Heyo, everyone, took me a well-deserved weeklong break, and now I’m all ready to go, batteries recharged, et cetera!

No, let’s be honest, I got good and lazy and didn’t feel like writing anything for way longer than I should. That and trying to catch up on cool TV shows. Y’all should be watching “What We Do in the Shadows” and “Doom Patrol,” y’all realize that, right?

It’s a difficult time to be focused on writing, largely due to high stress. It’s not easy living in a borderline fascist dictatorship — especially one that’s working extra hard to kill as many people as it can because it’s either that or, quelle horreur, wear a facemask — and worrying about that all the time keeps you exhausted and unproductive, more eager to engage in low-effort hobbies like video games than chores like writing that require you to actually use your brain…

As always, I struggle with what kind of content to drop here. I can dig up the occasional review, but I really don’t know whether anyone cares for reviews. Comics news is vanishingly hard to find nowadays. I could post more of my photos, but I suspect that’s more for my own ego and self-aggrandizement.

Rants are easy as pie to come up with nowadays — I did mention the borderline fascist dictatorship, right? — but I’m trying to control my entirely understandable rage issues, mostly to keep me from showing up in your newsfeed at some point for tearing a governor’s throat out with my fangs.

So in the absence of anything else, let’s check out a few interesting links.

• A lengthy summary of the long-standing culture of abuse permeating the comics industry.
• Closely related: a long review and analysis of the abuse conducted at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (which, IMO, needs to be completely disbanded yesterday).
• Writers, producers, and showrunners, writing anonymously, talk about what it’s like to make cop shows in an age where we know there are no heroes on police forces.
• Seriously, I’d feel safer surrounded by a thousand armed Black Panthers than I would being with any unarmed Nazis. (Also, never forget: The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi.)
• Diversity in gaming is a big topic right now, and I really enjoyed the R’lyeh Reviews essay on a book that focuses on playing games that are less reliant on stereotypes about fantasy races.
• A very entertaining history of the Slip ‘N Slide.
• You guys need to watch every single Bigtop Burger video.

Hey! It’s International Linkdump Day! Yes, I just invented that day myself. The important thing is that we all get the day off! YAY, DAY OFF! Also, we get a bunch of links to click on. YAY, LINKS TO CLICK ON!

• Lubbock artist Dustin Wallace — who I got to meet at the Lubbock Comic Book Expo — got a nice mention in Boing Boing. He makes metal insect-lizard monsters that look fantastically cool.
• DC is bringing back all their old Silver Age characters, at the expense of the tiny bit of racial diversity they’d tried to build up in recent years. Chris Sims provides the excellent analysis.
• Green Ronin Publishing, the company that makes the highly-excellent “Mutants and Masterminds” RPG, is going to be publishing the new DC Comics RPG.
• An eight-year-old girl who loves horror movies requested a zombie-themed birthday party, so her mom made this awesome cake. Awesome eight-year-old girl and mother? Or AWESOMEST eight-year-old girl and mother?
• KISS goes to Homecoming.
• Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse” played on GIANT HARMONICAS!
• You all love “Twin Peaks,” right? I mean, that gum you like is going to come back in style! Did you know David Lynch made a bunch of “Twin Peaks” ads for a Japanese coffee company? Well, he did!
• This is a little bit rude, but very funny. Grownups only, please, may go read about dinosaurs and sodomy.

And now for the most important part of International Linkdump Day — the ceremonial Sending Gigantic Checks to the Dude Running the Comic Book Blog…

It’s been a while since I threw a bunch of links up here, and with Spidercat’s protection, all of you will be too terrified to stop me! Huzzah, Spidercat! Ack, get it away, get it away!

Anyway, everything I’ve got this time is political or semi-political. Completely unexpected and definitely unusual, but that’s how it turned out this time. No crazy videos this time, so sorry, just stuff to make some of you guys rant at the ceiling.

