Men's Room Etiquette Rule 5

Please comment if this has ever happened to you so you can be referred to the nearest psychiatrist.

Hear Me, Oh facebook Sheep!

            One thing that I notice a lot lately is the massive amount of religion that has invaded facebook.  I am not religious in any way, but I went to church growing up and hit all of the Roman-Catholic milestones on the way.  While I do not begrudge my father for forcing that upon his children, the fact that it is being forced upon adults in ever so shitty ways makes me both shake my head and get kind of punchy.  Let me make something clear, I do not care what religion you are, or how far ingrained in that religion you are, you could be a Christmas/Easter Catholic or someone that goes to church everyday and does not leave home without a Bible/Prayer Book etc.  What I find to be ridiculous is when that love of religion that you have is shoved down my throat in the form of your forwarded facebook posts. 

            I am not talking about the bluntcard meme things that take up way too much of everyone’s time and energy to find and read.  Those are dumb, and the people that post ten to fifteen of them on their own page per day are dumb as well (especially if they are over the age of 16).  What I am talking about is the “like this post and you side with Jesus, ignore this post and you are Satan’s butt-buddy” posts that pop up from time to time.  Like I said, I don’t care how fanatic your religious leanings are, putting that on your own page and sharing it with all of your “friends” proves that you, my friend, are a dumbass.  Liking your fucking facebook post will have no bearing on my eternal soul.  If I really believed in all of that, I may be offended by your assumption that what you post on your wall has any bearing on me whatsoever.  You should know two things about me.  1.  I am not easily offended by anything, and 2.  I find that the best way to deal with that kind of fanaticism is through humor and, if I may use a term that will probably get me stoned (the bad kind not the good kind), bullying.  You are trying to bully me into liking your post so that I don’t have to get a pineapple shoved up my ass for all eternity, well bullying is a two way street and I can be very effective at it.

            You, oh religious nut, are a sheep.  Anyone that clicks on that post is a sheep.  And for that matter, anyone that clicks on those posts about veterans or cute animals is a sheep as well.  Of course we want the veterans to be safe, of course that cat wearing sunglasses is cute, why must the request be made to like your stupid photo?  More importantly, why are people falling in line like Jews to the oven in order to like something that someone else tells them to?  Your blind devotion to cute animals, veterans or the feeble promise of saving your immortal soul makes you mindless, thoughtless sheep. 

            As if to prove me right, directly after writing this article I checked my facebook account and lo and behold, a posting proving me right.  Hold on to your nuts because this one is a doozy.  “Hit like if you love your grandma, ignore if you want your grandma to die”.  Yup.  Not liking their stupid fucking post is apparently a death sentence for grandmothers everywhere.  It’s like the “step on the crack break your mother’s back” children’s rhyme but amongst people that should know better – and yet they don’t. 

            Have an opinion of your own.  If you want to like a photo, try liking one that does not come with the stigma attached to it, or a requirement for liking it.  You know who else has certain requirements like that?  Cult leaders.  Yup.  Quit drinking the fucking facebook Kool-Aid!  

Men's Room Etiquette Rule 4

Try and wash that from your mind!  Happy Monday!

Men's Room Etiquette Rule 3

It's true, even more so if there is a line of people behind you.

WTF 7.16-7.20

From the state that brought you Sarah Palin

-Matt

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/cat-mayor-alaska-town-15-years-204423536.html

Yup, this is real.  Apparently voting jokes into office is not limited to the Governor.

Bobcat pulls a reverse Shawshank

-Matt

http://news.yahoo.com/bobcat-breaks-wash-prison-crews-scene-132734103.html

What really gets me about this article is the fact that the Bobcat was able to break in because he “climbed a fence or pushed in through some gap in the fence”.  Really?  That Washington prison is so insecure that there are holes in the fences?

Dear India, you are stupid, signed everyone else

-Matt

http://news.yahoo.com/katy-perry-accused-indecency-over-indian-show-135500994--spt.html

When you invite someone to perform that is notorious for crazy, provocative costumes and then sue her for indecency, you look stupid.  Way to look stupid India.  It would be like me attending a Phish concert and suing the band because I got a contact high.  Looks like some people in India have done a little too much bathing in the shit river, it’s messing with their minds.

Fred Willard pulls a PeeWee!  (That just sounds dirty)

-Matt

http://news.yahoo.com/best-show-actor-willard-accused-lewd-act-142904096.html

I think my first question is, why the hell do they have porn movie theaters anymore?  Everyone can get porn at home and yet you would rather go to a theater and pay someone money (probably avoiding their eyes in the process) so you can sit in a sticky-floored theater with other guys watching some guy bang a girl (or guy, or goat, whatever). 

My second question: you are a celebrity, what the fuck?  When did this occur to you as being a good idea?

