A very funny and dead-on look at DC Comics’ cynical and crappy “Death of Superman” epic storyline marketing stunt.

Thanks to Tess Fowler for sharing.

As a devoted fan of Buster Keaton, books, and the amazing William Joyce, I have to say The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore may just be the most wonderful short film I have ever seen. It’s currently up for an Academy Award.

You need to see this, probably over and over…

Chuck Norris is a dingleberry on the ass of cinema and a toxic boil of  a man.

I’ve blogged about this before, in which I grumped about the Chuck Norris jokes that are so widespread, aggrandizing a man who in no way deserves it, and I offered up my own Chuck Norris jokes to replace them.

I just updated that post with new jokes. You can read ‘em all here.

Little Juliet puts the Rebecca Blacks of the world in their place.

When I was a kid, I’d sometimes slip into action movie mode while doing mundane tasks. One of the ways I did this was to suddenly realize that there was a doomsday timer attached to my current action, and if I didn’t accomplish it in time, the world would explode.

Will I finish tying my shoe before the phone rings again…or will the world EXPLODE…?

Can I keep holding my breath until the commercial ends…or will the world EXPLODE…?

Will I make it through the evening without my father getting drunk and mean…or will the world EXPLODE…?

The world exploded fairly regularly on that last one.

This morning, I woke up at six, the time I get up when my son is here and has school. But he’s with his mom today, so there was no reason to get up that early, so I went back to sleep.

I had an odd dream in which I was visiting New York on a whim, seeing old friends and older enemies. And I misplaced my copy of The Trembling of a Leaf, the best porn erotic novel I ever read.

I woke up again and it was after nine. Later than intended, but no big deal, I have no place to be. Grabbed my iPad from the bedside, headed to the living room, put the iPad on the couch, and let the cat in for breakfast (“Noms,” quoth he). In the kitchen, I poured a cup of last night’s coffee and put it in the microwave for a minute and a half.

I fed the cat. Went to take a leak. Pulled on a shirt. Returned to the living room. I picked up the iPad and reached for its cord to plug it in to charge…and heard the hum of the microwave, still nuking my coffee.

I suddenly realized I had to stick the plug into the iPad before the microwave chimed…

I acted swiftly, bringing my hands toward each other, aiming the little plug for the slot at the gadget’s base. They touched. I wiggled the plug into position–

DING.

The world exploded.

Today, Editor-in-Chief Laura Hudson and contributor David Wolkin sit down and attempt the nigh-impossible task of figuring out exactly what happens in Odyssey, a book that has both challenged and redefined our notions of Batman, comics, and our tenuous grasp on sanity…

Neal Adams is one of the all-time great comic book artists, the man who truly defined the cool modern Batman. For many years as a kid, I had a huge poster of this Adams image on my wall:

Unfortunately, as is sometimes the case in comic publishing, someone at DC thought, “Hey, the man can draw, I bet that means he can write too!” Because after all, writing is easy, right? And they gave Neal no telling how much money to do a twelve issue epic series about Batman. The result seems to be one of the most completely batshit crazy comic book stories in history.

You need to read the review. Honestly. I laughed till I couldn’t breathe while I read it. I had to take breaks so I wouldn’t asphyxiate myself. It’s comedy gold, and I say that as someone who hasn’t even seen the comic book in question.

Deconstructing the Complete and Utter Insanity of Batman: Odyssey

Thanks, New York! Time to oil up the ol’ rubber ducky for the honeymoon!!!

But over on his blog, Dennis Detwiller offers up an even better “alternative children’s book,” Spiders Are Wonderful by Toby Vok. As Dennis rightly puts it, “If I had to describe it, I would perhaps call it a children’s book of existential horror. Toby Vok is a twisted, wonderful man.”

You can read it in its entirety by clicking the image below. Toward the bottom of the page, Vok also graciously offers it up for free in both PDF and epub formats.

Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit individual or group prayer in public schools or other public institutions.

Thanks to Cairelle Perilloux for this…

Just had a funny bit of synchronicity.

While dealing with AAA today, trying to resolve a pretty unimpressive history of customer service, I found I was carrying not only my current membership card but last year’s, which is defunct. So I was just now trying to tear it in half to throw it away, folding it repeatedly in the middle, with random music playing through my computer from my iPod (more than 8,000 songs for it to cycle through).

And a song started up by John Andersen. I hadn’t heard this song probably in three or four years, and it pops up. I recognized it but didn’t remember what it was called, and was distracted by trying to tear the card in half. Bending one way, then the other, then back the other way…

And Andersen sang this:

How much more can this poor heart take?
You bend it until it breaks…

And that cracked me up pretty good. Of course, it has some other significance in my life of late which doesn’t really bear laughter…

Below the jump is a good video of the man himself performing the song…