I'm no Suspension of Disbelief.

But I love this.

From The Flash #135 (by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar):



Indeed.

(Edited to add: I could understand something like that as a fictional, alternate 22nd or higher amendment, if for some reason it wouldn't be covered by the Fourth. But using the Twelfth is just odd, even if it does have a certain mad, made-up charm to it.)

Musical references in 2099 Unlimited #4

2099 Unlimited #9, in addition to containing some of Warren Ellis's earliest Marvel work, also includes a story called Hulk Hammer's Echo. I believe* the sound effects in this story contain many musical references.

Choom is similar to "choon," the British pronunciation of "tune."





Toom, while also similar to "tune," is one letter away from Tool.



Slamm is an obvious reference to the Onyx hit, Slam.





Skrashh, of course, refers to the "scratching" DJs do when mixing records.



The "si-gurd si-gurd si-gurd" effect appears a few times...

... but one time, it runs together. If we take part of that, noting the D's similarity to an O, it clearly shows the name of the band Sigur Ros.

Shak shak shak, along with kra takka takka takka tam!, is obviously an imitation of the Ramayana Monkey Chant.

Sha-blam, naturally, is a tragic tale of Sha Na Na, trapped in an explosion.



Bwoom, an infantilization of "broom," could be a reference to the They Might Be Giants song, I Am Not Your Broom. Flang!, of course, refers to TMBG founder John Flansburgh.





Wok, I'm sure, is a subtle jab at David Bowie's China Girl.




Then there's Wham!

* for the purposes of this entry

Teen Titans #27

Yes, Liefeld is still Liefeld. I knew that going into this. I don't like how he draws, but at least I could tell what was going on, unlike certain other, arguably better artists. Seriously, I still don't know what happened with Iceman in Ultimate X-Men #19.

The story was a bit of a chore to get through, since I don't care about Hawk and Dove at all. The Robin/Father's Day stuff was good, but it was odd that Bart's mom being stuck in the future was used as an example of orphan-like-ness, since Max being trapped in the Speed Force seems more relevant to me. He seems to visit his mom all the time.

It seems like Kid Flash is in this book less and less every month. Sure, it's a team book, but he's a member of the team. At least he's slightly more prominent in The Flash, much like Cassie in Wonder Woman. If that probably-completely-made-up thing in this week's Lying in the Gutters is true (which it's not), that could change (but it won't). I hope Geoff Johns leaving The Flash means Barry Allen won't be coming back to stay.

Maybe I should be glad that Bart's been mostly in the background, considering what tends to happen to supporting characters in some books I don't read.

Oh, and here's this thing (from here, where someone was kind enough to link the Bob the Angry Flower MODOK strip long before I got there):




Also, Robert Kirkman is still welcome to have my babies.

Super

On a rerun of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? just now, the question was:

In an apartment building, 'super' is short for which term?

A) Superintendent
B) Supermodel
C) Superhero
D) That guy in 5C [ugh]

In a perfect world, it would be C. Every apartment building should have its own superhero.

Make it a comic like Damage Control. Call it The Super. Watch as it fails to sell and is canceled, much to the dismay of its tiny but dedicated audience of three real-world supers.

I wonder how many Simpsons Comics stories have involved Superintendent Chalmers getting superpowers. Or maybe they're far too clever for that.

Earth X - a summary

Walking on the Sun

I was keeping a reasonably non-horrible one-post-per-weekday schedule for a while there, but my allergies started acting up, and the drugs put me to sleep. Sorry about that, Person Who Randomly Came Here For Some Reason.

I've started reading From Hell. A couple chapters in, I kept thinking "I don't understand... is that--?" and then it was, every time, because otherwise it would make no sense. I don't know if it's deliberately confusing (only not really) or if I'm just retarded. Or if that made any sense at all.

(ETA: A bit further in, I see it was only those two chapters. Also, wow. I want to have Moore's babies.)

All Star Superman #1 kinda-sorta reminds me of Moore's Sunburn Future-Shocks story, what with the landing-on-the-sun thing.

Then there's this, from Ellis' latest Bad Signal:

In my medicated fever last night, I decided to write a graphic novel called CNUT. Which is, of course, pronounced "Canute." But still. CNUT. In big black letters.

Oh yes. (Also, history is hilarious.)

Bored now.

