Magnificent

Yet another iconic figure of the pop-cultural world has left us, and comics artists Cliff Chiang pays tribute in a subtle and sublime way:

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“Dear Batman: We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in Bat-detention for whatever it is we did wrong, but we think you’re crazy for making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is an archer, and a speedster, and a swimmer, a princess, and an acrobat. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Teen Titans.”

For the record, Sixteen Candles is still my favorite, for a million reasons including:

  • Jake Ryan

  • A short but perfect soundtrack album

  • Ginny on muscle relaxers

  • “I can’t believe my grandmother actually felt me up. “

  • Ted trapped under the glass coffee table

  • “Can I borrow your underpants for 10 minutes? “

Random wonderful things

I’ve been bedridden for days, so my already active trawling of the web has really gone off the charts. Here are a few gems that I feel compelled to share:

  • The “I Can Read Movies” Series: these imaginary paperback novelizations of hit movies are so beautiful and mid-century perfect they bring a tear to my eye.

  • Comics Grammar & Tradition: I moan about some of the typographic conventions in comics, but I can at least acknowledge that many of them are at least reliable conventions. Here’s a good guide to what they are.

  • Paul’s Boutique, remastered: The Beastie Boys finally re-release one of my all-time favorite records, one that completely blew me away from the first instant I heard it. The accompanying site is Flash-heavy, but filled with good stuff, including a free commentary track of the B-Boys telling stories about the tracks as the entire record plays.

  • Chip Steele, R.I.P.: Chip Steele has been a bit of legend to me for a long-time, ever since my pal Dave went sky-diving with him. If you’re going to jump from a plane, you want a man named Chip Steele strapped to your back! Unfortunately, Steele had a fatal mid-air heart attack while giving a lesson to a young Army private, soon after uttering these now-immortal words: “Welcome to my world.” Pvt. Pharr then landed himself safely, but was unable to revive Steele. If I have ever heard a good premise for a bro-mantic action movie, this is it.

A Holiday Venture

One of the few Christmas traditions I’ve come to treasure is the annual cover song recorded by the guys behind the Venture Brothers. It’s just the bit of good-natured pop-culture fun that can actually make me smile this time of year. The offerings so far have been:

Go Team Venture!

I probably should have remembered to do this before Christmas, but since I mostly hate Christmas I’m never really on the ball about remembering to share the bits I like.

Badger

Badger by Howard

If you think you would enjoy an extremely cute but sad tale of a lonely badger living in a flat in South London (and really, how could you not enjoy it?), then you should buy a copy of Howard Hardiman‘s Badger. It’s really charming, I promise.

[Shameless self-promotional alert: I helped Howard put the final product together, since I’m such a fan of the badger. The book also features a little bit of a little typeface I designed.]