Month: August 2003

I took my daughter, Ariel, to see “Hairspray the Musical” on Wednesday. It was her second time seeing it, my first. The funny thing was that she was all grouchy upon learning that the lead actress she’d seen in the role was no longer in the show. Lo and behold, she liked the replacement even more. We hung around after the show and many cast members, including the magnificent Harvey himself, signed autographs for eager patrons. If you’re in New York, enjoy musicals, and have not seen this show yet…get tickets and go.

PAD

It occurs to me that you folks may have general questions you never get answered. So feel free to post them here. What I will then do (or at least am planning to do, unless it turns out I can’t for some reason) is use the edit function to respond directly to the questions right where you ask them. That way folks won’t have to scroll like mad to find the answers.

If I think the thread’s getting too long, I’ll cut off responses and we’ll do another round in a week or so.

PAD

ADDENDUM: Okay, it’s 12:30 AM and I’m cutting off the postings now. I’ll answer these as I have time over the next few days.

So I’ve been reading HULK for the past year, determined to wrap myself around why it is that the book is so beloved.

Guys…is it me? Be honest. Seriously. Am I so biased that I’m simply *incapable* of understanding the book’s success? Don’t get me wrong: Bruce Jones, perfectly good writer Loved his stuff on Ka-Zar.

But, my God, people say *I* drag out stories? Snails could do windsprints around this pacing. The latest storyline is pretty much the last straw for me. Five issues to tell a story in which the Hulk makes no significant appearance until the last issue…at which time, unless I’m reading it wrong, he did nothing to aid in the resolution of the story. That’s not even taking into account that the Absorbing Man talks and acts nothing like the Absorbing Man of forty years standing.

Yet fans support the book by the carload.

Really, I desperately want to understand the popularity. Someone explain it to me.

PAD

With Fox News providing it so much publicity that you’d have to think the author should send them a nice fruit basket, Al Franken’s “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right” is out in stores. The case (for a temporary injunction –GH) was tossed out of court by a judge who dismissed it by saying, “This is an easy case” and ruled that in no way, shape or form could the book possibly cause confusion in the marketplace.

The most hilarious line to come out of the proceedings was the Fox attorney who, when faced with the fact that satire and parody have First Amendment protection, opined about the book’s cover, “This is much too subtle to be considered a parody.”

You have to love that. A title as subtle as a brick through a window, but Fox attorney’s consider it “too subtle to be considered a parody.” Yup, this is definitely the irony-blind network that bills itself as “fair and balanced,” all right. Of course, no one expects Franken’s book to be fair and balanced: That’s kind of the point. Franken doesn’t mean it; Fox does.

I’ve bought my copy and expect to be reading it within the next couple of days.

PAD

Tom Galloway pointed out the Diamond Catalogue entry that lists an exciting new action figure: The “Ariel Flipping Spider-Man.“

This, of course, prompts visions of Spider-Man chucking the Little Mermaid–or possibly my third daughter–into the air like a pancake. Or, hey…it could be exactly what it says: Ariel flipping Spider-Man, implying she’s either throwing him, or perhaps extending the middle finger of her hand at him.

Tom’s supposition is that it’s a typo for “Aerial.” But that couldn’t be it. Diamond, and Marvel, never make mistakes.

PAD