I guess Paul O'Brien's boredom is a big deal or something. I get what he's saying, but I particularly liked this paragraph:

That isn't to say I'm not open to other types of comics, but it does mean I don't have the sort of "this is a comic, I must explore it" attitude that leads others to try and read their way into manga. I'm sure a lot of it is absolutely fantastic, but I could say that about my local bookstore too, and I've got a ton of books that are higher up my list of priorities because... well, I actually want to read them already.

(And to mutilate a Kill Bill quote, I never saw nobody rampage Rampage the way he rampaged Rampage.)

It's the same with me, pretty much. I've heard Love Hina is funny, and I've heard some stuff about Antique Bakery, but I don't feel any great need to read manga when I still haven't read a lot of Alan Moore's output. Or when there's a new Charlie Stross novel on the shelves. Or when I haven't read nearly as much of Robert McCammon's work as I thought I had.

It doesn't prevent me from putting the occassional manga title on my Amazon wishlist or whatever, but even though I know they're just "Japanese for 'comics,'" they're still also "that thing over there that I don't know anything about."

But a couple nearby libraries have the first volume of Nausicaa. And I do love the Miyazaki...

The Ultimates Traitor

A lot of people seem to think Nick Fury is the "traitor" in The Ultimates. A lot of other people think the wrist shown in Ultimates 2 #6 was white, so it couldn't be Fury's. I thought it was ambiguous; maybe black, maybe in a shadow. (It only looks so light on here because I turned the brightness way up to make it more visible.)

Ultimates Annual, however, reveals that Nick Fury has a superpower: he can turn his left hand white. One might even assume he could also turn his right hand white if he so desired.

Take that, doubters.

A Few Things

Whenever I read the name (or the comic) Young Avengers, I get an earworm of Young offender, by the Pet Shop Boys.

The Darkness does the same, except with I Believe in a Thing Called Love. You can guess the band.

I don't ever want to read the phrase "no quarter" again, in any context. Not even here. Not even if I expect 37 cents in change and only get 12. I'll take that loss.

When Nerds Collide!

Because I played a Mage in a White Wolf role-playing game for a few years, I can't help but notice that a lot of the things Gravel does in Warren Ellis' Strange Kiss, Stranger Kisses, and Strange Killings fit into the Mage system quite easily. So I'm going to do just that.

If you're unfamilar with the Mage system but want to understand this (for some sick reason), I can try to explain a few things. In Mage, magic is divided into 9 Spheres, which are the things the Mage is able to affect. They are Correspondence (space and distance), Entropy (chance and decay), Forces, Life, Matter, Mind, Prime (basic magical energy, sort of), Spirit (ghosts and souls and such), and Time. Each Sphere is further divided into 5 levels (for all practical purposes), which have names, but I won't use them. At the first level, the Mage can see or sense whatever the subject of the sphere is. At level 2, s/he can start to affect things, and at level 5, s/he pretty much has complete control over that Sphere.

One other thing for the non-gamers: when Gravel rips a living thing apart in a graphic (and awesome) way, that's known in game terms as Aggravated damage, or Agg. It's only ever caused by Prime magic or fire (which makes this simpler), and is often described as damage to the being's "pattern". I guess the pattern is sort of the magical root of its physical state, and Agg is damage to that structure, not just the body. Hey, I didn't run the thing, I just played it. Oh, and some people say chainsaws do Agg, but that's more of a real-world example than an actual thing in the game world.

With that out of the way, I present: So You Want To Be A Combat Magician

Gravel's first use of magic shown is an Strange Kiss #2, when he lights his cigarette. Forces 2 only lets you redirect existing forces, whereas Forces 3 lets you change one force into another, such as changing a slight breeze, or sunlight, or gravity, into heat. Next, we see him draw his pistols very quickly. I'm not sure that's magic, but if it is, Life 3 or Time 3 would be necessary. Since he doesn't really use any obvious Life or Time effects until much later, I'm inclined to think he's just that fast. Unless the lizard-woman was very fragile for some reason, Gravel kicking her in half is Prime 3, Enchant Life (allowing the being so enchanted to inflict Agg with punches and kicks). Finally, there's the ritual that lets him see what I assume is the corpse's memory. That would probably be Mind 3 to read the memories, plus some combination of Entropy, Time, and/or Correspondence because he's dead, it happened in the past, and it was somewhere else. It's complicated.

