Worst... Pundit... Ever!!!

I'm a huge nerd, but I'm not a comic book nerd, so I wouldn't have heard about this post's topic if it hadn't been for the intrepid M. Bouffant. I won't link to the piece he critiques, seeing no need to drive additional traffic to the asshole's site, but I will link to a piece by the always entertaining David Brin (whose "Uplift" novels are a fun read) which excoriates the author's best known recent work.

When I read M. Bouffant's synopsis of a scathing opinion piece about the Occupy Wall Street movement by Frank Miller, I thought I remembered that Frank Miller guy... wasn't Frank Miller the guy who used to make prank phone calls? Oh, wait, THAT Frank Miller... the comic book guy- he used to be really funny. How about we dip into the fetid, inky waters of Frank Miller's troubled psyche? I'm going to yank pieces out of the essay to snark about, claiming "fair use" all the while.

Miller starts off with a funny intro... Everybody’s been too damn polite about this nonsense: Heh, indeed, the media's been treating the movement with kid gloves. Good one, Frankie.

The “Occupy” movement, whether displaying itself on Wall Street or in the streets of Oakland (which has, with unspeakable cowardice, embraced it) is anything but an exercise of our blessed First Amendment. Yeah, the City of Oakland has embraced the Occupy movement, right... "unspeakable cowardice", Frank, I do not think it means what you think it means.

“Occupy” is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America. Whoa, Frank Miller is actually a pen name for Sean Hannity... who'd a thunk it?

“Occupy” is nothing short of a clumsy, poorly-expressed attempt at anarchy, to the extent that the “movement” – HAH! Miller, a professional writer, actually wrote "HAH!" Also, attempt at anarchy? If you don't succeed at anarchy, it's probably because you are disorganized - HAH! Facchinello this guy got paid to write shit? Some “movement”, except if the word “bowel” is attached- Folks, this is nothing short of a clumsy, poorly-expressed attempt at humor. Frank, Frank, Frank, leave the POOP! jokes to the pros. is anything more than an ugly fashion statement by a bunch of iPhone, iPad wielding spoiled brats who should stop getting in the way of working people and find jobs for themselves. Damn kids and their fancy electronic geegaws! Damn, they should be using cans and string to communicate if they are so poor and downtrodden... and they should GET OFF FRANK'S LAWN!!! Damn, I always suspected that Miller was a hack who made his living by piggybacking on the intellectual property of others, but this whole "THEY GOT iPHONES" shit is really unimaginative hackery-dickery, doc.

This is no popular uprising. This is garbage. And goodness knows they’re spewing their garbage – both politically and physically – every which way they can find. Wow, how original... DIRTY HIPPIES ARE DIRTY!!!
 
Wake up, pond scum. America is at war against a ruthless enemy. Oh, good, Frank's going to admit that the "too big to fail" predatory banks and "collateralized debt obligation" traders have been waging war on the middle class? I say, I say, is a glimmer of reality filtering through that little blue bonnet of Frank's? Uh... no:

Maybe, between bouts of self-pity and all the other tasty tidbits of narcissism you’ve been served up in your sheltered, comfy little worlds, you’ve heard terms like al-Qaeda and Islamicism. Huh? Yeah, they've never heard of al-Qaeda. Damn, Frankie, the head of the head of al-Qaeda is now hanging in the Oval Office, and, anyway, al-Qaeda is not a mass movement, but has always been an astroturfed organization funded by shadowy, reclusive millionaires.

And this enemy of mine — not of yours, apparently - must be getting a dark chuckle, if not an outright horselaugh - out of your vain, childish, self-destructive spectacle. Yeah, just like this enemy got a dark chuckle, if not an outright horselaugh out of the costly, fraudulent Iraq War. Stupid comic book guy is st00pid.

Here comes my favorite part of Miller's cri du cul:

In the name of decency, go home to your parents, you losers. Go back to your mommas’ basements and play with your Lords Of Warcraft.

So, let me get this straight, the guy who makes his money writing comic books is telling the kids to move back into their parents' basements. Yeah, by all means, retreat from the real world, stop trying to change your circumstances for the better. Why engage with the world, and take your place at the center stage of domestic affairs, when you can retreat, and lose yourself in escapist fantasies? "I know you don't have any bread, but I have circuses for you... BUY THEM!!!"

