But How Does He Smell? (Terrible!)

I hated to keep you in suspense -- since I already knew what would happen (me being from the future and all) -- but it's now safe to tell you that Jeremy's septum-correcting surgery was a smashing success! He didn't feel any pain. Not that he'd admit it, since he's a total bad-ass, or at least, that's what he tells people. And after a couple of nights at his sister's house and some bowls of homemade chicken noodle soup, he's doing pretty darned well! He just isn't allowed to blow his nose for a week. Or else the fool thing just falls right off, I guess. Also, he can't lift anything heavier than twenty pounds for two weeks. Or is it two weeks on the nose-blowing and one week on the heavy lifting?

Uh-oh.

Let's see some photos of him, before and after the surgery!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Yipes stripes. I hope he has a good lawyer!

"Be Sure to Drink Your Ovaltine" (A Crummy Commercial)

Let's all congratulate Spazmo, shall we, for being the first to guess the title of Jeremy's webcomic!

Now, let's all gasp in admiration at a proper advertisement for it.

If I recall correctly -- and my memory's a bit fuzzy on this, since it happened 1,000 years ago and in another dimension -- the "saucy frolicking" wasn't in every strip. But I guess Jeremy wanted readers to prepare themselves for a Sexiest Case Scenario. It's the same thing I do on my dates! Sometimes, Storm Boy appears from under the bistro table, wearing a stewardess uniform and a life jacket, and he elaborately mimes what my date should do in a Sexy Emergency.

Which is weird, since I certainly never told him he could do that.

As for me, I'm going on a one-man "corporate retreat" -- if I can ever dodge this gang of losers which has attached itself to me like a space-barnacle on a really cool space-yacht. I'm gonna fly out to some forest-covered planet and just "hang". Y'know, try to get my head together and stuff. Maybe bang the occasional lumberjack. I dunno. So I won't be blogging for a little bit. Look for me early next week, probably.

On a completely unrelated note, Jeremy is having surgery "today" (as in 7/31/08) to correct that annoying deviated septum of his. Let's just hope he doesn't wind up looking like that Kristen Chenoweth-faced dude who's a judge on "Shear Genius."

Jagged Edge Explosion Balloon!

After those one-and-a-half pages of rousing action, we're gonna take a breather while Mister Kline tries to set the alarm on his clock radio.

Listen... I wanna get "real" with you now. Can we "rap"? We can? Good. Thank you.

Over the course of gouging a ragged, bloody hole in this comic's neck and shitting down its windpipe examining this comic, I've grown to enjoy the figurework of George Tuska. His looming, lumbering characters have a warmth somehow lacking in the work of the similarly-styled Don Heck. (Heck's characters tend to have odd, leering, Pan-like faces that make them look like they've endured some seriously botched rounds of plastic surgery.) Sure, Tuska's characters tend more toward the "beetle-browed and oafish" end of the spectrum, but here it's softened by the exquisite inking of Jim Mooney. I just wish that Tuska's backgrounds just once would have had anything at all to do with his figurework. Take this panel. It's as dramatic as any "turning that one knob" panel could every hope to be, and Mr. Kline's immaculately-manicured hand is rendered beautifully. And yet the background is practically a collage. What is all that crap piled up back there? I see a picture frame (not sure there's anything in it), a scrap of wicker, a windowsill air conditioner, a two-by-four... just where th' heck is he? May I expect Fred Sanford to wander in at any moment? ("Kline, you dummy--!") And are all those hundreds of lines radiating from that magenta lightbulb or blister or everlasting gobstopper or what-have-you meant to indicate that it's glowing or just really anxious? (Performance anxiety!)

Oh, and mister letterer guy? Artie? I'm pretty sure a caption about a guy turning a knob doesn't merit the Jagged Edge Explosion Balloon. (My new rock band!) I'm just sayin'.

Somewhere, Under the Scalpel

In "Lois Lane" #52 (October 1964) I came across conclusive evidence that Lucky, the Lucky Charms Leprechaun, has undergone plastic surgery. We all know what the "after" looks like. But check out the "before"!

