Five Favorite Comics Characters

So it's no secret - I love me some good comic books. Part of me wants to grow up to write and draw comics myself. Ironically, though, I didn't really grow up with comics. I watched the cartoons after school, and, every now and again, I'd pick up an odd issue of the X-Men or something. Really, though, I got into comics within the past five years, just as I was getting out of college.

I've tried to do a lot of exploring - reading comics from a variety of authors that tell a variety of stories. I've made a lot of new "friends" this way, so to speak - characters whose adventures I love coming back to. Here are five of my favorites.

(Note I'm not saying "Top 5." While numbers 1 and 2 are pretty much accurate, I like a LOT of comics, and a LOT of different character. I reserve the right to come back and talk about some of the others later)


5 - Hellboy

What makes Hellboy so great, other than his barhouse wit and giant fist made especially for punching things, is the types of adventures he embarks on. Hellboy is primarily a monster fighter, but writer Mike Mignola usually doesn't satisfy himself with the run-of-the-mill mosters and ghosts found in other comics. Hellboy's adventures take him through the realms of mythology and folklore - territory seldom touched upon.

A good Hellboy story mixes history in with the monster-punching, and that's what earns Hellboy this entirely arbitrary #5 spot.


4 - Koiwai

As a rule, I don't read manga. I'll admit that I've let some... rumors... about the medium taint my perception. I heard about Yotsuba&! and was intrigued by its premise (there's a little girl who loves absolutely EVERYTHING, despite not knowing a thing about anything). It's weird, silly, and VERY positive. The tagline that accompanies the series is "Enjoy Everything" - a mantra I very much agree with.

Of all the characters in the series, my favorite is Mr. Koiwai, Yotsuba's adopted father. He's long-suffering, hard-working, and prone to silly bouts himself - exactly the type of parent a character like Yotsuba needs. He's willing to put his foot down when he needs to, has a lot of patience for Yotsuba's... episodes... and, most importantly, is willing to put his underwear on his head and parade around as the evil Boxerman if the situation calls for it.

In short, he's pretty much the dad I want to be.


3 - Beanish

This is Beanish.

He's an artist.

He's in love with the sun.

...and that's pretty much all you need to know about him.

Larry Marder's Beanworld is one of the strangest comics I've ever read - and it's by far one of my favorites. Unlike the bulk of my comic collection, the focus isn't on epic battles or even telling jokes. Beanworld is all about the strange world of the beanfolk and their ordinary lives. The world Beanish lives in is almost completely different from ours, yet it functions with its own set of rules that we can easily follow.

Beanworld is full of fascinating, bizarre characters, but none stands out so much as this visionary cosmonaut of love.*

2 - Batman

As much as I've professed my love for Batman here on this blog and in pink pen in the pages of my diary, I'm surprised to find that I can't honestly say Batman is my all-time favorite character from comics. In truth, I love the IDEA of Batman more than most of what's come out with his name on it. I don't think I really found the ideal Batman story until Grant Morrison's run earlier this decade. Most Batman stories I've read, unfortunately, are bland, forgettable, or downright awful.

Make no mistake, though: Batman is the single greatest super hero ever to grace the pages of a comic book (and that's an incontrovertible fact according to my dad). His adventures allow for fantastic set-pieces, insane fights, psychological depth, and good-old-fashioned fun. As prevalent as the Dark Knight's been in the media these past few years, there's not much more I need to say.


1 - Calvin and Hobbes

As much as I love Batman, I have to say that Calvin and Hobbes are the reason I love comics. Theirs are the adventures I grew up reading and love to return to, even as an adult. Artist Bill Watterson won my artsy side over as he unleashed Calvin's nearly limitless imagination against fantastic backgrounds (especially fantastic when you consider the space limitations of newspaper comics in the 90s).

Since I grew up with Calvin and Hobbes I find that many of the philosophies Bill Watterson expresses through Calvin and Hobbes have become my philosophies. Hard work builds character. Television is a terrible waste of time. Quality time with the family is important.

Of course, like Calvin, I tend to rebel against these philosophies :-)

More importantly, Calvin and Hobbes represents the best qualities of comics-as-art, thanks largely to Bill Watterson's impressive integrity. Calvin and Hobbes got into mischief for ten years and then, when the stories were told, the strip ended. Bam. No plush dolls, no video games, no movies - Bill Watterson told the stories he wanted to tell, and then he moved on.

Watterson was an idealist, and his care and concern for his craft are evident in the simple yet profoundly memorable adventures of an energetic boy named Calvin and his stuffed tiger, Hobbes.

