Dreaded Purple Master

If I were Say It Backwards, I'd put this image in my blog header.

Occasional Superheroine presents some Hot Comic Book Action. I see "Smallville" is going back to the basics: Women without pants. I take it this Kara isn't supposed to be underage.

Then OS talks about Weddingus Interruptus with Dead Arrow. Who, come on, you know he isn't dead. He's getting a "Year One"! And I must be the only reader who isn't that fond of Amanda Conner's art. I mean, it's OK, but everybody else is raving about the wonderfully emotive faces, but to me, everybody just looks drunk. Which, I guess, is appropriate at a wedding reception, but Power Girl looked drunk in her mini, too.

Dave Ex Machina presents clothing for the discerning geek. I could have sworn I saw these shirts at DragonCon.

Rachelle at Living Between Wednesdays wants to hear some cheery stories about people for whom their mutual love of comic books helped them bond. I don't have one, so if you do, you know what to do.

HarperCollins to reprint Scott McCloud's ZOT! for July 2008. If I'm reading this right, it's not complete: It's collecting only the material first published in black and white.

Major Spoilers presents an iconic image from All-Star The Goddamn Batman.

Devon at Seven Hells takes this opportunity to re-examine major DC events of the past twenty years and see how the new characters introduced in these events are doing. He's a lot kinder than I would be.

• Pariah - dead
  
• Lady Quark - dead? (Hey, maybe her Earth is back!)
  
• Harbinger - dead
  
• Question - dead
• Blue Beetle - dead
• Captain Atom - retconned beyond all recognition
• Nightshade - I thought you said "major characters"? Well, retconned beyond recognition anyway.
  
• Peacemaker - retconned beyond recognition
  
• Son of Vulcan - who?
• Wildcat II - dead
• Flash III (Wally West) - still doing OK, I guess... (does he really count as a creation of "Legends"?)
  
• Vril Dox and L.E.G.I.O.N. - yawn
• Monarch I - dead
• All of the "Bloodlines" characters - yawn, with the possible exception of Hitman
• Starman (Jack Knight) - dead?
• Stargirl - so far, so good
• Neron - yawn
• Hourman 1,000,000 - dead

I have to say DC's character creation skills don't look good here. When Firestorm looks like an elder statesman, something is wrong.

As I continue to scan the web for calendars, and search engines refine their code, and more news sites digitize their archives, I find additional calendars that I didn't catch when they were new. The following 2007 calendars are still good for a few months, and some of these organizations are planning 2008 editions.

Women:

• Cowgirl Calendar for Cancer (in the Calgary Sun)
  
• Gravel Girls
  
• It Happened in Farmland (on WIS-TV)
  
• Pinups for Pups
• Real Nurses (on Channel 3000 News)
• Scottish Rockettes Swimsuit Calendar
• Women of Hope (on BBC News. Eleven cancer survivors demonstrate that there can be life after diagnosis.)
• Women Running Bare (in the Blackpool Gazette and the Preston Citizen)
  

Men:

• Ancaster Athletic Junior Football Club (in the Grantham Journal)
  
• Danger - Hawick Men at Work (in the Hawick News)
• How to Build a Conservatory - in the Nude (West Yorkshire Windows, BarryDunlop.com)
  
• Silver Bares (in San Antonio Express-News and Sequin Gazette-Enterprise)
  
• Wharf Inn Golf Society (in icCoventry)

Co-Ed:

• Calendar Grans (in The Press / This is York)

And a double-header: Two calendars, presumably one of each:

• Grit and Grace

A few years ago, I started seeing news articles about under-funded Veterans’ healthcare programs. Then, there were stories about older Veterans who lay in bed day after day, never receiving any visitors. Reports started surfacing on TV about the severe injuries sustained by our troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The more I heard about the uphill battles of our Wounded Warriors, the more convinced I was of the need to produce a project that would bring in funds to support all of our hospitalized Veterans.

Purchase the calendar at Pin-Ups for Vets. Press coverage at Wonkette and Diary of a Nudist.

Published by Great Dane Rescue of Plymouth, MI.

Our mission is to place neglected and/or unwanted Great Danes into loving, permanent homes. Our coverage area includes Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama (and parts of neighboring states of Alabama), Northwestern Kentucky, parts of Wisconsin, parts of Ohio and Ontario, Canada.

A group of working men from Lindale near Grange-over-Sands have been tensing their torsos and posing for photographs for a cheeky new calendar, which it is hoped will raise much-needed funds for projects in the village. ...The calendar will be available to buy at a variety of outlets in South Lakeland, including Lindale Village Stores.

Press coverage by the Westmoreland Gazette.

Receptionists, nurses, pharmacy dispensers and even a doctor at the Ryan Medical Centre, in St Mary's Road, have stripped off for a calendar which aims to raise more than £5,000 for the centre's Tender Nursing Care charity.

