Let's start the week in Comicbookland, with an endearingly well-informed-but-unserious reflection on time and Spiderman and generations.
This, by the way, comes on a tip from Tom Spurgeon, who is on the very brink of relocating to Columbus, Ohio, where he joins the Billy Ireland as festival director for an upcoming annual Con.
Anyway, I had to visit the link after Spurgeon commented that, with Spidey now a Millennial, his motto would become "With Great Power Comes Great Entitlement."
Put down the torches, people. It was a joke.
One of the things that puts me off comic books is how seriously the fans take themselves and their medium. It's fun to spoof the phenomenon, but not much fun to actually be around it.
So finding an article that can write with both affection and perspective about Marvel's attempt to keep this 53-year-old franchise current is refreshing.
Especially given that, besides people who take the Marvel Universe way too seriously, I also have a problem with people who take demographic groupings way too seriously, the relevant quote there being:
Stereotypes of "Baby Boomers" are just some media crap. If you like, compare it to the click-bait at HuffPost: You might fall for it out of boredom or some desire to see what idiotic garbage she's linking you to this time, but, if you take it seriously, you are simply a media stooge. ... Fact is, the whole concept of "Millennials" as a mass of relatively same-aged people who fit into little boxes is just as much a bullshit media invention as "Baby Boomer."
I still think the comics people made a mistake by not simply leaving Superman and Spidey and the rest in the hands of 12 year olds and inventing new titles into which older readers could transition, because I think they gave up access to an entry-level audience in order to cater to a group of obsessive fans that may not be large enough to sustain the industry.
Meanwhile, the people who recognize the whimsical element in superhero stories transitioned into more grownup graphic material, or at least into stuff that didn't require taking it all so damn seriously.
"Roger Rabbit," after all, was not intended to spark furious debates over the various chemical properties of cartoon solvents and whether Yosemite Sam had ever expressed an actual aversion to burnt biscuits.
Here's a related review by Johanna Draper Carlson of a new series that she suggests takes things too seriously, but at which, for $2.99 a pop, I might take a look.
Anyway, my memories of Spidey from 1962 include Flash Thompson having a car, not because he was older but because he had money. So I'm a little dubious of the current claim that the spider bite happened when Peter was 15.
Or that Greedo shot first.
Juxtaposition of the Day #1
When my first son was born in 1972, I had to fight my way into the delivery room. By the time the second one arrived in 1976, a father who didn't want to be there was considered, at best, a dork.
Nearly 40 years later, one of the stories in the lead-up to the 2015 Super Bowl was about a player deciding which event to show up for if his kid decided to be born that Sunday.
The rest hasn't transitioned that quickly or readily, but dads who hand off a kid with dirty diapers are starting to fall into the same get-a-clue category as women who call for help rather than squirting a little WD-40 on a sticky door hinge.
It would be nice if all the issues were that simple, but often you have to drill down to see beyond the surface. Unless you have a dog in the fight and it appears to be winning, in which case, you'll want to avoid looking beyond the surface.
And speaking of dogs ...
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
(Zits)
I think this juxtaposition might only work as one if you go to a dog park, and then maybe only if you go to a dog park in a semi-rural area.
The first strip is obviously about dogs: My dog Vaska is named for a character in War and Peace, but, in terms of how often he's called what, he could just as well have been named "Pal," which used to be a very common dog name.
But that's hardly Hilary Price's point, and, yes, he also has what I refer to as his "Bichon Frise name," in deference to Poo-Poo from Pooch Cafe. We don't use that name in public, perhaps because I remember what happened to poor Nick Browne at summer camp when his mother came up for Parents Weekend and referred to him as "Weasel."
Five pairs of 11-year-old ears in the cabin perked up and the second half of his summer was a whole lot longer than the first.
I wouldn't do that to a dog.
The Zits portion of this juxtaposition is related to that, because, while I suppose urban dog parks are pretty homogeneous, around here, the dogs who are fairly well in tune with their owners and are permitted to actually be dogs are more often found walking in the woods and fields.
The dog park tends to attract helicopter owners who worry about whether their dogs -- and other people's dogs -- are playing appropriately, and, if dogs could talk, you would hear the phrase, "Aw, Mom ..." down there a lot, as dogs are pulled out of really fun games that don't comport with proper canine behavior and dog park etiquette, as outlined in the dog books and videos.
One common factor in these expert advice pieces is a list of dog behaviors that tell you what the dog is thinking, and Jeremy's mom would fit right in with the folks who trust, memorize and cite those.
For instance, a dog who yawns is stressed and upset and about to bite.
I have a competing theory that he might just be yawning, which I base on the fact that I can apparently make Vaska stressed and upset and about to bite simply by scratching him just below the ear, at the point of his jaw. Every time.
I have a more sweeping theory that, with both your dogs and your children, the best way to figure out where they're at is by paying actual attention to them instead of reading one-size-fits-all books.
It's only a theory, however, and books, after all, are written by experts, so there ya go.
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