* - When I die, I want the words "Visionary Cosmonaut of Love" carved into my tombstone.

Why I'm Still Single 22

How to Date an English Major

People often ask me (the successful romantic bookworm that I am) how to properly romance the English major. Indeed, dating an English major is a difficult proposition, as English majors are peculiar, temperamental creatures. Luckily, they are also creatures of a particular taste, and that taste is easily catered to. Follow these simple guidelines, and you will soon attract an English major to call your own.

1 – Get a Favorite Author

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that English majors read a lot. English majors learned to read voraciously growing up. Experiencing the lives of fictional characters somehow helped them cope with the fact that their fathers never hugged them because they weren’t athletes or cheerleaders. If you want to connect with your English major, you will need to learn to talk books with them.

When selecting your favorite author, proceed with caution. Genre writers are not appropriate choices for favorite authors. The best authors do not write fantasy, horror, science fiction, romance, or mystery. Rather, they write about lonely old men who play dominoes while staring out the window at their attractive young neighbors, then die.

You should never pick an author whose works have been adapted to major Hollywood films. People like J.K. Rowling, Michael Crichton, Dan Brown, and Stephen King may create works of fiction that are easily accessible to a broad audience, but this democratization of literature detracts from the appeal of living in an ivory tower of superiority that so many English majors delight in.

If you choose a favorite author from those you studied in high school, never select the dead white males. When your English major date hears you say your favorite author is Ernest Hemingway, they will assume you read the Cliff’s Notes to The Old Man and the Sea once. You’ll be branded immediately as a faker. You’re better off picking a dead white woman, like Willa Cather, or a dead black man, like Langston Hughes. If your favorite author is a dead woman of a non-white minority, prepare yourself for a downpour of English major kisses, for they will fall in love with you automatically.

2 – Develop a Tolerance for Stupid Ideas

There are two types of English majors: those who say they want to write the great American novel, and those who lie. Every English major has an idea for the best story that anyone has ever read, and, given the opportunity, they will ramble on for hours and hours about the intricacies of the plot that they have all mapped out in their heads. Now only if they could find the time to write…

If you ever inadvertently ask an English major to describe his or her novel, don’t panic. Be prepared to listen, smile politely, and ask questions to show that you’re interested. Basically, do everything you can to keep the English major focused on the brilliance of their plot, while you covertly text a friend to call you with the terrible news that your cat has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Whatever you do, be sure to bow out gracefully, and never point out that their idea is another tired rehashing of The Lord of the Rings. English majors hate that.

3 – Sit Back and Enjoy the Riffing

English majors are notorious for talking during movies. If you’re lucky, you’ll find an individual who will simply content themselves with making the occasional snide remark. These comments are usually short, don’t lead to lengthy discussions, and they can actually be funny from time to time.

Unfortunately, there are those English majors who think their seven-page analysis of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (complete with annotated bibliography) qualifies them to scrutinize every scene in every film with a keen metaphorical scalpel. Often, these individuals can’t keep their findings to themselves and will share – loudly – with everyone in the room. Plot holes you were once ignorant of will trip you up, Christ figures will populate plots like rabbits, and you will never be able to watch O Brother, Where Art Thou? without thinking of "The Odyssey."

If you’re one of those people who enjoy watching movies in silence, you can still date an English major. You just may have to actually talk to him or her (see #2).

4 – Be Prepared to Learn Your Grammar

Contrary to popular belief, English majors don’t talk solely about grammar when they congregate. However, they DO talk about grammar a lot. Specifically, they talk about how much they dislike people that use poor grammar. If you write your English major crush a note that opens with the line, “I think your pretty,” you can kiss that love match good-by. Therefore, it’s imperative that you learn:

• the difference between “there,” “they’re,” and “their.”
• the proper placement of terminal punctuation in relationship to quotation marks.
• the difference between an adjective and adverb.
• how to end a run-on sentence.
• not to split infinitives
• how to avoid mixed metaphors

You may be tempted to break grammatical rules ironically. Don’t. It doesn’t matter how provocatively you dangle your participles. It’s a huge turn-off.

5 – Don’t Mix Opinions

Like most people, English majors have strong and occasionally irrational opinions. While dating your English major, you are more than welcome to have opinions that differ from theirs. Your opinions aren’t wrong, they’re just… otherly right to the English major’s. Your opinions and theirs will occupy separate spheres. All will be well if the two never meet.