In Strange Kiss #3, Gravel wipes Dr. Hunt's memory of him. Mind 3 reads memories, and Mind 4 can alter them. Making her fail to notice that her window's busted would be somewhere at or below that level. Near the end of the issue, we see him enchant his gun (Prime 2 -- enchanting weapons is one level down from enchanting living things) and shoot the lizard-thing. There may have also been an Entropy 4 or 5 effect involved to make it decay rapidly, but I like to think the lizard-thing was just weak. Note that from here on, Gravel's bullets usually do a lot of damage. I'll leave that as the same Prime 2 effect for now.

The eye-gouging in Stranger Kisses #1 is either Life 3 or pure strength. Again, since I've seen no Life effects yet, I'll stick with strength.

Stranger Kisses #2 shows a few new things. He steals the videotape, which could have been done with some sleight of hand in the confusion of the shootout, but it's most likely Correspondence 3 (manipulate space over short distances). Then he disappears, which is either Correspondence 3 again, or Forces 2 (to bend light around him). It all depends on whether he teleported a short distance or turned invisible and walked away. We see him do both in later issues, and there's no evidence either way this time. At the end of the issue, he takes apart a key lock. Since it doesn't rust or break, I don't think it was Entropy or Matter. I'll guess Matter 1 to look at its insides and Forces 3 (telekineses) to take it apart. Maybe Matter 3 instead of Forces, to destroy some tiny parts that held it together.

In Stranger Kisses #3, Gravel causes bullets to turn around and shoot the cops who are shooting at him. Forces 2 could make them miss him, but Forces 3 would turn them around. Finally, there's his apparent suicide. Such a thing would be possible with lots of Life or Entropy, I think, but creating an illusion with Forces (3/4?) and/or Mind (also 3 or 4) would be easier and would use Spheres we know he already has.

We don't see anything new in Strange Killings until #2, in which he looks through a door or senses what's on the other side or something. Matter 1 (look through matter), Correspondence 2 (send senses through space), or Life 1 (sense life patterns, if the zombie things are technically alive, which they seem to be) would work for that.

In Strange Killings #3 he teleports or disappears again, but I'm pretty sure it's teleportation this time.

The Body Orchard #1 shows Gravel walking just above a water surface. Forces 2 will make you float and maybe push yourself in one direction; Forces 3 allows for controlled flight. He runs up walls and does some other aerial acrobatics, all of which should be covered by a Forces 2 redirection of gravity. Come to think of it, gravity manipulation should allow controlled flight at Forces 2. How 'bout that.

In The Body Orchard #2, Gravel blows out a window by touching it and runs through several walls, including at least one brick wall. That's Matter 3 (destroy structures). He also floats down gently from a few stories up, which is again covered by Forces 2. We also see him definitively teleporting for the first time (Correspondence 3). At the end, he teleports into the Body Orchard. Normally, Correspondence 3 only lets the mage teleport short distances, but I think it would also let him teleport to a place he has a "mystic connection" to, which in this case he definitely does. I only have the live-action rules in front of me, though, and they're pretty vague on that point. He might need Correspondence 4 or even 5 for that.

The Body Orchard #3 has Gravel tricking the terrorist magician into slitting his own throat, thinking it's Gravel's. Correspondence 2 ("apportation") lets a blow be delivered anywhere the mage wants, so he could presumably apply that to his enemy's weapon. Mind 3 or 4 (or maybe even 2?) would keep him from noticing what he's doing until it's too late. Later, Gravel uses what I imagine is Life 1 again to sense the other people's life patterns. In this issue, we also get a glimpse of what's growing in the Body Orchard. In a later issue, Gravel says he grows his own guns, but I don't think he's responsible for the Orchard; I think he just harvests them. The Orchard would probably be a Sanctum if other mages created it, or maybe a Node if those things just grow there on their own (unlikely, I know).

After nothing new in #4 (just some teleportation and acrobatics we've seen before), The Body Orchard #5 gives us Gravel fucking shit up old-school. He tears apart an entire station full of cops, using no weapons. For the most part it could be bolts of pure Prime 2 energy -- basically the same thing he does with his guns, but without bullets to carry the energy. But at one point, he makes a cop vomit up his esophagus or intestines. I'm pretty sure that's Life 3 (manipulate simple life forms), but since Life doesn't seem to be able to do Agg for some reason, I have to assume all the other cops get a faceful of Prime. But my understanding of Life could be off. I notice he's never healed himself at this point in the books, which belies the White Wolf Mage system, since Life 2 would let him do that, and the system doesn't allow for posession of a Sphere level without having the earlier levels too. #6 only shows him blasting someone's leg off, which again is Prime 2 or Life 3 if I'm wrong about Life sucking for damage.

