More Superhero Shaming

One of my regular hits while surfing is called... sigh. It's called the Movie Poop Shoot, which offends my sensablities something fierce. Which is odd, considering the far more vile things I read and watch that slip right past those said sensabilities, but there you have it.

I don't know if the site... he sighs again. If the site lives up to its name. However, it does have one feature that is damn fine. That's Comics 101. If you want to learn more about comics in general, there are few places better to head out to.

This week, Comic 101's writer, Scott Tipton talks about superhero vehicles, both good and bad. And among the bad, of course, is the Spider-mobile.

Created in Amazing Spider-man #130, the Spider-mobile is, for a lack of a better description, damn stupid. One of the big images connected with the character is Spider-man swinging around the buildings of New York City. How the hell could anyone even try to replace that, even for a moment, even in jest, with the image od Spidey driving around in a dunebuggy? One that shoots webs from its lights?

Man is that bad.

Also listed as mistakes in Super Hero Fiction are the Supermoblie (which at least has a passable reason for existing), Moonknight's Moon Copter (meh), and the dreaded ARROWCAR. I had only heard of this last one. On seeing it...

Well...

It makes the Spider-mobile look good.

I mean a yellow car for a hero who's entire motif was green.

Boggles the mind.

New Orleans

Not much for me to say here, except my prays and hopes are out there for every citizen of the city.

And that, as, far as I'm concerned, the '00's suck. Nothing's gone right since they started.

Bloody Vikings (II) - A Spambot in Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension

I had heard of spambots. Can’t tell you where I heard it. It just has a sort of familiar ring.

However, I don’t think I had seen one at work until they hit Jabootu’s Bad Movie Dimension. Yes, they’re irritating, and yes, they’re a boil on the tail of the internet. But, y’know, they’re kind of funny, too.

For those not in the know (as if I am, he says, rolling his eyes), the spambot works something like this. First, it goes to a message board and registers a profile complete with name. The one that hit Jabootu (from here called Onknee for no clear reason) chose wonderful ones like “bag23” and “bird35”. With this complete, it begins posting on the board. Sometimes it will reply to existing threads. Sometimes it will even create its own thread.

The response can be as long as a sentence, a paragraph, or a novel. Somewhere there in is the hook, the link the reader is supposed to click on to In Onknee’s case, it was usually with a single comment like “Where can I get some of that? [:-X]”. This is followed by it’s signature, which is a link to the product it’s pushing (which, needless to say, I’m not putting here.)

Now I know better. I know that a spambot is nothing more than a malicious computer program created by hateful computer programmers. Sort of like a virus or the Atari 2600 game, E.T.

And yet when I think of Onknee, I can’t get the image of an actual robot out of my head. One that’s hunched over it’s keyboard with an evil gleam in its lens/eyes. I can here it humming to itself as it finishes a post. It clicks on “Post New Reply”, leans back, and says, with infinite satisfaction, “Take that, meatbags!”

Stupid old reality.

Being just a program with no thought behind it makes the spambot susceptible to charming gaffs. The most common seems to be not posting on topic, which as a rule annoying yet passably human. Onknee had gaffs that made it look like it had lost it’s little mind. A few of it’s signatures looked like little more than three lines. Some of it’s posts were incoherent messes, like

“%22There+is+only+one+pretty+child+in+the+world

+and+every+mother+has+it.%22++%0D%0A”

and

“+WOW+how+exciting%21%5B%3A%28%5D%0D%0A”

At one point, Onknee was pushing a whole bit of wisdom. It created threads titled “Learn+Something”, “Another Chinese Saying”, “Old+Ancinet+Quotes” (nothing says wisdom like redundancy), and the grammatically frightening “Things You Didnt Knew Before.” Each would be accompanied with some truism or another. It’s point of origin or age I can’t verify.

All of this might have been mildly acceptable in the main forum. Onknee, in its wisdom, put it up in the “Posted Review” portion of the board, where Jabootu’s readers could dissect whichever movie they chose. While “The pine stays green in winter...Wisdom in hardship” might be really deep and all, it simply isn’t a review. One wonders if there isn’t a better way to peddle your product.

The best part for me was when I discovered Onknee was replying to his own threads. One thread, bearing the heading “Another Chinese Saying”, reads "The tongue like a sharp knife...Kills without drawing blood." Which is interesting in and of itself. It did not need a post reinforcing this (“interesting [:)]”) Especially not three minutes after the fact. Using the same user name even.