• The Last Republican in the Texas Lege
• Republican David Frum — George W. Bush’s former speechwriter, no less — on how Republican extremists and pundits are killing the GOP.
• And one of Frum’s readers says the GOP’s current love for extremists and whackjobs has run him off. This stuff really is weird to me. The crazy building-bombing militia movement wasn’t that long ago — it’s weird to see people getting suckered by violent nutbars again after only a couple decades. I know there are tons and tons of people like this dude who know that you can’t run a healthy political movement on a strict diet of crazysauce and locoweed, but the sensible folks are getting completely ignored because the crackpots are so much better for ratings…
• Kevin Church’s domestic terrorism linkblog
• This says a lot of stuff I’ve been thinking lately about the lack of empathy shown for people having a rough time economically and about the way we seem to devalue our fellow man and over-value megacorps. We like to think of ourselves as an unusually giving and empathetic country, but these days, it seems like everyone’s competing to be the cruelest and most hard-hearted.
• David Brooks thinks he’s better than you. Let’s see a show of hands — anybody here think David Brooks could handle more than five minutes of ditch-digging, waiting tables, or scrubbing toilets? Nah, I didn’t think so. Everything I’ve ever read from this guy makes me amazed that he can make it through the day without getting beat up by angry mobs.
• Dallas sports anchor Dale Hansen tees off on his station’s management for what he believes are poor news decisions. I agree with a lot of what he says (but not all) — I think it’s worth watching just to enjoy the bracing slap-in-the-face awesomeness of a guy telling his bosses he really, really disagrees with them (though Hansen is a Dallas sports broadcasting mainstay, so his job is absolutely safe).
• I’m not normally a fan of these TED talks — they tend to be a bit too buzzword-heavy and detail-vague to be really useful, but I enjoyed the talk by Mike Rowe (from the Discovery Channel’s wonderfully gross “Dirty Jobs” series) about why dirty and unglamorous jobs are so important. It’s 20 minutes long, though, so make sure you’ve got a half-hour or so to watch it…
• These Teach the Controversy T-shirts are awesome.
• And to drag comics, at least briefly, into the conversation, while still sticking with the political theme, here’s Paul Cornell, writer of the fantastically awesome “Captain Britain and MI-13” series from last year, on the question of why Christianity always seems to equal homophobe.

And that’s what I got this time. Hopefully, my next linkdump will have a lot more goofy stuff…

It’s been a while since I unloaded some of my stored-up links, ain’t it? Spend some time clicking on these while you try to recover from your weekend…

• Monday morning seems like a good time to review a list of the worst bosses ever. See? Even your boss can’t be that bad…
• Via A-J entertainment editor William Kerns: Lubbock fiddler Amanda Shires of the Thrift Store Cowboys recently scored a guest appearance in a “Hi & Lois” comic strip.
• A tale of an auto-appendectomy by the toughest Russian surgeon in the Antarctic.
• Things the media loves to pretend are news.
• Gorgeous office buildings
• Unused Plastic Man cartoon pilot.
• Really interesting example of D&D being played on a tabletop device called the Surface.
• Speaking of roleplaying games, did you know it’s Read an RPG in Public Week?
• No more whining about bloggers, please. Our awesomeness cannot be contained. (For additional lolz, here’s a Newsweek article from 1995 declaring that this upstart Intarwebz thing will never catch on.)

Merry clicking, and here’s hoping you survive your Monday…

Before I get into today’s reviews, I got a few local comics-related links I wanna throw at you.

• First, if you haven’t visited Star Comics’ website in a while, you may have missed that they’re doing some podcasting now — specifically, the new “Nerd Alert!” podcasts.
• Second, self-proclaimed Nerd Bully Todd Gray has started his own local comics blog, Fanboy Fun, with tons of reviews and occasional cemetery spookiness.
• Third, if any of y’all are on Facebook, you can find the Hero Sandwich Facebook page right over here.
• And finally, a non-local comics link: Cole’s Comics is a blog focusing on the artwork of Jack Cole, creator of Plastic Man and one of the greatest cartoonists of the Golden Age (or come to think of it, any age). Go check it out.

And now: Reviews!

The Atom and Hawkman #46

As part of the “Blackest Night” crossover, DC is temporarily reanimating old cancelled comics. This issue focuses on Ray Palmer, the Atom, in his new role as a member of the Indigo Tribe, powered by compassion. He battles the zombified Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and Jean Loring, and is appointed to guard Indigo-1 while she summons the rest of the Indigo Tribe so they can start teleporting all of the various Lantern Corps to Earth. We also learn something about the powers of the Indigo power rings — they can capable of channeling any of the other power rings’ abilities if a user of one of them is nearby. Indigo-1 pukes blood like a Red Lantern when she gets mad, and Ray calls up the power of Larfleeze’s Orange Lantern ring while demanding that he wants his friends back. But when Jean shrinks herself into Indigo-1’s ring to attack her, will Ray be able to stop her in time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very well-written and beautifully illustrated. Loved the new details about how the Indigo rings work, loved the flashbacks to Ray’s previous life, loved the way Ray’s Indigo Tribe costume ends up calling back to his sword-and-sorcery adventures among the tiny aliens in the Amazon rain forest. And I loved the ending, too.

