Tag Archives: comic books

Comics in a Box Every Month

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A couple of weeks ago, I subscribed to the Comic Bento service. They’re kind of like Loot Crate and a number of other services that ship out a box full of stuff to their subscribers once a month.

In this case, as you may have guessed from the name, it’s comic books.

I picked Comic Bento because it’s the only one I’ve come across so far that, when checking out past shipments, I saw absolutely nothing that made me think “Well, that would just get put away in a corner until I finally threw it out or re-gifted it to someone.” Seriously, there are some Loot Crates I’ve seen where there was nothing that interested me.

But Comic Bento… well… they’re comic books. I’ve never really gone all that wrong in the past with comics. Even the “bad” ones have some redeeming quality… even if it is just inspiration to “do better than that.”

In today’s vlog, I open that first box. I’m pretty happy with what I found.

(Also, upon slightly closer reading, I’ve realized that  Executive Assistant Iris is from the team that did Witchblade… which I do actually own some issues of from back in the day and I also enjoyed the short-lived, Yancy Butler fronted, TV series. I just didn’t recognize the names when I saw them.)

[youtube https://youtu.be/-HnisLVAmIw]

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Stupid Humans, Bounty Hunting, Bad Geography, and Aquaman

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This entry is part 79 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Another busy day at work, but some interesting things in the feed.

Some interesting interactions in the feed today.

A tragic story about some parents with some really poor judgement (which lead to them falling to their deaths in front of their children) stirred up some comment controversy. Two very different angles on humor and ways of dealing with tragedy among the friends and friends of friends who posted there. Not totally unexpected, knowing the people involved, but likely a bit confusing and disconcerting to those who don’t know everyone.

The much more unexpected and interesting thread is the one about Dog the Bounty Hunter going after MMA fighter War Machine (the latter of which is, officially, a fugitive from justice after beating his ex-girlfriend nearly to death). That little ditty was one of the “trending” stories on Facebook and, it seems, my post (likely because of the high amount of interaction I’ve engendered among my list) was showing up pretty high on the listing of people posting about it. This, of course, brought in a number of people with no discernible connection to anyone anywhere near my circle of friends.

Sometimes, I forget just how… different… those a few steps out of my various circles are from the people I interact with regularly.

A number of the comments were outright all-caps screaming about how awful one of the other main people in the story was. A number of Dog fans offered their (sometimes poorly spelled and grammatically challenged) support for the “hero” to go out and get the “bad guy.” Others lamented the lack of “good guys” in the story (with equally bad spelling and grammar).

I’m almost surprised there was no knock-down, drag-out fight in that thread.

It all subsided quickly enough as, no doubt, something else tabloid trashy caught the attention of the general population.

Ah, the Internet… you never cease to keep me entertained.

There are a number of other interesting news bits that didn’t garner anywhere near the attention they should (really, I think that Dog thread, one about suicide, and the casting of Aquaman for the Superman v Batman movie were the three most active threads today) down there that are definitely worth the read.

And with that, on with the feed…

Reboots, Rumors, Religion, and a Kick Ass Waterslide

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This entry is part 75 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Aside from the ongoing discussions about Guardians of the Galaxy, the story today that most caught my attention was a kind of scathing take-down of the currently popular “Prosperity Gospel” movement.

From what I can see, there’s nothing “Gospel” related in the prosperity gospel. In fact, it seems like it pretty clearly goes against just about everything that appears in the Gospels. I’m even hard pressed to see how they could possibly spin any interpretation of their basic call to action from anything I’ve ever read in the Gospel (and, being raised Catholic, I have some background knowledge on that).

As a friend of mine pointed out, the big thing that really gets me about this is this movement is setting people up to fail and, when they fail, they’ve not only lost their money and likely their hope (if not a bunch of social standing), they’ve also lost Faith.

Faith can be a really important thing.

It can give us something to hold on to during rough seas.

It can provide us with context to express the joy we find.

It can lift us up so we can reach levels we wouldn’t otherwise think possible.

Poison that by attaching it so heavily to the material world and the implicit message that if you don’t succeed, it’s because God hates you… and you negate all the good faith can do and leave only the worst parts.

It can teach you to hold a grudge.

It can spur you to vile acts (since you’re unredeemable, anyway).

It can hold you back as you endless seek the approval and forgiveness that’s just not going to come.

Faith is always a double-edged sword. All the prosperity gospel seems to do is hand the sharpened end to those who follow it. Most will get cut, some will be gravely wounded. Those that manage to get past the blade and grab the handle will then be fully conditioned to swing that sword to cut down others they see as easy marks–and ways of increasing their own material wealth.

Some things don’t particularly belong to the temporal world. Faith is one of those things. In fact, I’d go as far to say that it works best as disconnected from the physical world as possible–existing in a very personal space or mind and emotion that only tangentially nudges things in the “real” world.

It’s definitely not something that should be confuse the metaphorical gold of the purified soul with the all-too-real gold changing hands at the money lenders’ tables. Setting up in a sacred space didn’t go to well for those money lenders…

Anyway… here’s the feed…

 

Bunches of Comic Con Things, Big Discussions on Israel and the Gaza Strip, Some Levity to Balance that Out, and Musing on the Culture of Fear

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This entry is part 69 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

There are no shortage of fear-inducing, attention-grabbing headlines out there. Most of them turn out to be utter hype, but you don’t discover that until after you’ve clicked through. And if you don’t click through, well, the damage to your peace of mind is already done.

For a long time now I’ve been interested in fear and how it gets used–both by us and on us. Part of that is due to growing up on a steady diet of classic horror films. Another part is from growing up through the tail end of the Cold War and a few not-so-cold-wars.

I’ve seen a growing problem over the years. One that’s not going away and only seems to be getting worse.

The problem is the overall culture of fear and paranoia we’re all soaking in… and have been for our entire lives. That’s the reason we (in general) are even suspicious when anonymous gifts show up.

We assume malicious intent.

That’s… not healthy.

And it’s most certainly not conducive to sensibility.

And, perhaps worst, it leaves us open to all sorts of manipulation. The kind that’s been used again and again and again over the past two decades to make us give up more and more of our freedoms in the name of security. Security from threats that, even when they do exist, are far from immediate, imminent, or actually damaging to the vast majority of the population.

This is the kind of fear that, at worst, expresses itself in events like those riots in France the other day. Or in people getting shot just because they look different from the person holding the gun. Or in war.

So, yeah, there are, indeed, things out there to be afraid of, but there are far more things that strike us as creepy or fear-inducing. We have to be fully aware of *why* it strikes us as such and how problematic that actually is.

That all said, here’s the feed starting from Friday (including the article about dolls that spurred most of the above musing)…

Lots of Oddities, Some Real Stupidity, A Bit of Humor, and the Blackest Black

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This entry is part 62 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Apparently, the push yesterday to let the FCC know how we think they should rule on Net Neutrality once again crashed their website. So much so that at least one of the groups that was facilitating the electronic submissions just up and printed out the messages that didn’t get through and hand delivered them so they’d be in by the comment deadline.

Maybe, just maybe, there’s enough volume of ordinary people and money from big organizations (like Google) to swing this the right way.

I’m not holding my breath. I’m not even all that optimistic. But at least I can see there’s a chance.

Guess we’ll see soon enough.

Everyone keep your fingers and things crossed.

Now, on with the feed…