Way to blow the game, Onknee.

Like I said, I found all of this fairly amusing. I still do. Not ha-ha funny - spam doesn’t have that much wit - but funny nonetheless.

Which probably means I deserved ever bit of spam I would get…

---

Couple of notes here.

The image of Onknee in the text above is of the robot Johnny 5, from the movies Short Circuit 1 and 2. I hate Johnny 5, but he does have fans that frequent the site bearing his name, Johnny-Five.com. I lifted the picture from there.

Next time, I’ll discuss my three mock posters and what I learned from the experience. From there I will return once more to the topic of spam. Specifically the spam that plagued me.

Notification - Essay Pushed Back.

I worked out in the yard today and blew my entire scheduale. Everything'll be pushed back a day. Sorry about that.

Notification - Nofan

For the record, I've offically started Nofan up... a day late. All that's there right now is an Author's Introduction. The next update, on Friday, is the Cast Page, which will be small indeed at this point. The first REAL page will happen next Friday.

Fun!

More important stuff will apear later. Both here and there. Count on it.

Mock Poster # 3: The Smiling Spritel

Just as a point of information: I purchased a book on drawing animals and yes, I got the legs of the frog wrong. But that doesn't bother me. For being a drawing without references, it's still pretty good.

Here is the third and final mock poster for my theoretical novel, Fear Adventure.

First, let's get the negatives out of the way. Her butterfly wings are a disappointment (which reminds me - I wanted the Spritel to have antennae.) The leaf should be better than it is. No collar bones I see (but that's a "who cares?"; Spritels might not have collar bones, after all.) And, no doubt, I've blown her arm muscles in some way.

In some ways, I'm happier with how she turned out than the other two. I think I did okay with the shading, and her hair, to me, looks like it has shape and mass. It is also a fuller figure than I usually do (first poster not withstanding.)

It's a learning process, after all, and any advance gives me a bit of hope that I'm not just wasting my time. I may never be a great illustrator, but I'll not be that bad, either.

Next post (assuming I don't learn some other horrible secret about a comic character) will be part two of my Spam thoughts. Then, I think I'll cover what I've learned from all of this.

image created by Cullen M. M. Waters

Alas, Poor Aquaman

Pity Aquaman. Here is a character that's been around almost as long as both Superman and Batman, even appeared near the time Wonder Woman did, has tremendous name recognition, and yet is the joke of the comic world. True, his powers aren't the most useful. True he is, for all intensive purposes a Namor rip-off. But there are worse heroes out there. At least he didn't shoot arrows with boxing glove tips, like Green Arrow...

I never cared that much for Aquaman either way. I found all the "Talk to Fish" jokes as droll as the next comic fan. And yet there was a bit of sympathy there as well. Any man who can go out in orange and green tights deserves some respect, I think. There's some creativity shown there. At least he didn't put on a Robin mask and steal some Robin Hood duds like SOME heroes I might mention.

But then it happened. During one of my usual roams through the vast Internet Highway, I browsed my way through a series of on Comic Urban Legends. And, in this article, found the capper, the thing that made me, if not an Aquaman fan, then someone who feels compassion for the Atlantian doofus.

Aquaman didn't appear on any comic cover until nineteen years after he was created.

Nineteen. Years.

He always appeared as second fiddle to some other character, such as Superboy. They got the glory while Aquaman toiled away as back up. Hell, even some Nottingham reject got cover shots, one that even had him underwater. An element he was not native to. (And with a sidekick smiling despite in the clutches of an octopus. Almost as if he was high... Nah, that would never happen.)

Even Aquaman's first appearance was only in the presence of other heroes, fighting beside the JLA in issue #28 of the Brave and the Bold. Getting knocked aside by a giant space starfish.

No, I am sorry. I can do it no more. I can't see Aquaman as a four colored joke any longer. After today, he will suffer no more at my hands. Or any other part, for that matter.

In fact, I offer up this toast. Here's to Aquaman, that magnificent fool! May he never grow wings on his heels! Or dye his hair black!

'Cause these days, it's getting harder and harder to tell him apart from Namor.

I mean, they made him hot-headed. Aquaman. The nice guy.

What were they thinking?

---

For the record, I have nothing against Green Arrow. Well, nothing much...

And I also know his sidekick, Speedy's eventual fate.

And, for my first real post on a comic, it's a stitch that I picked a DC character. I was such a Marvel Zombie back in the day. I've owned, at best, ten DC comics.

And none of them Aquaman...