[This was originally posted on my other site www.pointe-east.com on 11/12/2009)

Looking for Calvin and Hobbes was a very conflicting book. As a die hard Calvin and Hobbes fan, I WANT this book to be wonderful, and it has moments where it is a great book, but these moment are very few and far between. The biggest drawback that the book has is that there just is not enough information on Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin And Hobbes, to fill even a hundred and 150 pages, much less the 240 this book is. All of these extra pages are filled with descriptions of various strips and with interview after interview with other cartoonists, most of whom never met Watterson, or if they had only briefly, and there is just so many times you can read, “Calvin and Hobbes was so inspiring, I wish it was still being made.” (there is actually a whole chapter of these interviews.)

The other thing Martell does to pad his book, is he uses adjectives and lofty language, that is often used incorrectly or awkwardly. For example, while explaining one strip he refers to Calvin’s wagon as archetypal. this begs the question, what about the wagon is an archetype? Where else is this archetype used in the history of human story telling? This gets even more frustrating where later in the book Martell explains that nothing like Calvin’s wagon and sled rides had ever taken place. This is a minor criticism, and I came across two or three other little examples of a word used incorrectly, which made me wonder more about the editor of the book then Martell.  While these errors alone didn’t ruin this book, it took me out of the reading every time I hit one, and I hate that.

This is not to say that the book is without merits, infact at points it was extremely interesting. These moments happen when Martell is actually telling the story of Watterson. He goes into great detail about Watterson’s high school and college years, and then into his failed attempts to get a comic syndicated. It is these sections where Martell as the writer shines.  He is smart enough to get out of the way and let the story be told. (The struggle that Watterson has to keep his comic from being merchandised is particularly well written.)

In the end I don’t know where to exactly how to rate this book, but I think I am going to have to go with Recommend BUT, only the most hard core of Calvin and Hobbes fans should read this book, and of the book they should not be afraid to skip the chapters where Bill Watterson’s story is not being told, these sections are a total waste of time.

Good reading,
John K.

welcome to the first installment of a new ongoing feature that will point to the less then cool things i find to geek out on.

Today’s guilty pleasure?  Goal 2: Living the Dream.  (and yes it is as bad as it sounds.)

i saw the first Goal movie a few months ago on FX and i watched it because i had nothing else going on.  it was the gripping tale of a mexican-american boy, Santi, who ends up being a big football (soccer) star in England.  it was a fun little movie, and mostly what kept me in it was that i had nothing better to do.

But tonight i needed some background noise and found Goal 2 could be streamed from Netflix, through my Xbox and onto the TV.    All i can say is, this is way better, i will give you the five reasons to watch this movie.

1) The main character’s girlfriend, Roz, is played by Anna Friel… Chuck from Pushing Daisies.  (and she has a bad accent to boot!!!)

2) Santi gets injured in a manor fitting Zoom Zoom Zumaya.

3) Has maybe the bratiest kid this side of Bart Simpson, and he only speaks Spainish so if annoying kids isnt your thing, you can ignore him.

4) two words: Lamborghini chase.

5) Lots o’ David Beckham!!!

should you go and check this out? i dont know, you need to be quite a football dork, but it made me happy.

It’s the quiet, early morning of April 11, 1821.  He sits in a wicker chair on the side of the street. She’s sitting in the matching chair next to him.  They both look off at the city before them. The Hagia Sophia is just visible on the horizon, the morning sun climbing slowly into the sky.
She peeks a glance towards him and says, “You look strong.”
“Thanks.”
“No, really, you look healthy, capable.  When do you expect Yanni?”
“He should have been here now.”  He looks down at his hands in his lap, as if he is reading his fortune in his palm.
“Are sure you don’t want any breakfast?”
“Well, maybe some coffee, Ma.”
She smiles at him and goes inside for a moment.  When she reappears, she holds two cups with steam rising from them.  He has risen and is looking down the street.
“Here’s your coffee. Is there any sign of him?”
“Thank you. No, no sign.” He sits, taking the cup from her, and having a sip.
“I hope they didn’t get him.”
“I am sure he is just running late.”
They sit, silently sipping their coffee for a few moments. Finally she says, “The dome looks beautiful this morning.”
“Yeah, I guess it does.”
“Do you remember the story I used to tell you about the cathedral?”
“Which one?”
“The one about the patriarch who was performing mass when the Turks came.”
“Yeah, Ma, I remember.  You said that when they entered the city, he took the eucharist and ran into a secret room whose door vanished when he closed it, and, it is said that once the Turks are driven from Constantinople, he will emerge from that room, and finish the mass.”
“You shouldn’t be sarcastic! It’s a true story, you know.”
“Then it is too bad that Patriarch Grigorios V didn’t have a secret room to hide in yesterday when the Turks hanged him at the gate.”
“You think you are funny, Dimitrios?” she raises her hand to smack him.
“No, Ma, I’m just saying.”
“What? What are you saying?”
“Nothing, mom.  I’m sorry.”
“You think it is funny to make fun of a great man’s death? Is that it?”
He takes a sip of his coffee, hoping the pause will help the subject drop. After a second, he says, “I wonder what the cathedral looked like without the minarets.”
“Just put your hands up and cover them like this while you look, then you will know.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“You said you wanted to know what it looked like without the minarets, I told you how to find out. What else could you have meant?”
“I meant, I wonder what it was like before the Turks.  I meant, I wonder what it was like to be free.  That’s what I meant, Mother.”
“You talk to me like this? Today of all days?”
“Is that what this is about, Mom?”
“What what’s about?”
“Don’t play dim with me, Mom. Is that what your anger is about.”
“I am not angry, I’m upset.  You are going off with Yanni to kill yourselves.  It’s an upsetting thing to know I will never see you again.”
“I am not going to kill myself.  I’m going to fight for our independence.”
“You are going to go fight the Turkish army, the people that God allowed to kill our Patriarch.  You don’t think that is suicide?”
“No, Mother, I think it is the right thing to do.” His eyes are fixed on hers, and he sees only pain in them.  “Ma, I’m sorry, I know you are scared for me, but I will be all right, I promise.” He reaches his hand out and takes hers.
Her head nods up and down, and she smiles.  After a second she says, “It’s cold in the mountains. you remembered your heavy cloths right?”
“Yes, Ma, they’re in my bag.” He takes a sip of his coffee and looks down the street for Yanni.

