Batman & Isaac Newton in Freefall

We have returned to a state of GEEK DEFCON-1. Assume the comic book debating position.

I have a gripe. Small and inconsequential, but I will blog about it, nonetheless. Last week I was reading Batman: Year One. Loved it. Thought it was great, even though in the first chapter Bruce Wayne's character starts out so flat and boring. But it picks up and Police Commissioner Gordon's character development was awesome throughout; a definite bonus for this particular series.

What keeps bugging me is this one frame where Batman defies the rules of gravity. It goes a little something like this: Kidnappers are on the run with Commissioner Gordon's baby. The shit hits the fan on a bridge that spans the river (seems to be a theme this week), when Batman and Gordon both catch up with the kidnappers. In the broohaha that ensues, Criminal #1 loses his grip on the baby and the kid starts to drop towards the river below. But babies cannot die on Baman's watch, can they? No sirree, Bob. We then see Batman diving down towards the baby from above. Batman catches up to the falling baby and grabs him in the nick of time. Whew, that was a close one. Smiles all around.

But wait a minute. Thanks to Sir Isaac Newton, we know that all solid objects fall at the same rate, irregardless of their weight. He dropped wooden balls and iron balls (another theme this week, eh?) off of the Tower or Pisa to show the local "scientists," a rather generous term for them, that all of the balls landed at the same time. Now of course you are thinking that gravitational analysis and other laws of physics cannot or should not be applied to comic books, but I would disagree, especially since we are talking about Batman here. Batman is a superhero with no superpowers beyond his strength, fighting skills, wicked bad technology, and his fierce determination to make things right. His comic books tend to be a bit more rooted in a gritty, evil, urban reality than other characters' stories are. When he faces failure, it is almost always based on his own limitations and the limitations of the world around him; a world that he cannot alter as Superman would. He works within the normal laws of the universe, and has to fight hard because of it.

Wow, my own GEEK-O-METER is beeping wildly at me, with readings off the fucking charts. But I will forge ahead anyway, unabashedly arguing about subjects that normal people have no interest in. Subjects that they in fact have great disdain and scorn for. But I will not be beaten down by The Man. Especially because The Man does not read comix, which makes him a loser.

So with all of this in mind, how would Batman make himself fall faster than the Gordon baby? Granted, he was in full dive position with his cape behind him. Definitely no drag there. If he had shot out one of his grappling hooks to wrap around the infant, it would be believable. But babies tend to be soft creatures, and grappling hooks tend to be hard, spikey creatures. Bad combo. "Here's your baby, Gordon. A little bloody and mangled, but definitely alive! And he's still got one good eye. Who's your Daddy?!"

I think the reason for the discord is that Batman is always grouped with the other Superheroes, when he is fact just a human. Extraordinary human, yes, but he is not from another planet, he has had no exposure to nuclear radiation (the kind that makes you crazy strong, not the kind that melts your skin off and kills you slowly), he is not from an ancient race of immortal warriors with nice tits and shiny hair, and he is not half Merman with underwater breathing abilities and a talent for handling jetskis and bossing about giant sharks. He's just Batman, yo. He's just a guy who wishes that the world was so peachy keen that his caped avenger services were not necessary. Then he could commit his time to finding a good therapist (dude needs to work through some serious issues), to weightlifting, maybe a little Jeet Kune Do, collecting rare Burt Bacharach albums, and to haunting Goth clubs, where his black costumes and pessimistic outlook would be much appreciated and revered. You know it's true. He would be the hit of the Goth Ball; he would be everyone's Black Death Darling. And damn, Batman would get no end of Goth pussy. Or dick. Whatever mood he's in, I guess. But I would bet big money on the fact that if Batman plays with the guys, he is a total top, and prone to giving lots of bossy orders. "Where's my beer, bitch? Good, now suck my dick. And no, I ain't taking the costume off for you. My therapist says I am still too vulnerable to reveal myself, so feck off and start sucking. Watch the teeth! Last time you left marks that Alfred noticed."

Oh man, it's good to be a simpleton, cuz I amuse myself to no end.

Currently I'm reading Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, so I am sure that next week will bring another Batman-related rant or rave. Same Bat time, same Bat channel!

Female Flyers, Big Balls

Isn't it fun to find unexpected tidbits of information when you least expect it? I was just doing a stock photo search in the hopes of proving I wasn't crazy. I was telling a friend that I had seen a few movies set in Chicago that featured a huge river, spanned by bridges, surrounded by big buildings, and that they even dyed it green on St Patrick's Day (WTF?). She said the only water shown was the shores of Lake Michigan, and that I was smoking crack. Well, she didn't say that last part, but it sounds more dramatic for my story. So let's say she even said, "...you are smoking crack, beeyatch" and totally slapped me. Can you believe that shit? You see why I had to prove my point. Plus, I'm a Capricorn; we have issues with not being right. And with being pimp-slapped by high-falutin' aggro people. (Apologies to KsC, who is the most non-aggro person I know. But I bet she could slap hard if she wanted to.)