To add to the hilariousness of Miller's crossness, it has to be noted that Miller's career was based on cribbing off the intellectual properties of better talents. He made his name by giving an "edgy" reboot to Batman, a character actually created by Bob Kane, a nom de plume of the late cartoonist Bil Keane, created so he could indulge his darker leanings. As an aside, the issue of Batman in which the caped crusader stops a crime wave perpetrated by master criminal Not Me is a riveting read. Yeah, Miller's career has basically consisted of piggy-backing on the works of others... so much for the Randian superman, making it on his own.

Hey, let's give Miller another kick in the metaphorical 'nads... Another one of Miller's more popular works was his take on noir-ish urban melodrama for people lacking the literacy required for tackling Raymond Chandler and lacking the cultural sophistication to sit through Aldrich's masterpiece... noir for numbnuts, if you will.

Perhaps his most successful recent endeavor was a homoerotic soft-porn distortion of history for sexually repressed neocons. Brin's takedown of this bloody, fascistic distortion of history is a must-read for all Miller maligners.

Yeah, Miller's a hack, even the derivative work which put him on America's cognitive map is hackwork. Shit, Miller's take on Batman was supposed to be edgy, but shit, look at this... if that's edgy, I have a goddamn head of hair that Chewbacca would envy. Why not have Batman riding on a unicorn, with a rainbow in the background? As if that weren't bad enough, Miller ripped off the concept from a bootleg action figure. Fuck, Miller, you can't even steal from the best, ya clown.

Furthermore, Miller's success has always been contingent on the availability of the "99%" to earn enough money to spend on entertainment (protip- the Koch brothers don't buy comic books). Frank. the kids who just aren't making it anymore were the customers who lined your pockets. Foot, meet bullet.

For your final taste of Miller self-ownage, here's the closer:

Or better yet, enlist for the real thing. Maybe our military could whip some of you into shape.
 
They might not let you babies keep your iPhones, though. Try to soldier on.

Uh, nothing in Miller's C.V. suggests that he ever served in the military. He's a classic example of a chairborne ranger, playing a tough guy on the internet. He'd say he did his part... didn't he write three-motherfucking-hundred, thereby saving the world from the Persian menace? I picture Miller huddled behind the skirts cape of his comic-book protector, ranting at people he thinks should fuck off back to their parents' home and buy his juvenalia.

This bravado, this macho insistence that these kids shut up and knuckle down, is telling... fuck, even his "Lords of Warcraft" crack is a tell- does the d00d, who's probably been to more comic conventions than just about anyone on the planet, really think he's fooling anyone by pretending to be geek-unaware? Even the movie projects he's been involved in seem to be visually informed by video game imagery. Perhaps the memory of the cold metal of the locker interior chilling his exposed skin haunts him decades after his freshman torments have ceased. Perhaps it's the fact that a slight miasma of cat pee will always cling to him, impervious to any amount of scrubbing.

More likely, it's probably his bitterness at having his latest, most reactionary work being excoriated for being a piece of crap.

Frank's the one who's never grown up, the bubble of his fantasy world pierced only by fear of an enemy who has been largely defeated. The kids on the street? They're growing up- fighting back against the system which has been gamed shamelessly for the past thirty years, they're finding their voices, and creating institutions to replace the ones that have failed them. Frank wants them to regress, to return to their parents' basements, to enmesh themselves in the not-so-protective cocoon of childish escapism, to shut up and hand him their dwindling cash supply.

It's too late, Frankie, they've left you behind, and that's what's really chapping your ass.

NOTE: I changed "hackery-fuckery" to "hackery-dickery", which scans better. I also cleaned up some grammatical errors (protip- he who lives by the cut-and-paste dies by the cut-and-paste... if he doesn't edit afterward).

Forgive Me While I Indulge in Some Major Geekery

Today, I am going to majorly geek out about a subject I usually don't cover, but have addressed in a pair of posts which actually garnered a fair amount of hits... that subject being computer games. I don't engage in much "gaming" these days, with the one major exception being the free, beautiful Battle for Wesnoth (warning- major time sink!). Today, though, I am inspired by this post by Cerberus at the mother ship and a post (which I cannot find) excoriating Frank Miller and another comic book guy who wrote this about The Onion:


The Onion lost all credibility for me a while back when they did a “story” on the Hudson River cleanup GE was forced to do. As some of you may recall, one of my neighbors is a GE veep, and he was directly in charge of this, so from him I found out all kinds of details the press did not bother to pass along to the public. Since The Onion apparently gets its info from other papers, the story was full of inaccuracies.