My third and final question: Is the “porn theater” beat a desired beat for cops or is that where you stick rookies and people you don’t like?  My guess is the latter but you never know.

Thanks for playing Jersey!

-Matt

http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-searches-house-belonging-nj-capitals-mayor-114350346.html

Hmm, another corrupt New Jersey politician.  This is my surprised face.

Comic Review - Elric #11

            I have not read the preceding ten issues of Elric: The Balance Lost by Chris Roberson and Francesco Biagini.  However, I do love a good sword and sorcery book and if this issue really struck a chord with me, I was considering searching out the rest of the series.  While the book had some high points, it was also fairly boring and, at times, I found myself struggling to even want to finish it.  But I did, and here’s what I think.

Cover:

            Of course this book has three covers.  Didn’t you know that we are in a time warp back to the 90s where every comic has to have three to four covers, even though collectors are far less likely to pay for variant covers if each issue is $3.99 as opposed to the $1.50 they were in the 90s.  Regardless, I picked up the Dan Panosian cover as that was the first one on the rack.  It is a decent cover, that definitely makes good use of the featured character’s white skin for artistic effect.  While I understand that in order to make that design technique work, nothing else can be as light as that character (and nothing is), that does not prevent the colorist from mixing things up a little, you know, making everything a color other than brown.  The fact that there is an awful lot going on in the cover could have been a good thing if it had been colored to highlight some of that, or at the very least ensure that it was not a giant mess.

4/10 – It was ok, the illustration was nice and it kind of had something to do with the actual story.  The coloring really killed this for me though. 

Story:

            While it was not too hard to follow the story from the get-go (even though this was issue 11) I have a feeling that that is more because of the simplicity of the story itself than the fact that the between-issue transition was written well.  It’s basically good versus evil so that made the whole thing kind of generic, regardless of what little twists Roberson tried to throw in there.  There were a couple instances that I just shook my head at (which is never good, regardless of the media that you are using).  There was an interesting few pages where two of the characters revealed that they both had their love interest killed by a relative.  Ok, that’s fine in terms of a plot device to unite the heroes I guess, however it just felt so clumsy in its execution.  “bad guy relative killed my girlfriend” “I too lost a girlfriend to a bad guy relative”.  That just sounds like something you would expect from a middle school creative writing class, not someone that is a professional writer.

            Another instance is when the four main characters claim that they are the “four who are one”.  Now not everyone will understand this reference but that is generally what KISS refers to themselves as.  Now this comic is based on the novels by Michael Moorcock that debuted in 1961 (thank you Wikipedia).  I did not see any reference on the page to the “four who are one” though.  It is entirely possible that KISS adopted the phrase to serve their purposes, so I won’t come down too hard on Roberson for that as he is probably just referencing the content of the books, but if not it just sounds weird to me and any other KISS fan I am sure.

            There was an instance toward the end of the book where one character has to fight someone else.  His words, and I quote “You want to do this?  Let’s do this.”  Really, I’m not making that shit up.  That is just lame and downright lazy writing.  You’re telling me you couldn’t come up with a better phrase than that?  Really?

2/10 – The story, while clear, really doesn’t do much in terms of engaging the reader.  Maybe it’s a better read if you have already invested in the previous ten issues, but I find that hard to believe. 

 Art:

            At least the art is good.  I do enjoy the intricate details that he puts into the background and costume elements.  The monster designs are very interesting as well.  

Very cool monster

Full shot of the monster, interesting design, the panel border that it is breaking is kind of ridiculous but the monster design is very well done

They are not standard looking monsters and have a more thought-out feel to their design and kind of look like something out of a Guillermo Del Torro wet dream, which is pretty cool.  The people all look pretty similar though, to the point where if they did not have different clothing on I would be unable to tell who was who. 

Ok, I get it, you are a fancy panel border master.

This just borders on absurd.

            My final complaint about the art is the panel borders.  Too many times Biagini uses what he probably deems to be “creative” panel borders.  Now I am fine with mixing it up every once in awhile but the constant use of gimmicks such as this, along with oddly shaped panels tell me that you are either trying to hard to be “artsy” or that you are overcompensating for a lack of storytelling ability.  The storytelling is ok, nothing groundbreaking, but ok; so I have to assume that Biagini is trying to do too much.  Time to reign that in as it is distracting and unattractive if it is repeated throughout the book.

6/10 – The art was undoubtedly the best part of the book.  It unfortunately was not good enough to carry a sub-par story though.

4/10 – It’s not the worst book I have read but probably only something to be picked up by die-hard fans of the creators or of Elric himself.

Men's Room Etiquette Rule 2

These last two strips were from back in 2004 when I started Eat @ Shrimpy's (they may be the first two strips I did, honestly at this point I can't remember) the following four strips in this series were written between then and now and drawn fairly recently, so there will be a slight stylistic change, just bear with me.