So anyway, I am looking at all these photos, trying to find this mythical green river of Chicago lore. I find it. Even the dyed green version. I am not crazy. At least not on the topic of the river. And I find this great old photo of a gorgeous black guy in an elborate uniform handing flowers up to a black, female aviator in the cockpit of an old taildragger plane. Think about the significance of the "black female aviator" part. Ever seen such a thing? Me either. I get all excited and started doing some research, which is my usual response to most new things (can't...talk....must....Google...).

Turns out her name was Bessie Coleman and she was the first black woman to get a flying license (1892-1926). She came from a very poor sharecropper family in Texas, and yet somehow she made her way to France in her 20s to attend a prestigous flight school there, since she could not find a flight instructor in the US who was willing to teach her to fly. Dumbasses. This girl was a talented flyer, and she also had a talent for PR and reinventing herself. Her goal was to create a flight school in the US specifically for training black pilots, but she died before that dream could be realized. The sweet part is that a guy named William Powell later established the Bessie Coleman Aero Club for African-American pilots in Los Angeles in 1929. And there are all these great things that now happen in her honor, like an annual fly-over above Chicago's Lincoln Cemetery, where she is buried. There was a black womens' flight club formed in 1977 dedicated to her legacy.

So impressive. This chick was flying tail draggers! Holy crap they are the hardest thing to fly. My old flight instructor used to do aerobatics in vintage bi-plane taildraggers, just like Bessie flew, and he said they were wicked fun, but very hard to fly. They are especially hard to handle on the ground, as the back end shilly shallies all about. When I was 15 or 16, I took flying lessons, with the goal of eventually getting my helicopter pilot's license. When I used to have a particularly good lesson, my instructor would do all sorts of crazy shit in the Cessna 182 that we flew, like loops and death spins. All this over the Los Angeles coast line. I was totally high on excitement. Love that shit. If it makes my stomach lurch, I am all over it like white on rice. Makes me giggle like a school girl. I never made it to my solo flight. I scheduled the flight, but then had some ear problems that required surgery, in order to avoid having my ear drums blow up during quick altitude drops (a regular occurence every lesson). Ouch. I woulda been wicked dead if they hadn't caught it in time. By the time that was cleared up, the deposit was due on art school, and that was the end of that. I figure when I retire it will be something to take up again. That is, if I can fit my big white ass in them little cockpits!

I'm sad to say that Bessie died very young. In 1926, she and her mechanic were on the first test flight of a new plane she had just purchased. The mechanic was at the controls when the plane malfunctioned, went into a spin, and Bessie fell out of the plane to her death. Damn. Makes you wanna wear your seat belt, don't it?

So often we go through our lives not knowing about the people who quietly made a way for us back in the day. Here's a toast to Bessie Coleman, fearless flyer with a set of big, shiny brass balls. C'mon, y'all, raise your glasses. And another drink in honor of meself, which sounds conceited, but it's simply about the fact that I somehow found the courage to fly planes as a teenager, even though I was scared shitless. Surprises me, even now. And one more toast to my Mother, who somehow scraped together the funds for my flight lessons at a time when money was so tight, because she saw how much it meant to me. Big Love from the Big Girl.

More info here on the lovely Bessie.

Ode to a Cemetery

Oh how I love thee, Mountain View Cemetery. Let me count the ways.

My favorite place to hang, to exercise, to think, to chill, is a cemetery. Not just any cemetery. It's a huge, gorgeous, rolling hills, big trees kind of place that is so amazingly peaceful that it boggles the mind. When I tell new people that I go to a cemetery all the time, they think it's creepy and downright odd. Then I take them there, and they go, "Ohhhhhh..." They understand. This place is so beautiful and so full of lovely big monuments that it qualifies as the prettiest park in Oakland. I've gotten a few folks hooked on it.

I first learned of it in art school, which was right next door. Some students used to sneak on to the cemetery grounds at night to smoke weed, drink, and have Goth-ish sex on the front steps of the big crypts (it's the same as regular sex, but all the clothes that get removed by the participants are black). I did not have the cojones for that sort of thing, but I fell in love with the cemetery by day, and I am still coming here twenty years later. Constantly.

Ever heard of Frederick Law Olmsted? He was an amazing landscape architect who is mainly known for designing Central Park, Yosemite, and Stanford. He also designed Mountain View, and gave it a character that is rarely found in cemeteries. The part I love is that in its early years, the cemetery was used by young people for courting. It was one of the only places where they could meet each other unchaperoned, and they spent many hours "paying their respects" to their loved ones. That vibe still exists at Mountain View, because it is definitely a major make-out spot, expecially for the local baby dyke population. How sweet is that? I cannot claim to have done any smooching there, but the day is still young, no?