Charity president and GP at the centre, Dr Anne Allister said: "We had a lot of fun doing it and all the girls were very keen to take part once we had mentioned the idea."

Already dozens of patients at the centre have inquired about the calendars, which will be on sale at the centre's flu clinic later this month.

Press coverage at the Preston Citizen. The calendar is only available in person at Ryan Medical Centre.

The calendars feature 12 Humboldt County women in 12 natural locations chosen by the women, including Fern Canyon, Patrick's Point, Avenue of the Giants, and the Lost Coast.

The women, chosen from a pool of contest entries last October, have each selected a Humboldt County charity, including the Northcoast Environmental Center, The Raven Project, the Humboldt Community Breast Health Project and the North Coast Rape Crisis Center. Each charity will receive a percentage of the profits from the calendar's sales.

Available from Humboldt Honey. Press coverage at Times-Standard.

Quick, how much are the roses being advertised for? Look again. No, again. Welcome to The Most Deceptive Sign in LA.

The Telegraph: Everyone is breaking the rules and being creative about how to use English," said Rukmini Bhaya Nair, a professor of English at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. "It is finally being claimed by Indians as their own, instead of a relic of the Raj."

The columnist Anjali Puri said pride in Indian English also stemmed from the success of writers such as Arundhati Roy, Vikram Seth and Salman Rushdie: "These writers have used English to portray Indian reality and it has given people the confidence to try out new words and play around with the language without being scared about whether they are correct."

So that's why I can't make sense of tech support. It's Salman Rushdie's fault. Boy, he's got a lot to answer for. "I am in well here and hope you are also in the same well." I wasn't when I called, but I suspect I will be soon.

How the "Pina Colada" song really ended.

The Boston Globe: This may look like a rerun, but it's actually a different reader so mortally offended by a different library book that she's checked out both copies and refuses to return them.

Both libraries have ordered replacements for the books Karkos took. Speers ordered two more copies because of an increase in requests for the book after the (Lewiston) Sun Journal published a letter from Karkos condemning the book.

Maybe the woman works for the publisher, and this is a marketing campaign?

National Review: Dan Rather alleges CBS shut him up to protect George W. Bush.

The Daily Mail: It has all the hallmarks of a 1950s B-movie - a remote location, mysterious lights in the sky, a crater that appeared from nowhere, and a disease that spread like the plague through locals. But this is no science fiction film. Officials in Peru yesterday revealed that 200 people had fallen sick after an object from space crashed into the south of the country over the weekend.

The reporter compares the incident to The Andromeda Strain, but it looks more like The Colour Out of Space to me.

Daily Cup of Tech: Yes, bad PowerPoint presentations are so ubiquitous that a stand-up comic can build a non-tech-audience-ready routine out of one.

Getting your kit off is becoming an annual event for Massey third-year veterinary science students. For the second year, students have stripped for charity to produce a 2007-2008 calendar called Barely There – Take II. ...Ten per cent of the proceeds of the sales of the calendar are going to the New Zealand Wildlife Health Centre, which treats ill and injured native birds, reptiles and mammals.

Available at the official site of the Massey University Vet Student Calendar. Press coverage at Scoop.

The 11 women - all in their 60s and 70s, all grandmothers, all living in the same neighborhood off Jordan Creek Parkway - had met each other within the past couple of years. ...Two of the women had survived breast cancer. One had a son who survived breast cancer. Another had an aunt who'd survived. A fifth had a sister who'd survived breast cancer as well as a mother and grandmother who had died from the disease.

Then, about a year ago, came a bright idea.

COST: $15 per calendar and $1.50 shipping for each of the first five ordered, or $9 shipping for six or more. SEND CHECKS TO: Calendar Gals Cancer Fund Inc., P.O. Box 7129, Des Moines, IA 50325. E-mail: cgals@hickorytech.net.

Above information from the Des Moines Register.

Mormons Exposed is a new brand launching a forward-thinking product - a steamy 2008 calendar featuring twelve handsome former Mormon missionaries who have dared to pose bare-chested in the first-ever Men on a Mission calendar. Usually seen riding their bicycles and preaching door-to-door, the calendar celebrates these missionaries' great looks and beautiful bodies, as well as the amazing stories of service of these deeply spiritual men.

The Men on a Mission calendar will benefit a variety of worthy causes. Each missionary will have the opportunity to donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the calendar to a cause in the area he served. Some of the charities supported will include the Red Cross, Salvation Army and Care for Life.

Available from Mormons Exposed. Press coverage at TMZ.

See it today at the Seattle P-I, or subscribe at King Features.

LATER: Well, it does look like John Byrne, doesn't it?

Members of the Napa Valley's farming community in California are showing their green thumbs and quite a bit more - in hopes of raising money to protect the valley's rich agricultural resources.

The farmers, all men, have stripped for a 2008 "Napa Uncovered" calendar.

They are following in the nude footsteps of a number of similar fundraising calendars and hope to draw attention to the issue of dwindling farmlands.