Feck! Ol' Lucky's had more work done than Nicolas Cage! Let's see... he's had ear reduction surgery, tooth implantation, botox, and complete reconstruction of his upper skull to move his eyes further apart, as well as Clay Aiken-style hair lightening. Plus he took up weight training and he fired his old costumer! So I offer my most heartfelt kudos to Lucky. It takes a big wee man to admit his failings and to take adorably tiny steps to improve himself. That puts him way ahead of his compatriots, who are still in denial about their various conditions.

Examples? But of course!

• Cap'n Crunch: achondroplastic dwarfism
• Count Chocula: porphyria, microcephaly
• Quisp: hypertension
• Tony the Tiger: gynecomastia, a.k.a. "male breast enlargement"
• Toucan Sam: deviated septum
• Booberry: anemia. Also, he's dead.
• King Vitaman: hemophilia
• Frankenberry: rosacia
• Trix Rabbit: kleptomania and species dysmorphia
• Diggum: three-pack-a-day smoker
• The Cinnamon Toast Crunch Chef: chronic flatulence
• Sugar Bear: third nipple
• Cookie Crook: converted to radical Wahabist sect of Islam while in the slammer, currently in Gitmo
• Sonny the Cocoa Puffs Cuckoo: meth addict

I could go on, but you get the idea. It's a pretty sick scene out there, in aisle five.

My favorite cereal mascot? Glad you asked! It's a handsome fella whose moniker just happens to be the same as the one I earned on my high school magno-ball team. Behold: Fruit Brute!

...Okay, so they never called me that on the court. Just in the locker room. And I was never technically a team member.

By the way, is anybody else kinda freaked out by this kid?

He looks like the "Island of Doctor Moreau" version of Alvin the Chipmunk.

Rescue Me: The Vamp

She's fifty and fabulous! Isn't it great how Gramma can still fit into the slacks she wore in 1968? And I think the facelift is settling quite nicely. I'm sorry, but when I hear the name "Vamp" I don't think of somebody who looks like this. Like a swashbuckling Gibson Girl with Leonard Nimoy's face. Also? Brainiac 5 called; he wants his belt back.

The Vamp was an agent for a criminal organization called "The Corporation." (Insert Enron joke here.) They cave her the power to transform into the Animus, a frankly awesome-looking creature that was a goggle-eyed, big-brained future guy crossed with a brawny caveman, dressed in animal skins and wielding a ginormous crystal club. The Animus rocked. The Vamp? Not so much. Although she did manage to infiltrate America's top security agency. S.H.I.E.L.D. even gave her that belt, whch somehow allowed her to absorb any foe's powers and skills. Anyway, long story short, the Vamp eventually got killed in that "bar with no name" massacre that Scourge pulled off, and then somebody cloned her, and then the clone got killed. There's more to it than that, of course, and it involves Typhoid Mary and Deadpool, but I really don't have the time or interest to go into it.

So, how would I have dressed the Vamp, if I'd had my 'druthers? Like so.



I wanted to incorporate the style of a silent-era, honest-to-goodness VAMP into her costume, since that actually makes sense. So I used Art Nouveau/Japanese sinuous iconography on the bodysuit. Where's the belt, you ask? Good question. I really wanted to use the twisting snake thing, and the belt -- or any belt, really -- didn't look too good in conjunction with it. So instead I miniaturized the technology and put it in that flower on her waist. It's supposed to look raised, like it's a brooch or sumpin' but that part didn't turn out too good. Ah, well. I also did some sketches where her hair was pulled back (too severe and/or dowdy, even if done in an Oriental way) or in a wavy bob (made her look too much like Lady Viper) or a straight bob (very Louise Brooks but I personally don't think it's very sexy). I like the long, wavy look, like Theda Bara wore as Cleopatra. And I figure Black Canary can do martial arts with long hair, so the Vamp wouldn't have any problem either.

But what do you guys think?