What are they, Michael Moore?

Anyway, I stopped reading The Onion from then on.


At any rate, the post which I cannot find (I'll have plenty of time to hunt down a link when I work the midnight to eight shift on Saturday) compared Frank Miller and John Byrne to the eponymous antagonists in the classic computer game Myth: The Fallen Lords, former heroes who have been corrupted, and now fight to destroy the civilization that they once defended.

The Myth series of games involved simulation of squad-based tactical combat in a pseudo-medieval setting, a mash-up of world legends and Glen Cook's Sword & Sorcery novels. Medieval soldiers rubbed elbows with extras from Braveheart, fallen-samurai-turned-penitent-Mayan-curanderos, and Molotov-cocktail tossing dwarfs. It was a glorious mess, but it all played out swimmingly because the production values were so high. The soundtrack, by the talented Marty O'Donnell, and the narration were equal to anything that the film industry has produced recently. The action was fierce- the player had to fight a series of seemingly hopeless battles against multitudes of implacable foes, against a backdrop of a war for the very survival of humanity. The very fate of a shitload of code was at stake!

The game began with an animated introduction, as a lone Braveheart extra fights his way out of a ruined city with a mystical MacGuffin (WARNING: content may be offensive to members of the Undead-American community):





The game in earnest begins with an introductory episode, as a small squad of soldiers defends a small village against a bunch of not-so-fresh antagonists:





It's the narration, and the dedication to plot which really knocked the game out of the park, the gameplay and the vaunted physics engine notwithstanding. To cap it off, the haunting soundtrack lends a melancholy air to the proceedings, with the piece introducing the third episode, The Siege of Madrigal being particularly beautiful:





The Siege of Madrigal piece has appeared in Bungie studio's subsequent games, typically as an Easter egg for obsessive-compulsive fans to find. The song has appeared in all of the games in the Halo franchise.

Some enterprising (or totally obsessed) individual has posted videos of the entire game to Youtube- if you were fans of Peter Jackson's films loosely based on The Lord of the Rings (I'm not really a fan of Mr Jackson), these videos may be of some small interest to you. There's some amazing imagery there- a jolt as a monstrous trow advances on a small huddle of unsuspecting soldiers, a frisson of horror as a lost regiment comes upon a vast platform built out of skulls by a long-dead nightmare people. Of course, locating a copy of the game would be a better idea- just make sure your "dorf" doesn't blow up his comrades with a poorly-lobbed Molotov.

One feature of the game which lent quite a bit of pathos to it was that each of the units in your squad was named. If you screwed up, Cruniac or Balin would be killed, and you'd feel bad about his non-existent orphans, the bits and bytes that made up his grieving mother. It's just a pity that our politicians don't feel the same way about the real kids they consign to the meat grinder that I did about the named sprites I was responsible for.

The sequel Myth 2: Soulblighter, was another triumph of plot and gameplay, another desparate series of skirmishes as humanity seeks to defeat the remnants of the evil forces which it had fended off in the first game. The sequel has a couple of surprising plot twists in it- the players were assumed to have some familiarity with the background of the setting. The game was most noted for it's "modding" community- the source code was available online, and many variations of the game were created by fans. There is still a web presence for the community.

Yeah, forgive my supergeekery, people... now I have to see if I can run the games on my current machine. If there are no new posts for a month, you'll know the reason!

Perfect Response to a Racist Gamerboy

Ah, 'gamers'... I don't write about the scumbags who pushed Gamergate very often, but I must note that these angry nerdy boys pretty much ushered in the 'alt-right' that vexes the 'normies' so. I have been known to play computer games, but these assholes have forever caused me to eschew the title of 'gamer'. The new kerfuffle among these chuds is anger that actress Zoë Kravitz has been cast as 'Catwoman' in an upcoming 'Batman' movie. One particular manchild calling himself 'One Angry Gamer' is enraged that an African-American woman has been cast in this role.