The cemetery is the final resting place for the architects Julia Morgan and Bernard Maybeck, the Crocker family (remember Crocker Bank?), "Borax" Smith (of Borax & 20 Mule Team fame), Henry Kaiser, and the Merritt family (everything in Oakland is called Merritt, I swear). Plus there are some folks who are not famous, but noteworthy. Like the first black sea captain. They found his grave recently when they restored an old section of the cemetery that was overgrown. That pleases me.

There is no getting around the fact that this cemetery is still active for new burials, and that entire section of the cemetery has a much more somber feel. The sections are very separate: the old part is on one side of the hill, the new is on the other. Those of us who enjoy the place as a park tend to avoid the new sections, as there is no way to ignore the fact that you are surrounded by people who are grieving their losses. In the very old, established sections, the spirits have moved on so long ago that the air is clear, so to speak, and one can remain light hearted.

I have taken so many photos in this place, shot so many people here, and have brought so may people here to take photos. My friend Johnny Boy took the photo above. It is the ultimate place to test a camera's meter because of all the mid-range greys in the stone statues and buildings. I always trot out a new camera there first, to make sure I know where it sits exposure-wise.

And before anyone comments on me smoking in the photo, lemme say that I smoke about one clove cigarette a month, if that. And no, they are not those harsh, nasty cloves you tried in high school. So if that makes me a smoker, well, allrighty then. But not really.

Batman and Wonder Woman at Odds

Warning: This post puts us in a state of GEEK-DEFCON 1

(Maximum force readiness against topics that interest nerds, geeks, & the occasional art student). You have been warned, so gird your loins.

It's an age-old geek discussion. If (insert name of Super Hero #1 here) fought (insert name of Super Hero #2 here), who would win? One of my fave comics answers that question. Wonder Woman kicks Batman's ass. Of what do I speak? The Hiketeia, of course, once of the comic industry's great books (DC, 2002).

One day I was looking through online lists of Batman comics, hoping for some Alex Ross art. I see this cover and get all excited because it is wicked cool. Is that Wonder Woman's sexy boot squishing Batman's face into the pavement? Oh yes, it is. Two of my fave characters in one story. SOLD.

I guess a little synopsis is in order before I can continue to babble on excitedly. A young woman named Danielle comes to Wonder Woman and invokes an ancient bond of protection that WW grants her, called the Hiketeia. Little does WW know that Danielle has committed murder. The murder was righteous, and done on her sister's behalf, but it was murder, nonetheless. Well, Batman he no likey murderers, right? So he is after Danielle. So WW is forced into the awkward position of protecting her young ward from the likes of Batman, while the Fates watch hungrily, just hoping sombody eats hot death. The fight scenes are fucking awesome. They are pretty well matched, but the fact is that Diana has got powers that all of Bruce's technology can never give him. He's got brute strength, righteous anger, and way too much determination, so he does pretty well for a mere mortal. But damn, if WW doesn't just mess his shit up. It's not one easy fight though. It's several messy fights, some in the poring rain.

WW has this resigned, almost tired air to her as she tries to resolve the matter with the doggedly perservering Batman (oh how I love him, let me count the ways). She appreciates his position but is frustrated that he does not understand the binding power of the Hiketeia oath she has taken with Danielle. It's only the best illustrators who can show this sort of body language in their frames, and these guys accomplish it brilliantly (J.G. Jones & Wade von Grawbadger, and yes, that's a real name). Both the line drawings and the coloring are bloody brilliant, and I just cannot fawn enough over the cover. Where can I get a huge print of it for my wall?

Okay, this is where I publicly admit to a small but potent geeky fantasy. I wake up one day and I suddenly have amazing comic book illustrator drawing skills, and I am finally able to illustrate the Batman-Wonder Woman comic book porn I have long wanted to see. I mean, c'mon, who wouldn't love this shit? Back alley, moody lighting, and Batman has Wonder Woman bent over the hood of the Bat Mobile. He's pulling her hair, her head is back and we get to see the look on her face. Yeah, baby! An alley cat watches them from a nearby roof, natch. And these are Alex Ross-esque versions of our two heroes, so WW has got some serious curves, she's truly tall, and she got big, strong thighs with the Kung Fu grip (watch out, Bruce)! Batman is truly broad-shouldered, he's got lots of battle scars, his ears are tall and pointy, and that is one strong jaw showing through. Methinks another spread in this steamy comic has everyone in the same position, but Batman has flipped WW over. He's doing a nice number on her with his mouth, despite the mask. He has learned to work around it, you see. And it seems to me that the Lasso of Truth might just come in handy...

Wanna see more of The Hiketeia? Theirs, not mine. Mine is illegal for decency and copyright reasons.
http://www.dccomics.com/features/hiketeia/hiketeia.html