the latest competitive suit technology and its cultural influences.

To give visitors a complete sporting experience, artist Sissel Tolaas has — using chemicals — re-created the scent of human bodies, which is then piped through the exhibition space. The museum said it hopes the scent will “reinject the human body into the exhibition space.”

7th Annual Ground Zero Independence Ride, New York, originally uploaded by PhishFood.

Here's a picture from the July 26, 2008 Ground Zero Independence Ride, "a charity motorcycle motorcade benefiting Tuesday’s Children, a nonprofit organization that provides services and programs to the families of 9/11."

Y'know, if there were more charity events with beer, barbecue and tattoo contests I might not be so cranky.

caj2rn9, originally uploaded by pinkfloyd99.

The latest of Mad Magazine's countless inspired comics parodies, by Jacob Lambert & Gary Hallgren.

Opening to the public this week: the Erotic Heritage Museum in Las Vegas. Its mission:

The Museum seeks to bridge the gap between that which is commercial and often misidentified as pornographic, with that which is aesthetic, often identified as folk, pop, and fine art through a common visual language.

Who says colonization of the life world is always a bad thing? Healing takes on a comic flair in these Ouch! Comic Strip Bandages from WishingFish.com. Via Trendhunter.

Львица Kota, originally uploaded by vimba.ru.

Furry fans don't just dress up like anthropomorphic animals or draw pictures of 'em; they also do a number of other social activities together, such as supporting charity.

For example, furryne.ws recognizes a Furry Charity of the Month. The choice for August: the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which fights censorship.

And yes, the picture above is of a Russian furry, where the national furry convention, Rusfurrence, has the slogan, "We have to meet more often!"

Racked has posted a comic commemorating the bizarro double break-in at SoHo's Jack Spade store:

If you're familiar with the Protestant/Catholic tensions in Northern Ireland, you've probably heard of the Orange Order, the region's oldest Protestant fraternal organization. Recently it has been working hard to move past its fractious sectarian image by promoting charity and community--in part with the aim of promoting local tourism & marketable merch. One emblem of this effort: the creation of a new Orange Order superhero, Diamond Dan.

Unfortunately for the Lodge Diamond Dan has continued to be a "talking point", just not in the way they expected. As the Belfast Telegraph, Diamond Dan has a not-so-secret origin: as a graphic available for license on iStockphoto.

According to the Telegraph, now that the the Order knows its hero was a rip, it intends to obtain the requisite rights.

Earlier this week I started following the ExxonMobilCorp Twitter account by Janet at Exxon Mobil in Irving, Texas, where the company has its headquarters. Among other things, Jane reports on the company's latest efforts in corporate social responsibility and cooperation with NGOs.

When I noted that I'd found the account through another user, my own comment was, "Who knew?"

Supposedly, not Exxon Mobil. According to investigative bloggers & the Houston Chronicle, the oil company did not authorize this "faux" Twitter account. It's not part of their PR, and they apparently don't know who "Janet" is.

Why Exxon would be concerned is obvious from the screenshot below. Not only does Janet claim to be speaking on Exxon's behalf, the company skirts pretty close to campaigning for a particular presidential candidate.

This raises a number of interesting issues. A#1: who the hell would do something like this? A well-meaning company employee who thinks she's helping its image? An Exxon fan? Or a culture-jammer who is working up to making the company look bad? The reference to Angola and Indonesia is rather interesting in this regard, because as professional do-gooder types know there's a bit of history behind that so-called partnership.

If anything, l'affaire Exxon Twitter is a reminder for anyone with a name to make sure that no one's speaking on their behalf, which is why folks are using this as an object lesson in brandjacking.

But brandjacking and internal action aren't really the same thing.

And here's one piece of evidence that it could have been a well-meaning--and perhaps even authorized--insider. A quick Google search finds at least one person named Janet who edited an Exxon corporate memo and, according to her phone message, still works for the company. I have no idea if she's the Twitterer--I'd hope a corporate lawyer or accountant would not be so careless--but at the very least it indicates that the Irving, TX HQ has an employee named Janet who could have set up the account.

Perhaps this is my due diligence spider-sense kicking in, but if I were someone tracking down this story I wouldn't accept Exxon's "shocked, shocked" response at face value without a more thorough investigation--particularly in light of this PR-speak from Exxon's spokesperson:

What if this was an employee in a remote arm of the company, would it then be ok?