The asshole is getting it in the neck in the responses, mainly from people who note that Eartha Kitt was an iconic Catwoman in the greatest iteration of the whole franchise. Ms Kitt perfectly combined the playful sex appeal and over-the-top camp that best serves the source material:





To me, the worst sin of 'One Angry Gamer' isn't his (you know he's gotta be a d00d) racism or sexism, but his complete lack of humor... 'Batman' is supposed to be sorta ridiculous, just look at the debut of Catwoman in the comic books. He's also a crashing bore, he keeps repeating the mantra that 'Eartha Kitt's Catwoman isn't the Selina Kyle of the movie', as if this Selina Kyle character (invented in the 80s by the execrable Frank Miller, who made the character a former sex worker because of course he did) even existed when the West 'Batman', the best 'Batman', was broadcast 'in color'. He also complains that Frank Miller's Selina Kyle shouldn't be played by a black woman because she was described as Irish and Cuban, as if Phil Lynott and Celia Cruz didn't exist.

The angry manchild gives the game away when he complains that SJWs have 'stolen' his entertainment from him, entertainment that he has had no hand in producing. This sets up the best response I've ever seen to one of these anti-feminist whiners:

I don’t think gaming is a particularly masculine activity. It’s sitting on a couch pressing buttons.

— Aaron Abernethy (@theronster) October 20, 2019

I believe that gamers have a term for the beating this asshole received.

In Contrast With Yesterday's Post

If yesterday's post was dripping with pathos, this post is pure Schadenfreude, involving a truly awful individual.  Florida congressional candidate and QAnon whacko KW Miller is hospitalized with the 'rona, and he's got things to say:

Former Florida congressional QAnon candidate KW Miller, perhaps best remembered on Twitter for putting Beyonce on notice for being secretly Italian, is in the hospital with COVID.

Here he is September 6, blaming democrats and China for his illness. pic.twitter.com/KINU5yju4j

— frank (@the_cancel_mob) September 23, 2021

Predictably, his followers are just as crazy as he is, and seem bound and determined to get him killed:

Here is a comment from an influencer type who, in addition to being the top commenter on this video, has 16,000 followers on Facebook to spew her garbage bullshit to. pic.twitter.com/6uLz7RS5zx

— frank (@the_cancel_mob) September 23, 2021

KW Miller gained national notoriety when he claimed that Beyoncé Knowles was secretly Italian, and that Patti LaBelle is a Satanist. His Twitter account was nuked, but I recall that he had long-running feuds with 'leftists' online. I don't wish death upon this idiot, even though he is a crazed lunatic who has spread conspiracy theories and disinformation, but I sure as hell won't weep at the prospect of his demise, or a painful existence with diminished lung capacity. He did provide entertainment for a while with his bizarre rants, but his entertainment value has long been outstripped by the danger he poses to our society.

Betcha Can't Watch Just One

So, I have a day off today, and it's a typical December day, no need to leave the house until it gets a little warmer. While I am not a big comic book fan, I was turned onto these funny Justice League Action Shorts:





These shorts are funny and subversive, the perfect antidote to the 'grimdark' aesthetic which seemed to take over the medium when misogynistic assholes like Frank Miller took the reins and the West (the best!) camp aesthetic was jettisoned. These shorts bring the fun back to the funny pages, striking a nice balance between the gonzo, day-glo 1960S superhero series and the outstanding art-deco-with-a-muted-palette-but-not-oppressive 1990s Batman: The Animated Series. These are superheroes, and villains, who have hobbies, who have anxieties, who can get short-tempered with each other... the whole series is a cute love letter to the superhero genre, with each vignette being a joy, even if like myself, you don't recognize half of the characters.

The Bats Have Left the Belfry

In this run-up to Halloween season, I have to confess that I am puzzled that bats feature so prominently in Halloween iconography. In this part of the world, the bats are hibernating when Halloween rolls around. I have always been a big fan of bats. I am not a fan of Frank Miller, the asshole fascist who ruined the "Batman" franchise by making it all angsty and shit (and by "shit", I mean shit). My opinion of the "Batman" mythos can be summed up with a simple couplet:

The "Batman" that's the best,
Is the one with Adam West.

I can't decide which "Batman" villain is the best... whether it's Egghead (Vincent Price, W00T!) or King Tut. I love King Tut's supervillain origin story:





I suspect Bruce took pity on him because the good professor gave him a "Gentleman's B".


Post inspired by some yuks in the comment section at TBogg's place. Post title taken from one of the founding documents of "Goth" music.

