Morrison on Obama

Short update on the post from the other day. Apparently the scene was inspired by President Obama’s speech during the campaign at the Alfred E. Smith dinner. Writer Grant Morrison told Scotland’s Daily Record:

I wanted to do something special for the last part of this huge comic book series. As I was writing it, I heard Obama making a joke about being born on the planet Krypton and being sent to Earth by his father Jor-El to save the world. I thought it would be a fitting end to all the darkness in America recently. All the comics have been dealing with darkness recently and, having defeated evil, it’s now time to celebrate.

Worked out great for the story that he won I guess.

White House Unbuttons Formal Dress Code - NYTimes.com

White House Unbuttons Formal Dress Code - NYTimes.com

On President Obama’s Oval Office dress code and routine.

Vathlo Prime

Sort of an amusing confluence of events:

1. DC decides to do a political story called DCU: Decisions around election season featuring its characters choosing sides in the race. Except they use fictional candidates, and the story is poorly drawn and written. No one cares.
2. Marvel decides to do a Spider-Man issue that features Barack Obama in a 5-page back-up story of serviceable writing and art quality. It’s a huge, sellout success. (Despite that they botched the covers, releasing the Obama cover as a rare variant, which most customers don’t understand. Still, big success. The second and third printings feature Obama on all the covers. Last night when I was in my comic book store someone came in and bought three copies. The clerk then failed to bother to upsell him on anything, thereby squandering a great chance to sell him something else for himself or his kids that might turn them into regular customers.)
3. At the same time, Marvel bets on the wrong horse in the actual election, having Norman Orsborn, a big-time villain, take over the operations of SHIELD and generally staying with the tone of the Bush administration where we can’t trust our government. No hope to be found.
4. DC releases a book that was supposed to come out in December, but due to artistic delays only just came out this week, eight days after President Obama’s innauguration. It features an alternate- Earth black president who’s also Superman¹.

How did both companies manage to both hit and miss here?

1. DC actually once published a story about Vathlo Island, a nation on Krypton that featured dark-skinned Kryptonians. Morrison here is taking this fairly embarrassing part of DC’s history and turning it around, imagining a world where a Vathlo citizen sent his only son to Earth instead of Jor-El².
2. Jor-El lived in the city “Kryptonopolis”.

Sledding

Sledding

Here comes the math.

YouTube - Arrested Development: Chicken

YouTube - Arrested Development: Chicken

Montage of the various chicken dances.

Inaugural preparations - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Inaugural preparations - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Minus

My dose of surreality today (well, until I go home and read Final Crisis 6) was reading through the archive of Garfield Minus Garfield. Here are a few that really jumped out at me, organized by categories I just made up:

Hilarious Non-Sequitors:

• Shades
• Earmuffs
• Rice

Jon is Depressed:

• Beach
• Telephones Don’t Care
• Goodnight Kiss
• Kimmy

Logic Puzzles:

• Missing Hat
• Plunger
• Arrow

Jon Goes Insane:

• Ice Cream Cone
• Sink

Jon is in Mortal Peril:

• Poison
• Frozen Chicken

Jon Made a Bad Purchase:

• Shoes
• Pants

YouTube - SNL Digital Short - Orchestral Doogie Howser

YouTube - SNL Digital Short - Orchestral Doogie Howser

(I’m guessing this will get taken down, but Hulu doesn’t have a copy up right now.)

Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-Creator Joe Shuster

Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster

Wild story told in a book out this spring. Joe Shuster, who created Superman, basically had the rights to the character stolen from him by the publisher (the legal battles continue today). To make money he apparently drew fetish art starring likenesses of Superman and Lois Lane. (NSFW)

Princess Bride DVD ambigram - Boing Boing

Princess Bride DVD ambigram - Boing Boing

Great new cover to the movie.

Everybody Is Terribly Wrong and I Don't Really See Where Anyone Is Coming From At All

Everybody Is Terribly Wrong and I Don’t Really See Where Anyone Is Coming From At All

Good essay on how to (or not to) critically approach mainstream comics.

A List of Items From Macworld 09

In order of my interest of them:

1. No more copy protection in iTunes. I’ll likely upgrade all of my music when I get home shortly. Honestly I’m rarely tripped up by the restrictions on iTunes music—I think they bargained for fairly loose rules—but what does get me sometimes is when iTunes forgets my authorization.
2. Flickr integration in iPhoto. iLife updates always look neat in the demo but aren’t worth it to me to actually spend money on. The geotagging and facial recognition geegaws are probably really neat but I wouldn’t upgrade for them, but being able to upload right to Flickr without a plugin is great. Ditto Facebook, if I really used that thing much. Not saying I’ll buy iLife ‘09, but it’s more enticing than any prior release.
3. iPhone Keynote Remote App. It’s like the future. (Not that I ever give presentations.)
4. New Big MacBook Pros. I don’t see myself ever being in the market for one of these. For the price you can get an iMac with an ever bigger screen and a MacBook.

On Language - Bleeping Expletives - NYTimes.com

On Language - Bleeping Expletives - NYTimes.com

On the difference between “profanities, expletives, vulgarisms, obscenities, execrations, epithets, and imprecations”.

Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance

Calibrating your computer’s battery for best performance

Basically every few moths you’re supposed to fully charge your computer, then fully discharge it and let it stay asleep for a few hours with no juice.