“It’s not really relevant, there are only people that are authorized and not-authorized, even people with the best intentions, may not know what the appropriate position is or the facts, we think that there’s a problem, as we don’t want to be misleading people and there’s a lot of errors what the person is posting even if it was something that had the best of intentions could be misleading."

The key words here-"It's not really relevant"--are noteworthy. Rather than say "it's not an employee," he says the issue isn't relevant since the employee wouldn't have been authorized. It's the sort of response that would be a red flag to an investigator, at any rate. And if it's an employee, I wouldn't call the Twitter account a fake as much as a mistake.

Another Indexed classic

The Pro Bono Junkie's Blog has an insightful post on the harsh financial reality of the Facebook Causes app.

Harsh, I mean, for most of the nonprofits that think they'll rake in big bucks:

If my experience is the common one, that means that nonprofits spent $300 million dollars in staff time to generate those $3 million in donations. The Taproot Foundation is not a typical nonprofit and we don't traditionally appeal to individual donors. So, let's be generous and say that it is only a $10 to $1 ratio.

Sean is brilliant. He got nonprofits to spend $30 million dollars in the last year to drive traffic to his site. The best part is that he is being heralded as a saint for doing it.

Rounding out our recent posts on fashion & identity, here's another item from Women's Wear Daily: a report on this week's eco-fashion panel, The Fashion Footprint, sponsored by GQ & Fashion Group International and featuring a panel from, among others, Barney's, Loomstate/Rogan and Timberland Apparel.

The fashion biz folk emphasized their commitment to the sustainability, social responsibility and "consciousness," which is admirable because whenever I'm at a panel with all these do-gooder words du jour I start losing my consciousness pretty quickly.

The most refreshing perspective of the evening came from Elizabeth Rogers, a former VP at Calvin Klein & now a branding consultant for the Natural Resources Defense Council. (I was sent an advance copy of her The Green Book to review, and I didn't, and I suck. But hey, Oprah reviewed it on TV so my guess is they didn't miss me.) Anyway, Ms. R at the event:

Rogers expounded on her distaste for the term “green” and anticipates the time when being eco-friendly is the norm and a fully evolved lifestyle, not just a fad.

Designer Roberto Cavalli has designed a limited edition series of Diet Coke bottles for the Italian market. Coca-Cola Italia explains:

"In every woman there’s a special spark that makes her unique and comes out unexpectedly every time she follows her instincts. It bowls over anyone who is watching her," adds Cristina Santucci, Marketing Director of Coca-Cola Italia. "This joint project with Roberto Cavalli aims to offer a collector’s version of the Coca-Cola light bottle, to appeal to women with a strong personality, who are extrovert, modern and like to experiment; women who love beauty, design, art and culture. We want to remind them to bring out the unique, authentic side to their character. Either through a Roberto Cavalli dress or by collecting a limited edition Coca-Cola light bottle designed by Roberto Cavalli."

ComicCon2008_1945, originally uploaded by innergeek.

I'm busy editing & writing for other venues, so for right now here's a link to some write-ups of the next phase of heroic fashion--Warner Brothers' new Supergirl resort-wear line.

Superheroes, you may have noticed, are big this summer, but nobody's tapped into the caped crusader craze quite like this before: Warner Brothers is producing a line of Supergirl-themed resort clothes designed by an NYC power trio. The studio conceived the idea and pitched it to Marc Beckman, founder of Designers Management Agency, who suggested his wife, designer Alice Roi. She brought in two friends from her days as a Manhattan private school kid, Laura "Abaéte" Poretzky and Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss, and they put together a wardrobe fit for an all-American heroine with superpowers.

The Supergirl shield logo is placed subtlety throughout the collection — embroidered on a button, branded on a snap or stamped on a small leather patch on the pocket of a pair of jeans. The first collection is made up of about 35 pieces and includes wool day dresses, silk party dresses, silk blouses, cotton skirts, patent leather jackets, a twill trenchcoat and cotton twill denim jeans.

While Supergirl is as a fictional comic book heroine and the female counterpart to Superman, Barry Ziehl, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for Warner Bros. Consumer Products, said the line has nothing to do with the character.

“The whole idea behind the Supergirl shield is a feeling of empowerment — when a girl wears the clothing, she will feel empowered. That’s what we want to get across with this collection,” he said. “The voices of the girls behind the symbol of empowerment will be the three designers.”