Fellowship of the Takerus

I finished takeru: OPERA SUSANOH SWORD OF THE DEVIL Volume 2

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin. I liked the first volume, but the creative team seems to be hitting its stride with the five chapters that make up this second volume. After getting the introductions out of the way in Vol. 1, the team can focus on storytelling. Plus, the art is not as muddled as it was in the first volume; the compositions are much clearer.

So Joe Quesada Did Speak Publicly about the Disney Acquisition

In his "Cup O' Joe" column at Comic Book Resources, Joe Quesada spoke about The Walt Disney Company's acquisition of Marvel Entertainment. Quesada answered questions in an interview conducted by Kiel Phegley.

Highlights - well, there was really only one as far as I'm concerned:

1. When did Joe first learn of an impending acquisition?

Joe Quesada: A small group of us on the creative side were approached by Ike about the idea of a merger almost a month ago. We were told that Bob Iger and the team at Disney wanted to meet with us. It was a small group which also included Dan Buckley and Kevin Feige. On the Marvel end of things, we were asked to go and see if we felt that this was a merger that would be beneficial to Marvel in all areas, especially creatively. Personally, I was more than floored and incredibly flattered to have been invited, and meeting the gang at Disney was a thrill. I was incredibly impressed with everyone we met, all of them amazingly sharp and all had as much a love of Disney as we had of Marvel.

Some of the rest of Quesada's answers are interesting, though they don't shed much light on much of anything.

Congressman Joe Wilson's Neo-Confederate Past

In "Joe Wilson's Dixie Partisans," writer Joe Conason at Truthout offers a deeper perspective on U.S. House of Representatives member Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), now infamous for shouting "You lie" to President Barack Obama during his recent speech before a joint session of Congress. Conason's article lends credence to those who have claimed that Wilson is bigot.

Highlights:

Nothing surprising there, however, to anyone familiar with the Wilson entourage and outlook. The consultant behind the excitable right-wing congressman is Richard Quinn, long a central figure in both South Carolina Republican politics and the "neo-Confederate" movement, notably as editor and publisher of a periodical called The Southern Partisan.

Long before Quinn started selling those Joe Wilson tees, his magazine used to market T-shirts denigrating Abraham Lincoln, which displayed a portrait of him above the slogan "Sic Semper Tyrannis" - the phrase shouted by John Wilkes Booth after shooting the Civil War president. No doubt Quinn considered that to be an expression of "patriotism," too, although not to the United States of America.

Del Rey's Secret Saturdays on the March

I finished The Secret Saturdays 1: The Kur Stone

I posted the review at The Comic Book Bin. This is best film-comic (the art is made of stills from the animation, rather than being drawn, like in a traditional comic book) yet from the Del Rey/Cartoon Network publishing deal.

I Reads You Extra: The Village Voice on the Bushwick 32

This Village Voice article on the mass stop-and-frisk arrest by the New York Police Department of 32 students in May 2007 is a great read. It gets even better towards the end as the author, Elizabeth Dwoskin, recounts how the good guys (the students and one of their teachers) win.

Ethnic Humor #1: Seven Degrees of Coonass

Forwarded to me and passed around by people who would probably be referred to as "coonass," and would not be angry unless the persons calling them that were not one of the group:

SEVEN DEGREES OF COONASS

FIRST DEGREE: Boudreaux and his wife were asleep when the phone rang at 2 in the morning.Boudreaux picked up the phone, listened a moment and said "How should I know, that's 200 miles from here!" and hung up.The wife said, "Who was that?"Boudreaux answered, "I don't know, some man wanting to know if the coast is clear."

SECOND DEGREE: Two Cajuns are walking down the street. One notices a compact on the sidewalk and leans down to pick it up. He opens it, looks in the mirror and says, "Hmm, this person looks familiar." The second Cajun says, "Here, let me see!!" So the first Cajun hands him the compact. The second one looks in the mirror and says, "You dummy, it's me!"

THIRD DEGREE: Boudreaux suspects his wife of cheating on him, so he goes out and buys a gun. He goes to his house unexpectedly and when he opens the door he finds her in the arms of another man. Well, Boudreaux is really angry. He pulls out the gun, and as he does so, he is overcome with grief. He takes the gun and puts it to his head. His wife yells, "No, honey, don't do it!!!"Boudreaux replies, "Shut up, you're next!"

FOURTH DEGREE: Boudreaux was bragging about his knowledge of state capitals. He proudly says, "Go ahead, and ask me, I know all of them." A friend says, "OK, what's the capital of Wisconsin ?" Boudre aux replies, "Oh, that's easy: W."

FIFTH DEGREE: What did the Cajun girl ask her doctor when he told her she was pregnant?"Is it mine?"

SIXTH DEGREE: Boudreaux, a Cajun in his fourth year as a LSU Freshman, sat in his US Government class. The professor asked Boudreaux if he knew what Roe vs. Wade was about. Boudreaux pondered the question then finally said, "That was the decision George Washington had to make before he crossed the Delaware "

SEVENTH DEGREE: Returning home from work, Boudreaux was shocked to find his house ransacked and burglarized. He telephoned the police at once and reported the crime. The police dispatcher broadcast the call on the radio, and a K-9 unit, patrolling nearby, was the first to respond. As the K-9 officer approached the house with his dog on a leash, Boudreaux ran out on the porch, shuddered at the sight of the cop and his dog, then sat down on the steps. Putting his face in his hands, Boudreaux moaned, "I come home to find all my possessions stolen. I call the police for help, and what do they do? They send me a BLIND policeman."

A Crash Course in Yaoi Manga

Over at Graphic Novel Review, Shaenon K. Garrity is writing a series on yaoi manga. So far, it's quite well written, and Part 1 is a History of Yaoi.