You may from time to time find yourself in disagreement with an English major. If you choose to bring your differing opinion up, remember what happens when matter and anti-matter come in contact. After you’ve spoken, don’t be surprised if your English major explodes.

In the end, it may be wisest to keep your opinions to yourself. True, you may have to seethe for a while inwardly, but in the long run you can be secure in your self-restraint.

Just follow these simple steps, and you’ll have an English major of your very own for the rest of your life. Keep the love alive by serving them a candle-lit dinner on your anniversary and reading the most provocative passages from Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, and every now and again, letting them proofread your emails before you send them.

Best of luck in your five-page double-spaced and properly-formatted relationship!

Daily Sketches

11.21.10-11.22.10 - Remember these guys?

I kinda want to expand on these little pictures and develop a real story involving these characters, so I plan on drawin a lot more of them. Just so you know.

The robot's legs are going to be problematic. I may have to redesign them.


11.27.10 - The picture here's not really all that noteworthy - except I drew it in about 15 minutes.

Braddy Reads Maus

I've long held up Art Spiegelman's Maus as an example of art-in-comics. I cited Spiegelman's use of cartoonish imagery juxtaposed with the horrors of the Holocaust as proof that comics, a medium usually associated with children's entertainment, can and should be used to discuss weightier, "adult" matters.

Only problem? I'd never actually read Maus.

Well, now I have, and I can say with a great deal of confidence that I was ABSOLUTELY RIGHT ABOUT ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING.

Maus is indeed a chilling account of the Holocaust, but it's actually more than that. Art Spiegelman also gives a lot of personal information about his own strained relationship with his father. Now, I think Spiegelman actually does hold some affection for his father, but he doesn't hesitate to show how difficult his father is to live with.



It's the honesty in Spiegelman's writing that makes the whole thing work. He's not portraying ANYONE sympathetically - least of all himself. He tries to stay true to reality as it actually is. It's a philosophy that serves him well, whether the scenes he draws take place in Auschwitz or his father's living room.

Spiegelman pulls a couple of other neat comic tricks, too. The Jews in his story, portrayed as anthropomorphized mice, have to somehow pass themselves off as non-Jewish Poles. In the comic, Spiegelman draws the mice wearing pig masks, so they don't look like Jews. It's a nice effect.



I don't quite understand, though, why Spiegelman decides to draw himself so often as a man wearing a mouse mask. To me, it says that Spiegelman himself is struggling with his heritage, as a Jew and as his father's son. Alternatively, it could just add an extra level of "reality" to the story.

If the latter is the effect he's going for, Spiegelman has effectively created three levels of "reality" - the narrative past, or his father's stories of the war; the narrative present, or the interviews between Spiegelman and his father; and the literal present, or Spiegelman's activities during the actual writing of the book.

Anyone else having flashbacks to Inception?

However you look at it, Maus will make you think. And that, to me, makes it a success.

Things I'll Love Forever: A Christmas Carol

I can't think of a better way to kick off the holiday season proper.

I don't know if this makes me a literary snob or just a sentimental ol' fool, but A Christmas Carol is, without a doubt, one of my all-time favorite stories ever written in the history of ever. Enough hyperbole? THERE'S NEVER ENOUGH HYPERBOLE!!!

1 - I know we've all seen about a tetra-bajillion different film adaptations of this Christmas classic, but have you ever actually read the book? It's beautiful! I read the book for the first time in a British Literary History class back in college. I had to shut myself in my room to read it, because I couldn't help but repeat all the words to myself out loud. It's THAT GOOD. Dickens writes DELICIOUS words.

2 - You want proof that these words are tasty? Check out the audioplay performed completely by Patrick Stewart. He even makes little high-pitched voices for all the women and Tiny Tim. Good stuff.

3 - Now, you know those tetra-bajillion film adaptations I mentioned earlier? Yeah, THEY'RE ALL GOOD TOO!

(Okay, I haven't seen them ALL. I reserve the right to hate on the new Jim Carrey adaptation until I've seen it

You've been warned - don't mess up my Christmas spirit!

Personally, I love some of the cheesey musical adaptations, like Scrooge starring Albert Finney and, of course, A Muppet Christmas Carol (I just love me some Michael Caine).

4 - The message of A Christmas Carol speaks to the optimist in all of us (yes, I do have an optimist in here somewhere). The potential for good is in all men. Yes, it's true that people like Ebenezer Scrooge do a lot of harm to their fellow men, but with the right motivation (and perhaps a bit of divine intervention), that evil can be turned into something good.

