Category: But I Digress…

Originally published December 3, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1359

November 4-5: Fantabaires is a convention that’s been held for the past several years in beautiful Buenos Aires in Argentina. The convention has generally run for about five days and drawn around 40,000 people. This year it’s scheduled for a mammoth ten day run, and the organizers are hoping to draw somewhere in the neighborhood of 75,000 people. The convention has offered to bring down Kathleen and me, and although a two-week absence from home is out of the question, I agree to come down for five days.

Continue Reading “Fantabaires convention, part 1” →

Originally published November 26, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1358

We were talking last week about the subject of body dimorphism. (At least I was. I dunno, you may have been talking about something else entirely. It’s a free country. Talk about whatever you wish, and smoke ’em if you got ’em. Not that that should be taken as an endorsement of tobacco products. Good heavens, one has to watch oneself in the era of political correctness, doesn’t one?)

Continue Reading “Body Dimorphism, part 2” →

Originally published November 19, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1357

“Ve gonna pump (whap!) you up!”

–Hans and Franz

 There are so many things in the world that females have had to lag behind males in achieving. Males had more privileges in voting, in job choice… you name it, and men have generally had the edge.

But there’s one thing that modern young ladies have had the edge on for quite some time, and that only in recent years are young guys starting to catch up. And that, kids, is body dimorphism.

Continue Reading “Body Dimorphism, part 1” →

Originally published November 12, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1356

We know what offends us, don’t we.

We know what public dollars should be made to support, don’t we.

I mean, it’s all so easy. We don’t know art, but we know what we like. And as comic book fans, we all know the importance and impact that artwork can and does have on the world of comic book literature. Oh, and it occasionally has impact on the real world as well.

I’ve spoken a number of times of censorship of comic books, and how we must be ever vigilant in making sure that Those Who Are Protecting Us From Ourselves are thwarted in their attempts to perform their self-appointed work. That we must beware those who support the concept of the First Amendment right up to the point where something is expressed that they find personally upsetting… not realizing that is precisely the type of speech or expression that much be protected the most assiduously.

Continue Reading “A Sensation at the Brooklyn Museum” →

Originally published November 5, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1355

I had been planning to write about the exhibit currently under fire at the Brooklyn Museum of New York. However I realized I really shouldn’t do so until I’ve had the chance to see it myself, which I’ll be doing this weekend. So instead I’ll tap into the CBG topic for this week which is, so I’m told, relaunches.

Continue Reading “Comic Book Relaunches” →

Originally published October 29, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1354

It always starts in different ways, ways that you are always convinced cannot, will not, ever apply to you. Frequently it will begin in regards to some sort of subject matter that you actually applaud. You pat your elected representatives on the back and say, “Go to!” and consider your tax dollars well spent. It always seems to begin with the best of intentions, and as Samuel Johnson said, Hëll is paved with good intentions. Curiously, he said nothing about the frequently-mentioned road to Hëll, although Clive Staples Lewis, in The Screwtape Letters, did have something to say about that oft’ taken pathway: “The safest road to Hëll is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

Continue Reading “Censorship and Violence in Entertainment” →

Originally published October 22, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1353

Shana really, really wanted to go to the Tori Amos concert. But it was an extremely small venue, and tickets were going to be absolutely impossible to come by. However, I figured I had one shot at accommodating her: Tori Amos, as everyone knows, is rather tight with Neil Gaiman. And, in the best spirit of six degrees of separation, I know Neil and therefore had (albiet) limited access to Amos.

So I called Neil and asked him if there was any way he could score a couple of tickets to the Tori Amos concert (apparently narrowly beating a deluge of other people asking him very much the same thing.) Neil said that he would see what he could do. And several days later, Neil called me back and told me that he had indeed managed to make some calls and it had been all arranged that Shana would be able to attend the sold-out concert.

“Neil, I really owe you,” I said.

And there was a pause at the other end of the line.

And then Neil said, very slowly, very deliberately, “Yes. I know.”

It was the single most terrifying, most sinister enunciation of those three relatively harmless words that I had ever heard.

Continue Reading “Regarding Neil” →