Soule's She-Hulk

Since I followed up on Palookaville yesterday, it's only fair to also report on the other comics series I covered extensively on the blog a couple of years ago, which were the various series starring She-Hulk.  You can find the last post in that series here.  Fortunately, I have good news.  The new series is very good.  The art by Javier Pulido fits She-Hulk well, but even better is the writing by Charles Soule, who as a lawyer himself can "draw" (pardon the pun) upon his career experience.  It would still be nice to see a woman write She-Hulk in an ongoing series (not that men such as Soule, Dan Slott, and others haven't done a fine job, but it would be interesting to see if a gender switch in the scripting would be fruitful).  My only complaint would be a usual one regarding mainstream comics these days, where a number of the pages only have two or three panels on them.  Issue 4 of the original Hulk series from the 1960s averaged 6-8 panels, making for a longer and more satisfying read (assuming one isn't allergic to Stan Lee's occasional silliness and plotholes).  By contrast, issue 4 of the current She-Hulk series has three single panel pages, three double panel pages, and one triple panel page.  It's almost a relief to get to a quadruple panel page.  Still, it's nice to have Shulkie back in a starring role.  FF was great fun, but with so many characters in the book, she didn't get much attention.  I actually have a subscription to this series (yes, I am twelve years old again), so I'm in for the long haul, or at least until my subscription runs out (I wouldn't renew, but that has nothing to do with She-Hulk, and everything to do with the quality of Marvel's subscription service).  Now, if you'll excuse me, issue 5 arrived a couple of days ago (yes, that's right, only two weeks after it arrived in stores), so it's time to catch up on my deep, philosophical reading about green people.

Palookaville 21

A couple of years ago, I reread my Palookaville collection before I disposed of it, and wrote about it on the blog (you can find the last post in that series here).  At the time, issue 21 was supposed to come out, but it was delayed yet again, so I didn't get to review it.  Of course, I ended up buying it when it did come out in hopes that Seth would finally finish the "Clyde Fans" serialized story that I've been reading since the 1990s.  Well, "Clyde Fans" continues in this issue, but it does not conclude.

At this point, I have to wonder if it will ever conclude.

Still, this issue does provide a nice chunk of it.  Unfortunately, instead of providing more of it, Seth also includes examples from the rubber stamp diary he keeps (yes, you read that right--Seth actually keeps a comic strip diary and uses rubber stamps to recreate common scenes in his life) and then an autobiographical story about growing up (Seth seems obsessed with children and the elderly--in this issue he manages to include both obsessions).  I liked both features though, even if they weren't "Clyde Fans". I particularly liked the autobiographical story because of Seth's use of a 20-panel page grid.  In these days of comics being two or three panels on a page, Seth is a pleasure to read.  It almost justifies the $21.95 cover price (almost--I'm still a bit disappointed that "Clyde Fans" is not done).

I'll probably buy the next one though.  I must admit though that I'm starting to feel like Charlie Brown does when Lucy pulls the football away yet again.

Another Monster Of Party Beach Trailer

My pal Mark Justice has put up another trailer for his film, Monster Of Party Beach.  Alas, I am not in this one.  If you want to see the one I am in, then please check out this post.

"Fast Food Friendship"

My poem "Fast Food Friendship" has been published on page 35 of the new issue of Inscape. You can find it here (24 MB PDF) or in print on the campus of Ursuline College.

"The Short Story Just Got Shorter: Hemingway, Narrative, and the Six-Word Urban Legend"

A few years ago, I started running across a story about Ernest Hemingway writing a six-word-long short story.  Despite having read most, if not all, of Hemingway's stories, I didn't know this one.  That made me curious.  I wrote a blog post about what I found and then did further research for a paper that I gave at the 2010 International Conference on Narrative.  That eventually resulted in an article that has recently been published in The Journal of Popular Culture (Volume 47, Number 2, Pages 327-340), in which I argue that the story credited to Hemingway was actually written by John de Groot. During the three years or so that my article worked its way through the academic publishing maze, the Quote Investigator discovered that the actual six-word-long short story seems very similar to a newspaper advertisement from the early 20th Century.  It's quite possible that de Groot heard the legend associated with the advertisement and adapted it for his play about Hemingway, which eventually resulted in the contemporary urban legend.  But, to sum it all up, the six-word story isn't a story and it's not by Hemingway.

Fake Surveys

The American Civil Liberties Union sent me a fake survey today.  That sort of fundraising is always annoying.  If you've never gotten one of these types of fundraising appeals before, then consider yourself very fortunate.

You're also probably an alien from Mars.  I seem to get at least one fake survey a week from one organization or another.

Basically, the solicitation consists of asking a bunch of loaded questions designed to stoke your indignation until you're ready to open up your purse, wallet, mattress, or backyard (wherever you keep your money--I make no judgment).  For example, in the survey that I received today, I am asked, "The ACLU is using lawsuits and other forms of legal action to challenge the constitutionality of the government's actions and to insist that the courts demand adherence to the Constitution and rule of law" and given four responses about how important I think that is, from "Very Important" to "Not Important At All".

I can't imagine that many people who get this survey would mark the answer to that question "Not Important At All", and if you're going to fill out the survey at all, then you're likely even more concerned about those sort of issues. 

However, that's the problem.  I feel bad for anyone who actually does fill out the survey, as I suspect that the ACLU hardly glances at it while looking for the true information the return envelope contains:  that person's check or credit card number.  When I searched the ACLU's website, I certainly couldn't find any results from last year's survey.  If it were that "vitally important to the success of [their] work", then the results would be up on their website.

I suspect the absence of the results is because there aren't any results.  Who is really going to tally up a handmarked survey, especially if one receives thousands of them?  The ACLU have an electronic version of the survey on their website though, so many they keep some data from that.

Possibly, a tally of suckers gullible enough to waste their time filling out a fake survey.

Presumably, this strategy works though.  The fundraising folks know what appeals to people generally and what will generate a higher rate of return, and, apparently, filling out a survey fires people up.

I don't mean to pick on the ACLU specifically.  They're a fine organization, and just about every organization like them uses this fake survey bit to raise money.

But I do have an answer for all those surveys that are really just fundraising appeals.

It's no.  Just beg.  It's more dignified.  Don't pretend that you care what I think when you really don't.  Perhaps one day when I'm very bored, I will contact the ACLU to get some results from the survey.  That might be amusing.  Maybe they can just fake the results as well.

In the meantime, I have a survey of my own though for the organizations who like to use fake surveys.

Will you please quit doing the fake survey bit?

What Wred's Currently Reading: The Sound And The Fury by William Faulkner

Yeah, I've read this before, a couple of times in fact, but I had to make some room on my bookcase (as a recovering packrat, I only permit myself so much room for books), so my ducttaped together, yellowed, and somewhat musty (it came that way except for the ducttape, which was an improvement over pages falling out and spilling all over the floor) paperback copy of The Sound And The Fury and I are parting ways. I can't remember when I got this copy, but it had to be twenty years ago or so, and, based on the writing inside, it belonged before to someone named Martha Evans. My guess is that my copy of Faulkner's 1929 masterpiece was published later in the 1960s (it lists Faulkner's death in the back but has no UPC and just seems like a 1960s paperback). I don't know what Martha thought of it, but I've always enjoyed this novel. It might be my favorite of Faulkner's. When I first read it, I found the opening Benjy sequence to be very confusing, but now that I know what to expect, it might be the funnest portion, if fun is an applicable way to describe this book. I'd probably be better off reading the Norton edition advertised below, but, you know how it is, when something's been with you for a number of years, you grow fond of it, so I'm giving it one last read before it goes out the door.