With nothing new again in #1, Strong Medicine #2 shows Gravel viewing past events, which is Time 2 (scrying). I think this is the first Time effect shown, so now we can guess that he could be using a Time 3 effect to draw his guns so quickly. Toward the end, he kicks through the skinhead's leg (Prime 3, enchant life, remember), then reads his mind or memory, which is just Mind 3 for a living subject.

I think his conversation with Mogotsi in Strong Medicine #3 is all Mogotsi's (just like the precog dream in #2), but it's possible that Gravel might need Spirit 1 to read the echoes Mogotsi left behind. I doubt it, though. Note that he doesn't heal his gunshot wound, as far as we can see. Blowing out the candles is simple Forces 2 if there's any sort of air movement at all.

The only newish thing in Necromancer #1 is the toupee trick. That's Correspondence 3, yet again.

In Necromancer #2, we see Gravel rip off a zombie's head. That's not something Prime 3 (enchant life) would allow, so I think the zombies are fragile or Gravel's incredibly strong, either naturally, or from Life 3. It doesn't make too much of a difference, since the organ-spewing cop already proved he has Life 3.

After another issue of nothing new in #3, Necromancer #4 shows Gravel turning Amy and himself invisible. This is the first time it's definitely not been teleportation. Though it's possible to use either Mind 3 or Forces 2 for invisibility, Mind seems unlikely against zombies. It doesn't really matter, since he's already used Mind 4 and Forces 3, so he could do either.

Necromancer #5 is the first time we see Gravel healing himself (Life 2). If he needs a lizard tail every time, that might explain why he's never done it before.

Finally, in Necromancer #6, Gravel teleports a large shipping container. Due to the vagueness of live-action Mage, I don't know whether that would be Correspondence 3 or 4, just like his self-teleportation.

I think that gives Gravel a minimum of Correspondence 3 (maybe 4), Forces 3, Life 3, Matter 3, Mind 4, Prime 3, and Time 2 (maybe 3). He might have some Entropy or Spirit, but none of that is definitively shown.

All in all, in addition to being disgusting and loads of fun, it's a great series for showing people what a mage with a certain amount of power can do. Just the Prime and Correspondence would make him very formidable, considering his non-magical combat abilities.

Of course, like a lot of things that are great examples of how cool certain White Wolf games could be, it also serves as an example of how cool any White Wolf game you actually play will never be.

Dating Comics

I've been thinking about ways that comics, and comics set in the future in particular, keep from seeming dated. There are several things to take into account. Not all my examples will be from comics, so please bear with me.

Clothing can be handled in many ways that work well. Simple, ordinary clothes are commonly used, often with some subtle variations to distinguish them from contemporary clothing. These variations often make the clothes simpler, with cleaner lines, like Kane's shirt in Ocean. See Mek, Orbiter, V for Vendetta, most of the people in Hard Boiled, and some parts of 2020 Visions for more examples.

Clothes from definitive periods in the not-too-distant past work too. Skreemer's big 1920s/'30s suits and Gattaca's '50s look are great examples of that. Going back slightly further than that gives us the mid-to-late 1800s fashions that work well in space westerns. Any further and we get into powdered wigs, pantaloons, and all that foppish business. I'd love to see something that uses those, but I don't know of anything that already exists.

The last clothing option I can think of is the bugfuck insane look in such works as City of Silence, Lazarus Churchyard, Transmetropolitan, and some other parts of 2020 Visions. If it doesn't look like anything people wear, it won't look dated unless people actually start dressing like that.

Two of those examples bring to mind a couple incidental things that can date a story. In City of Silence, there's a lot of graffiti with names of bands that have already been forgotten. Fortunately, it now works just about as well as if they were made-up names. In Lazarus Churchyard, Lazarus looks a bit like Howard Stern. I have no idea how intentional (or otherwise) that is, but characters that look like celebrities could be a really bad idea, depending on how quickly the celebrity fades and/or becomes a joke.