I was sitting at work a few minutes ago, and i was thinking about humor.  what is humor? how does it work? am i funny?  I am quickly getting to the point where i dont think i am…. yet.

I have really come to the conclusion that humor, in its purest form, is looking at the world from a slightly different perspective.  One that is different and unique to the person who is viewing it, but not so unique that it is completely  foreign to anyone else.  a good joke teller makes us see the world he does, it is the relating, the ability to make us “get it” that makes them funny.  Lenny Bruce is the perfect example of this being successfully and unsuccessfully implamented.  Bruce’s early work had a quality that was universal, but when he took to standing and reading his court transcripts, well, he thought it was funny, but he couldn’t get anyone else to.

But am i funny?  i hope so.  i doubt it, but i hope so.  i think that i might need to temper myself some, my view is slightly harsh.  i see lunacy, but seldom look at it as funny, and i think that that last step needs to be taken.  i often feel like the low man on the totem pole, like a Rodney Dangerfield standing and wondering why i “get no respect,” i think it may be time to laugh at it, instead of being angered by it.  It will be an interesting experiment.

As for communicating my unique world view to you, well i should figure out how to be funny first.

I sat down the other day, and in my new found quest to start my own webcomic, I decided I needed to make a list of what I need to learn to do this successfully.  So i made a list.

1: learn to draw.  Ok, i have been working on this for about 4 months, and while i don’t think anyone will be paying me for anything anytime soon, it’s coming along.

2: learn how to use comicpress and wordpress.  And so i am now blogging on my wordpress page that i had someone else set up for me, and i am now trying to make it look the way i want.

3: learn how to write funny.  This last one is proving to be very hard.  There is really no way to learn how to tell a good joke in the confines of the comic strip format, so i have been pouring over old comic strips like, Doonesbury, Bloom County, and Calivin and Hobbes.

But still, I do not fell I am getting any funnier, or rather that I am not learning how to pace a joke.  I have decided that I needed to watch comedy TV shows to see if i couldn’t see where i was going wrong.  I watched sitcom after sitcom (Including the just discovered by me, “How I Met You Mother.”  If you have not seen this yet, you really should, Mucho funny), and after a while, I found I was bored.  It was at that moment that it struck me.  I thought to myself, “Self, you have an internet connection.  The whole of television history is at your finger tips, so, self, what show would you like to watch?”

I thought for a moment, and then it hit me, “Tiny Toons.”  yes, that lovely cartoon from my childhood with the wonderful Babs and Buster Bunny.  The luminary series that brought us such catch phrases as “It’s the nineties” and “Water go down the hole.” (Remember when you couldn’t walk down a middle school hallway without hearing one of thoughs!)

I went on the magical interweb and got them right then and there.  I watched episode after episode, loving most of it, and amazed that i still knew the words to the theme song, and the plots of so many of them.  Just as i did as a child,I found I liked the full length stories, over the shorts, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that Plucky Duck was indeed the funniest mallard in cartoon history. (I mean this, and i will defend this opinion against all comers.)

After 9 hours worth of Acme Loonversity’s students, I was a little tired of them, so I decided to turn on something more serious, more adult, yet still holding to my youth oriented throw back.  I put in my Batman the Animated Series DVD’s.  I bought these about four years ago, and watched them all once through, but haven’t looked at them since.  It is really amazing just how good they are, it makes me wish that the crap that is published in the batman comics (OK, ok, the Neil Gaiman issues still have the jury out on them, but Battle for the Cowl is just poop on a page,) could be half as good as these were.  the Batgirl shows are still my favorites stories about that character ever written.

But there was a problem, I was no longer watching anything with consistent punchlines, but I REALLY wasn’t in the mood to watch more Tiny Toons.  I went and got the only other thing I could think of, “Anamaniacs”. the Warner Brothers and their sister Dot.  Oh how I had loved these more than anything as a child, and I still do!  I mean, Christ, Slappy Squirrel was so good she should have had her own cartoon, even if she is the weakest character on this show.  There were two things that I did find interesting, first, Pinky and the Brain really get boring quick.  It is the same joke over an over, and they really need space between viewings.  The other revelation, well…. MY GOD, the singing pieces are fantastic.  The World and The Universe have such delicious word play, and wonderfully silly Grocho Marx dances preformed between verses by Wacko.

At the time they originally aired, I hated them, and to learn that I now love them is shocking, but I think it is because I haven’t had to see the numb nuts who used to walk around my middle school having memorized them and having everybody think he was AWESOME for it.  (I REALLY hated that fuck, he was not funny. He was actually a complete dick.)

So what did I learn what I wanted from this?  Was i suddenly able to be funny?  Do I now stand at the threshold of the greatest webcomic ever written?   Well, No, No, and Maybe, but that is neither here nor there, the truth is, I had fun.  Yes indeed, for a few nights I was able to be thirteen again.  It made me happy.