5 - This one just now occurred to me:

A Christmas Carol may be the absolute best Christmas story this side of the Nativity. While the story itself focuses on the holiday, it's meaning transcends the usual month-long, holly-and-ivy banalities. Sure, there's some talk about Christmas being the season of giving or love or some @#$% like that, but the holiday for Dickens is more a celebration of the human spirit of kindness that should exist within our hearts ALL YEAR. For those who are mean and stingy (a phrase that should really only be used when speaking to a three-year-old), Christmas is a time of redemption, a chance for them to reflect on who they are and who they should be.

A Christmas Carol is a timeless holiday classic, well worthy of being loved forever. Which I do.

What I Learned from NaNoWriMo

The goal of National Novel Writing Month is to encourage people to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

That translates to about 1,667 words per day - if you're diligent.

It also translates to AT LEAST 60 hours of active writing - and that's not counting the planning, preparation, and procrastination that goes into it.

The result is about 170 double-spaced pages - which is slightly shorter than the book Superfudge.

Oh, and most of what you write is complete and utter tripe.

So what's the point of doing NaNoWriMo?

EDUCATION.

Here's a quick list of what I learned:

1 - Writing is Hard Work

For me, this is actually a revelation. See, I studied writing in college, but I switched over to the Creative Writing emphasis from the Teaching emphasis because it was EASIER. Well, in the real world, it's not. Not really.

Like I said, it takes about two hours of work PER DAY to write effectively. That's two hours of work on top of the eight hours per day I put in at my day job - and, you know, there are just some days after work when I don't WANT to do any extra work. In those days, writing kind got shoved off to the side.

2 - There is Time for Everything

Probably the best lesson I learned, actually, is that I have time to write, if I make it a priority. During the month of November, I wrote just over 50,000 words. I also put in my regular 40 hours a week at work (and, no, I actually DIDN'T do any of my writing at work), prepared lessons for the Sunday School class I teach, continued to participate in workshops and performances for the Jesters Royale, updated my blog regularly, spent quality time with the family, hung out with friends... heck, I even got to play my video games when I really felt like vegging.

The point is, I probably have an extra 2 hours per day MOST days that I didn't do anything else productive with, so I have the time, if I choose to spend it.

The only thing I didn't really have time to do is clean my apartment. I've got, like, ten empty ice-cream cartons that really ought to be thrown out soon.

3 - No Battle Plan Survives Contact with the Enemy

In this case, the enemy is the writing itself, I guess. The days leading up to November 1, I sat down and wrote an elaborate (for me) outline of everything I wanted to cover in my novel. I made a list of all the characters I wanted to include, and I had all the plot twists carefully placed.

Then I sat down to write, and I wound up hating almost all of it.

Characters I chose to focus on never quite developed the way I wanted them to, and plot inconsistencies busted out all over like June (whatever that means - I never thought June was all that "busty"). I wrote a lot of scenes and stories I never planned to write, and, in the end, I decided that the characters I've written wouldn't really participate in the plot I'd planned. So, in revision, I'ma change the whole thing.

I'm glad I used an outline, but I don't feel like I need to stick to it religiously.

4 - There is a Writing Process - and it Works

I hear people say "Trust the process" all the time. Ideas come while you write, good characters write themselves, narratives evolve organically through the natural process of sitting down at the keyboard and forcing yourself to work. Turns out all this is true.

I wound up changing who my favorite character was about three times over the course of writing this story - to the point that, when I revise, I'm going to focus on a completely different character than the one I chose to be my protagonist and completely cut two other characters out simply because they wound up not fitting in to the story I'd created (see Lesson #3).

5 - Genius isn't Accidental

I long believed that all those great works of literature - stories by Dickens, Twain, Hemingway, and other stuffy people - were great completely by accident. After all, there is NO WAY an author could really depend on his or her readers understanding all those allusions and metaphors, right? They HAVE to be there by coincidence.

Turns out that I was wrong. I noticed connections and themes popping up in my head as I wrote my story - which, by the way, is FAR from genius at this point. Working in all of the brilliant ideas I got while writing will take me months, possibly years, of revising. I doubt my little story will ever be as influential or "literary" as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but I now have greater respect for those fantastic works of literature and the authors who made them genius.

6 - Writing is Fun

Several times, over the course of the month of November, I got caught up in writing some insane tangent that I hadn't planned on writing that so excited me I called up a friend afterward to brag about it. I haven't written prose seriously in years - and I LOVED it.

So, yeah, it's hard work, time-consuming, a bit intimidating... but, if I really want to be a novelist, it's completely possible and TOTALLY worth the effort.