I’ll be sharing an overdue post on Star Trek here in the next few months, phasers crossed.
Meantime, I have this. I was moved to file it away three years ago while reading a
bunch of DC’s supernatural anthologies, and now I guess I know why. Yes, Strange New Worlds had already launched, but — although not exactly ripped from the screen — the panel didn’t quite seem to resonate with anything until this past week’s episode, “The Griffin Incident”. I won’t explain since that feels unnecessary if you’ve seen it and obnoxious if you haven’t yet and want to. Spoilers are fine in the comments, however, as I would love someone to at least headcanon away the pink dress.
Panel from “The Mask of Medusa” in The Unexpected #218 © 1981 DC Comics. Script:
Robert Kanigher. Pencils, Inks: Vic Catan. Colors: Jerry Serpe. Letters: Unknown.
Related: Mr. Pope Hail • Arch-Ray Vision • Ozy Ozy Ozy
I never actually listened to Coast to Coast or any other program hosted by Art Bell,
yet I’ve heard of “Mel’s Hole”.
This may sound like something far afield of what it is to those of you who haven’t. Arthur William Bell III “was a pioneering radio broadcaster … renowned for creating the most influential paranormal talk show in broadcasting history,” to quote a short bio on the Art Bell Archives site. Which of the sites about his life and work are more official and/or accepted by his devotees, I can’t really tell you, but it’s 2026 and I doubt you need my help searching the Interwebs beyond an exhortation to use DuckDuckGo rather than Google for privacy’s sake.
Bell didn’t only cover the paranormal and conspiracy theories but was certainly open
to discussing stories on those subjects with callers. One topic from nearly two decades past that has apparently continued to fascinate on Reddit and elsewhere is the aforementioned hole of unknown origin and mysterious properties located in Washington State described to Bell in 1997 by a man identifying himself as Mel Waters.
A friend of mine who long worked for NASA shared an IFLScience post earlier today recapping the phenomenon. He did so for reasons other than promoting or debunking the details, but the context prompted me to adapt certain of those details to the chorus of the 1974 Doobie Brothers classic and personal favorite “Black Water”; here they are, with the usual apologies to singer/composer Patrick Simmons.
So there he was, Richard Dawson, in all of his ’70s glory — with a dark blazer and medallion over gray turtleneck — seated behind a large, ornate desk in a room lined with bookshelves. The camera pulled in on him as credits appeared on-screen announcing that I’d found my way to some kind of documentary series or infomercial on talk shows that he was hosting.
I came upon this sight while seeming to browse television channels in a dream.
Waking up, I got the sense that I hadn’t actually been flipping channels but rather watching the results of artificial intelligence tasked with creating such a program. It was still a dream, of course, no matter the rationale behind what was on that monitor in my unconscious; as I rapidly became conscious, though, I found myself intensely musing on similarities between dreams and imagery generated by omnivorous algorithm.
With an infinite multiverse I guess it’d be inevitable that somewhere out there (Earth-F, perhaps?) Quentin Tarantino is Superman.
I did not expect to let a whole month pass before explaining my last post.
The gag should be self-evident — or easily realized once the character peeking in registers — to Americans born during, oh, the past 70-80 years. I thought of it when texting with my niece about this routine my grandfather used to recite:
“F U N E X?”
“S, V F X.”
“F U N E M?”
“S, V F M.”
“O K, L F M N X.”
There’s a lot of material dating to the era of his childhood and young adulthood —
very broadly speaking, the first half of the 20th Century — whose provenance is hard to determine with oral tradition in social gatherings and at vaudeville shows predating, and then informing, radio broadcasts (let alone television, and never mind broadcasts that were reliably preserved).
I’m among those who saw the early trailer for and the new extended look at James Gunn’s upcoming Superman and wondered just why so much time was spent on a bloodied, battered Man of Steel.
Of course, I thrilled at the brief glimpses of him being heroic — flying with purpose
and protecting a child. And I get wanting to showcase Krypto; I do have concerns about the film, but not that shaggy fella beyond my perennial problem buying even the most impressive CGI.
A friend and I mark the second week in October, during which our respective birthdays fall, by sending each other videos.
