Popular Mechanics, unable to suspend its disbelief, provides an awesome illo and a few paragraphs of pure science that handily disprove the possibility of anything as huge as Godzilla ever walking the Earth.
Intellectual Takeout mag argues that classic cartoons “did more than mind-numbingly entertain a generation of children” — they also “introduced millions of young people to key facets of cultural literacy,” from Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” to great works of music, such as Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville,” as rendered by Bugs Bunny.
Should classic comics should ever be recolored? Some consider it an affront to the integrity of the original artwork. For others it’s essential to keeping great works in circulation and accessible to new generations of fans. Heavy Metal Magazine has pulled together a “before and after” gallery of iconic artwork by some of the biggest names in comics, including Moebius, Walt Simonson and Brian Bolland. Get an eyeful and decide for yourself.
Via Paste mag: Butthole Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes has penned a young adult novel, “Me & Mr. Cigar,” about a supernatural dog on the lam with his 17-year-old human. What could we possibly add to that beyond: The book arrives January 2020 — watch this space for a review.
June 6 was the 75th anniversary of the Allied Forces landing at Normandy Beach. It was the beginning of the end for Hitler in Europe, and some of the most important pop-cultural icons of the 20th century were on the scene.
A young Canadian named James Doohan had a rather spectacular record of heroics, leading a landing party ashore during the D-Day invasion, and later serving as a pilot in the Canadian Air Force. More than 20 years later he would achieve fame as Montgomery Scott, chief engineer of the USS Enterprise.
The great artist and storyteller Jack Kirby had already created Captain America before serving as a scout for the U.S. Army, and later witnessing the liberation of Nazi concentration camps.
Back at work in the States, he depicted anti-fascism on a cosmic scale, pitting his heroic New Gods against the villainous Darkseid, who imposed dehumanizing conformity on his victims via the Anti-Life Equation, a virulent psychic contagion propagated in part through media.
One of Darkseid’s key lieutenants, Glorious Godfrey, was a master manipulator of mass media, and a leading propagator of the Anti-Life Equation. Pop-cultural commentator Elana Levin asserts that in the character of Godfrey, Kirby created a “proto-Trump” demagogue right down to the “elaborate orange bouffant hairdo,” more than 40 years before the present day. (Godfrey was modeled on Billy Graham, whom Kirby accused of promoting a form of “Biblical fascism.”)
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