See also Napa County Farm Bureau: Press coverage on AG Weekly, IOL, NBC11.com.

Hospital radiologists are exposing themselves in an X-ray-ted charity calendar. Nurses and support staff at Bedford Hospital have invited patients to "see us as we see you" to raise cash to improve visitor amenities. Twelve workers assumed various poses for the £8-50 calendar, which is selling in the hospital shop.

Sister Maxine Gilbert - Miss January - said posing nude was "nerve-wracking" and added: "We certainly now appreciate how our patients feel when we ask them to get undressed."

Press coverage at BBC, Channel Four News, and Press Association.

Sally Stephenson is probably the last person you'd expect to strip down to her skivvies in broad daylight and smile seductively for the camera. After all, the longtime Monongahela resident, who taught instrument flying to male pilots in the Navy during World War II, is a professor emeritus in sociology at California University of Pennsylvania. Oh, and did we mention she's 84?

..."I only said yes because I thought it would never go."

All profits from the sale of the calendars, which will be published in mid-July and cost $10, will go to the Monongahela Area Historical Society. They will be available in local stores, as well as on the city of Monongahela's Web site, cityofmonongahela.com.

Press coverage includes Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, ABC News, AP, Pittsburgh City Paper, KEYE-TV, CBS/KDKA-TV, WTAE.TV, WPXI-TV and USA Today Blog.

Back in 2001 we performed an adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's Solution Unsatisfactory. As you might expect, we were very proud and excited to present a work by such a well-regarded author. And since it was written in 1941 we were already aware that Mr. Heinlein had seemingly seen the future of world events by predicting the use of atomic weapons, although in a different form.

This is a 2007 calendar, but it's back in the news lately because one of the golfers, Nikki Garrett, is suing Zoo Weekly magazine for defamation and breach of copyright. Apparently Zoo Weekly, a "ladmag", not only printed the accompanying picture without permission (oops), but suggested that Ms Garrett was the kind of woman who would want to appear in Zoo Weekly.

Buy it from WomensGolfCalendar.com, if you can. (It's officially sold out, but still available as a premium with purchase of Fantom golf balls.) See also Sydney Morning Herald (and again), Fox Sports, World of Golf, Golfblogger, About.com. If all you want is pictures, well, I'm torn. I should encourage you to support the charity rather than mention the Golf-babes blog, where most of the photos can be seen for free if you search for them.

Aye.

If yer can't talk like a pirate, perhaps you can knit like one.

Living Between Wednesdays found this panel of Lois Lane in her natural state, being made a fool of by Superman (who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild- mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, must have a good laugh at her expense almost every hour of the day).

Dragon*Con Podcasting - Podcasting in the Classroom: This panel featured three educators who are creating educational podcasts, and my wife who is skeptical that the thing can have any applications for, how shall I say it, neighborhoods that are less affluent.

Yes, I know it has nothing to do with comic books. So?

Occasional Superheroine has a positive review of The Justice League of America Wedding Special. I really wanted to like this book, and I generally enjoy Dwayne McDuffie's writing (having seen a lot of it on the television JLU). But unlike the Wedding Planner, which actually was about planning the wedding, the Wedding Special is all about setting up this version of the Legion of Doom. I probably shouldn't blame McDuffie for that, since most DC titles seem primarily motivated by editorial mandate these days.

OS isn't crazy about the cover, and I actually agree. Although, given that Ed Benes is drawing it, it's not much of a surprise, is it? The spectacle of Superman bursting out of the cake at the bachelorette party is overcome by the fact that he's the most modestly-dressed person in attendance. Wonder Woman's star-spangled panties are approaching thongness. Any issue now there won't be room for any stars at all.

Progressive Ruin is speculating that Joe Quesada is incessantly repeating "people hate married Spider-Man" in order to make it so. Perhaps Marvel already has the "Because you demanded it!" blurb ready (the smart money seems to say this will happen in "One More Day").
Based on talking to customers in his comic shop (you know, people who actually buy comic books and, like, read them), Mike is unable to identify any groundswell of resentment that Pete and MJ are married. I'm thinking that, in the Marvel offices, the E-I-C and the writers he selects must really think that marriage is a dead end, which is a bigger tragedy than anything they put the characters through.

Seven Hells celebrates the return of the splash page. I think he's missing the point. A splash page is a single-panel summary of the story you're about to read, in tone and personality if not in literal representation of events actually contained in the story. These days, splash pages are places for the artist to show off (not that I mind that: some of my favorite images are the "pin-up pages" of days gone by). The intent is to actually slow down the story, to postpone the introduction of elements the reader might not want to be spoiled by, in full awareness that the first four or five pages of any given issue are likely to be released days, weeks or months in advance of publication, as a preview.

That said, this is still a dandy image, and the one aspect of it that I do see as a Good Sign is that Cassie's costume does not contain a camel-toe crotch seam. If I were looking for one trend to ban from 21st-century comics, that would be a strong contender.