We’ll throw fresh material into the mix but it’s mostly old reliables. I’ve shared a
few on the blog in years past; the one that hilariously interprets lyrics to Joe Cocker’s performance of “With a Little Help from My Friends” at Woodstock [4:06] — a.k.a., to us, “I Did Some Wonder Loaf (Hoggify)” — I rather inexplicably have not ere now and it is among my favorite things. While the video’s been around so long that its original link/uploader is lost to the mists of time, I’m pretty sure the mysterious Dan’s name has always popped up at the end.
I want to share this H.T. Webster cartoon from 100 years ago before maximum relevance is lost.
Webster’s “Idea Dynamo” automating the creation of new cartoons, drawn for
The New York World in 1923, looks amusingly — if not eerily — prescient given conversations we’re having in 2023 vis-à-vis artificial intelligence.
I got a kick out of this Mutts strip from September.
The most amusing part to me is that it doesn’t really break the fourth wall but accomplishes something very like what we think of as breaking the fourth wall by not breaking the panel’s third* wall, surprising the characters — and in turn the reader — by suddenly reneging on the contract that allows panel borders to be drawn in the same ink as lines defining solid objects within a strip’s panels yet be traversable by said objects as portals to the rest of the world being depicted.
When I saw the robes worn during the Pope’s mass in Philadelphia today, Hydra’s classic outfits immediately came to mind. This panel from Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s introduction of SHIELD in Strange Tales #135 next to this crop of a photo taken by Jack Gruber for USA Today is just eerie. Like yesterday, I’m only pointing out what’s already there.
Related: … Voice and Singh • Unsuitable • Ozy Ozy Ozy
One tiny spoiler for Ant-Man coming up after this odd image…
According to a time.com headline on Monday, “The Supreme Court Just Quoted Spider-Man”.
If you had the trifecta of this, upholding the first African-American President’s expansive health-insurance plan, and ruling that marriage is a right inclusive of same-sex couples under the Constitution in your latest United States Supreme Court Actions Your Ten-Year-Old Self Would Never Believe office pool, I really gotta hand it to you.
One small quibble with the article is that the immortal line quoted here from its debut is “spoken” in that original story by the narration rather than by Spider-Man or Peter Parker’s dear Uncle Ben.
Related: Board Now • The Amazing Spider-Man Minus
Andrew Garfield Plus Garfield • See You Next B'ak'tun
Groot might have been the breakout star of this past summer. I suppose to a broader extent he’s one half of it — er, them — as part of a tandem with his pal Rocket. Or perhaps the honor goes to the entire headlining quintet of Guardians of the Galaxy.
Cover of Tales to Astonish #13 [digital] © 1960 and Groot TM Marvel
Comics. Pencils: Jack Kirby. Inks: Steve Ditko. Colors: Stan
Goldberg. Letters: Artie Simek. Script: Stan Lee.
I praised the pleasant surprise that was John Oliver’s hosting of The Daily Show
when Jon Stewart took a sabbatical last summer. And I was not alone. Many TV critics predicted that Oliver would be promoted from correspondent to host of his own show — probably someplace other than Comedy Central, since a third half-hour* of satirical news and punditry there wasn’t likely. That someplace turned out to be HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
Per a report on 6ABC’s website, “The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board is warning consumers about exploding bottles of wine.” Upon further reading, Indigenous Selections Prosecco Brut 2013 is the one and only brand/vintage in question, with buyers directed to dispose of their puchases immediately.
For those of you wondering where the grapes of wrath are stored...
Related: A-Ha Moment • Hell No • Board Now
John Oliver wasn’t the sole member of Comedy Central’s late-night team giving
us process junkies a peek behind the curtain in the past couple of weeks. Stephen Colbert was interviewed by Paul Mercurio, who does warm-up for The Colbert Report, over nearly an hour on a variety of topics — but mostly about the Daft Punk fiasco. You can listen to the podcast free.
Daft Punk, scheduled to be on Colbert’s show earlier this month, bowed out and/or
was yanked over misunderstandings and Viacom internal politics due to the mysterious French faux-robots’ upcoming special appearance at last weekend’s MTV Video Music Awards telecast.