One of the pitfalls for present-day comics is pop culture references. I'm sure it's possible to do such a thing in a universal way that will outlast the reference's target, but most of the time it's not, and sometimes it's quite painfully done using characters who weren't even born when the thing being referenced was big. I'm looking at you, Peter David's Young Justice.

Hey, Superboy was in Young Justice. Hairstyles can be very risky, and I'm sure we've all seen enough examples of that on our own. People will always have messy or simple hair, short or long, or shaved heads. If you've seen photographs from 50 or 100 years ago of a hairstyle that people still have today, that probably works too. Sculptured hairstyles like a mullet or a fade are always, always wrong. If you can come up with something original, hope it never catches on for a year.

Technology is another risky area. As soon as present-day tech bypasses what you use, people are going to notice. I hope Sarissa's phone implant in Mek was supposed to be cosmetic, because it was much larger than something like that would have to be. But a bone-implant phone isn't particularly visual.

In future stories, cars, like clothes, should be either plain (Mek, 2020 Visions), old with possible modifications or hugeness (Skreemer, Gattaca), or bugfuck insane (Hard Boiled). Most concept cars look dated really, really fast, so modeling something after them would be a bad idea. There are exceptions, of course; Chrysler's Pronto Cruiser concept was far more timeless and classical than the PT Cruiser it eventually turned into. But then, most contemporary American cars aren't old, plain, or bugfuck, so they wouldn't work well either. The Japanese and German cars have a certain uniformity to them, and Chrysler's Chronos concept and 300C are practically Skreemer cars to begin with. Brand names should be avoided, since no one's going to see a new Oldsmobile in 2010. They should probably be avoided for everything, in fact.

With all these great examples of What To Do, I'm having a hard time thinking of any for What Not To Do. I don't mind that one bit.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the bugfuck future idea, but plainer stuff would naturally work better for a near-future story. I think the worst thing to do would be to take ideas from a Popular Science-style "we predict the future" thing. If they're not completely ridiculous and ever actually happen, they'll come to pass much sooner than you think (like the "car of the future" in my 1972 dictionary, which looks like a mid-'70s Lamborghini), leaving your future-thing looking like a relic compared to what the reader can see outside their window.

More MTGFAS

Blogger seems to have stopped whatever it was doing (and started deleting everything on certain keypresses), so I can soldier on, displaying the last of the recent Mark Trail/Swamp Thing total coincidences.

First up, the frogs. Aside from the fish, it seems like every animal in Mark Trail is much more relaxed and mellowed out than their Swamp Thing counterparts. Here we have a Mark Trail (August 2) frog listening intently to a conversation about the wives of executives, and a Swamp Thing (#34) frog getting his snack on:

There's a little more action in this Mark Trail strip (July 20), as the deer appears to be preparing to totally make out with that beaver. Meanwhile in Swamp Thing (#27), a deer sees people running and decides, "Hey, that sounds like fun."

Finally, something that's just a bit outside the Giant Foreground Animals genre, but I had to include it. A frightened raccoon flees before the oncoming Swamp Thing (#26):

Back in Mark Trail (July 7-9), the raccoons are properly huge, and vicious too:

(Click to enlarge.)

I hope this has been as fascinating for you as it has been for me (no, really, it has been). Perhaps Jack Elrod and the various Swamp Thing artists[1] know that there are, in fact, 23 panels that always work.

[1] I thought it was only a Steve Bissette thing, but Rick Veitch and Stan Woch did it also, if not nearly as often.

MTGFAS

I finally read Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing recently. I liked it, though I got the impression it would have seemed more revolutionary if I'd actually read it when it was published. Of course, I would have been eight.

One thing I noticed in the art was the frequent occurrence of Mark Trail Giant Foreground Animal Syndrome (MTGFAS). I looked through the last month of Mark Trail strips to see just how close I could get to something found in Swamp Thing. I apologize if the numbers or dates are off; I shuffled things around a lot while dealing with all these files.

These first two are from July 16 and August 1. The fish in Mark Trail are much more likely to jump out of the water than those in Swamp Thing (issues 25 and 26). Also, the humanoid characters in the Mark Trail strips tend to be much smaller than in Swamp Thing, even when they've shapeshifted into buildings:

The beavers in both Mark Trail (July 19) and Swamp Thing (#51) seem content to observe or swim away from nearby conversations:

Jack Elrod has been drawing (and writing) Mark Trail since 1978. I have no idea whether there were Giant Foreground Animals in the original Swamp Thing series, or whether the original Mark Trail artist used them too, so I can't say who did it first. Maybe all graphical stories set in the wilderness are destined to contain a certain number of GFAs. Whatever the reason, I'm just glad it happens.