West, the Best

Holy part of my childhood is gone, Adam West, simply the best 'Batman' from the best Batman iteration has died at the age of 88. The 1960s Batman television series was a wonder of glorious camp and day-glo surrealism, and Adam West, despite his outrageous costume, was the greatest straight man in the history of television. Surrounded by a coterie of fine character actors playing outrageous, insane villains, Adam West came across like a player from the Walla Walla Shakespeare Company who wandered onto the set, delivering even the most ludicrous lines with a gravitas fitting the Bard's tragedies:





Like any Shakespearean actor worth his doublet, Mr West knew how to handle himself in an onstage 'affray':





He had the chiseled good looks to play a millionaire playboy philanthropist, this particular scene is a funny showcase of his acting, with him using different mannerisms for his two personae, even though the conversation is taking place on the phone:





There was just a hint of kink, by 60s standards, to Bruce Wayne, a guy who dresses in tights and has an ambiguous relationship to Dick, but Batman was a total square:





He did, though, have some great dance moves to impress the ladies:





One of the best aspects of the show was Adam West's chemistry with Julie Newmar- there was a funny dynamic between the glacier-cool, cerebral Batman and the smoldering, amoral Catwoman:





That one scene perfectly encapsulates the comedic-yet-sexy vibe of the series, with Adam West unflappably portraying the straitlaced Batman and Julie Newmar practically burning through the television screen with her provocative performance. MEE-OW! I imagine Mr West had some serious acting chops to maintain his composure during that scene.

The 1960s Batman show was bright, fun, and clever, with Adam West's Batman being an erudite goody two-shoes (in one episode, Batman pauses to put a nickel in a parking meter, in another episode, a bomb in the Batmobile fails to detonate because Batman won't exceed the speed limit). The Gotham City portrayed in the show wasn't a 'grimdark' hellhole, merely a fictionalized New York City, complete with a Mayor Linseed. Adam West's Batman, a cultured man, wouldn't deliver a stupid line like this:

The best contrast between Adam West's Batman and the 'gritty reboot' Batman of the Tim Burton movie can be seen in this juxtaposition between the best scene from the 1966 Batman movie and the decidedly less fun Burton film:





Adam West's Batman, as opposed to Burton's grinning sociopath, imperiled his own life to save a bunch of ducks, he sure as hell wouldn't have killed a villain, no matter how bad. This was a character without a hint of cynicism, a noble and incorruptible figure who evinces optimism- there was no problem that brains, skill, and a bit of bat shark repellent spray couldn't solve... and even Catwoman could be forgiven, once she did her time for the crime. This is comic book superheroics done right- a show that is equally appealing to little kids and to adults. If I want noir, I'll watch real noir not some Frank Miller fake tough-guy noir-for-numbnuts.

It's a shame that Adam West's career was sidelined for a while because he was overshadowed by the character he played, but he made his peace with the cape and cowl and garnered a multi-generational fanbase. The guy had a great sense of humor, and projected class... if your kid is going to have a television character as an idol, Adam West's Batman would be an optimal choice... for all of the *BIFF BAM POW* cartoon action on the screen, there were brains and heart as well.

The good people at Tor Books had a blog series recapping the entire run of 1960s Batman episodes. It's a fun read, and a nice way to remember Adam West.

My Profile Picture Doesn't Look Bad Enough

The profile picture I've been using since this blog's inception was snapped by my friend Frenchie (who is, of course, Italian), a man I have known for almost twenty years. Ever since I've known him, he has taken headshots of his friends, and my photo was an impromptu one taken in the dojo on a Saturday morning between classes. This past Saturday, he took another round of headshots, which he then 'doctored' using an app on his phone. I initially protested that I hadn't shaved for a couple of days, to which he replied, "That's good, it makes you look tougher." In order to make us look even 'tougher', he played with the contrast, darkened the image, and applied a red filter so we all looked like we'd be fighting (which we had been). I now present the publicity still for Frank Miller's 'Bastard City', a Quentin Tarantino Production:

Funny, I could swear that I had blue eyes...

After he took this picture, he took one of our mutual friend and colleague, Kickass Sue. Sue has a baby face, with a snub nose and wide eyes... while she is extremely tough, she is incapable of looking 'mean'. After Frenchie took her picture and played with the images, he showed it to her and her verdict was, "I don't look tough, I look drunk!"

I look drunk too, drunk on baaaaadness.