(Why so few examples? Blogger hates me right now and doesn't seem to want me to upload anymore pictures, however tiny they are. Needless to say, there are more where these came from, and I'm only using the ones that sort of match.)

Playing Cassandra Nova

Behold, my predictions for the Ultimate Galactus trilogy:

• Ultimate Galactus will not have a skirt. Instead, he will sport an attractive black Utilikilt.


• I have previously stated that Galactus' herald will be Ultimate Platinum Dance Dance Revolution Player. That is incorrect. After further analysis of planetary orbits and something involving magnets, I've concluded that his herald will actually be Ultimate Blinged-Out Manga Reader. I apologize for the misunderstanding.


• The Ultimate Ultimate Nullifier will resemble a cell phone.


• The Ultimate Watcher will not be changed much, be he will be drawn to resemble Vin Diesel.

How I torture myself.

I was looking through Secrets of the House of M (I know, I know), trying to figure out who some of the people were[1], when I noticed that some of the height and weight stats were a little funky.

Quicksilver is listed as 6 feet, 185 lbs. That's a lot for a runner. He's drawn in the usual Marvel way, so I guess that might be accurate in a world where Charles Xavier is 190. For comparison, Lance Armstrong and Shawn Crawford are each 5'11 and 165 lbs[2]. Maybe Lance isn't packing any extra weight, but Crawford isn't a small guy. He looks about how I'd expect someone drawn like Quicksilver to look in real life. Maybe Pietro has adamantium hair.

Storm is listed as 127 lbs. Ha ha, only if she's 5'3. They say she's 5'11. I'm 5'11 and don't have those bodacious ta-tas or that J-Lo booty, and I weigh at least that much.

Dazzler's 5'9 and 115 lbs.

Emma Frost is 5'10, 144 lbs. That seems good, if you ignore how she's always drawn to look anorexic compared to Storm.

Bruce Banner is 5'9 and 128 lbs. The one guy who isn't a hulking monstrosity is only that way as a counterpoint to the hulking monstrosity he becomes.

Carol Danvers is 5'11, 124 lbs (in SotHoM at least; one site I found said 120 lbs.). I don't even know where to start with that.

Hawkeye: 6'3, 230 lbs. Seriously, what the hell?

Iceman, Dr. Strange, and Cloak (and maybe Hank Pym, too) are all pretty decent, but all the other men seem forced into the gigantic-brute mold. It's okay for men to be average or slightly above when they have no reason not to be. And it's okay for women to be short, or to weigh something reasonable if they're not.

I probably come off like an obsessive fanboy complaining that they don't get the weights of my favorite characters right, when in fact I don't particularly care about any of them, or their weights, and would much prefer that they be left out if they can't at the very least be not ridiculous.


[1] I was never a big enough Marvel fan to know who Sebastian Shaw was, and I didn't realize who Jessica Drew was until I saw her powers and remembered some discussions I'd seen.

[2] Those were the only two people who came to mind and seemed to make for a good comparison.

Liberality For Real?

I was going to dig through the ACC Studios website and read a bunch of interviews to try to figure out just what the deal was with Liberality For All.

Their press release says:

This action-packed, patriotic knee in the groin to the embodiment of the ultra-left is a blatant satire of liberalism.

I've seen it called "subtle" in some places, but the word isn't used at all on their site (at least according to Google). I thought maybe it was a 'subtle satire' of the lionization of right-wing talk radio hosts and the demonization of filmmakers and Chelsea Clinton. Then I found the Google cache of a Byrne Robotics thread (BR is down at the moment, apparently), in which Mike Mackey says:

Tell me how I can do a Google search on "conservative comic book" and get no results relating to a conservative comic book? Do you know how many very conservative people there are out there? If Michael Moore can make 100million spewing ultra lib propaganda, Why not something ultra-conservative in the Comic Genre?

And:

Do you really believe that if [Usama Bin Laden] were to make an appeal to the U.N. promising an end to world terrorism, That Kofi [Annan] would not leap at the offer? (At any costs.)

That makes me about 99% sure it's real. If it's not, he's done a much better job of 'knowing the enemy' than he has if it's real.