The Phantom Stranger #42

And another revived “Blackest Night” crossover issue. The Phantom Stranger and Blue Devil try to stop the Godzilla-sized Black Lantern Spectre, to more or less no effect, but he takes off when he senses where Hal Jordan is. The Stranger and the Devil turn their attention to the opened grave of Boston Brand — a.k.a. Deadman. They soon track him to his old Himalayan stomping grounds at Nanda Parbat, where he’s trying to stop a bunch of Black Lantern zombies by possessing them with his ghostly form. Unfortunately, possessing zombies tends to mess up Brand’s mind, and the Stranger has to break him out of his spell. That still leaves the problem of Brand’s long-dead skeletal body, which is being operated by one of the black rings. The key to saving Nanda Parbat is to get Deadman’s body and spirit re-united long enough to slip through the city’s mystic shield — but Deadman has previously been unable to possess his old body. Can he do it now?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not the best of these crossovers, as there’s a bit too much jumping around from one place to another. But it moves the larger story forward, and the Phantom Stranger always has been one of my favorite of DC’s mysterious mystic characters.

Hey, look! It’s Batman riding an elephant!

And now — LINKS.

• John Kricfalusi, creator of “Ren and Stimpy,” writes a fan and offers animation and art advice.
• Jan Gabriel, the guy who created the “Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!” speedway commercials, has died.
• I have complete sympathy for any retail folks who have to deal with us frequently idiotic or insane customers.
• A couple of videos featuring the Muppets and death metal.
• And speaking of death metal: Prepare yourself for… DEATH METAL ROOSTER.
• A bunch of tattoos just for you science geeks.
• Here’s an interesting video on the something called Change Blindness.
• Author Peter Watts puts a new perspective on a sci-fi classic with “The Things“
• And finally, here are 100 game-themed cupcakes. Can you identify them all?

Hope those links will keep y’all happily clicking through your Friday…

Hey, New Year’s Eve! The end of 2009, the beginning of 2010. Everyone be safe out there tonight and enjoy whatever you’re doing. Call a cab if you need it, and don’t torture your cat with drunken hijinx. They can steal your breath away, man!

Need something to kill time while you’re waiting for the celebrations to start? Here are some links for ya:

• Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo Hidden-Picture feature
• The close links between heroism and sociopathy
• The Adventures of Lil Cthulhu
• Speaking of Cthulhu, here’s an article focusing on Lovecraft’s greatest creation as a humor icon.
• Hyper-high-speed bullet impacts
• I love this (proposed) skyscraper.
• And here’s the greatest performance of “The Final Countdown” ever.

Here’s hoping 2010 is a lot better for all of us, right?

Hey! It’s Christmas Eve Eve! Do we get to open presents yet? No?! I’M TIRED OF WAITING.

Fine, I’ll let y’all amuse yourselves with a few links, some holiday-related, some not-so-holiday-related.

• Here’s Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus as performed by monks who’ve taken a vow of silence.
• A lot of your favorite Christmas music was written by Jewish songwriters. Take that, War on Christmas!
• Here’s a 100% whacked-out disturbing Johnny Ryan comic called “The Miracle.”
• If you haven’t seen this one yet, it’s definitely worth watching — the Muppets perform Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
• Speaking of the Muppets: here’s Cookie Monster singing along with Rammstein.
• Make your own Marvel Super Hero Squad comic.
• Something tells me this story isn’t exactly true, but what the heck: Kung-Fu Monkeys — ATTACK!
• And a little seasonal superhero fun — Flash and the Ultra-Humanite team up… for Christmas!

There are my little pre-Christmas presents to you guys. Just remember to get me what I’ve always wanted — impossibly expensive real estate.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a good old-fashioned linkdump, so let’s see what’s been taking up space in my browser:

• First, have you seen Star Comics’ new website? It’s pretty sweet.
• 70 facts you didn’t know about Marvel
• Gavok at 4thLetter examines the similarities between Alan Moore’s “The Killing Joke” and Grant Morrison’s “Batman and Robin”
• MightyGodKing’s brilliant alternate-history story about the Beatles
• I’ve got zero interest in “2012” — I kept wanting to laugh at the extended clips of the destruction of Los Angeles — so I felt like this really was the perfect soundtrack for the movie.
• And finally, everyone has a Twitter feed by now, including Big Ben. Yes, the big clock tower in London.
• And speaking of Twitter, have you seen the Fake AP Stylebook? One of the creators is Mike Sterling, proprietor of Progressive Ruin.

Hope that’ll keep you guys happily clicking and reading for a few hours…

Sorry, there will not actually be any pie.

• Constantine Xinos of Oak Brook, Illinois, is the Worst Person in the World.
• For you science geeks, here are some variations on the periodic table.
• Project Censored’s top 25 stories you should know about but probably have never heard about.
• Follow Hobo Darkseid on Twitter! (Link is not safe for work)
• Charles Bukowski’s Peanuts (Link is definitely not safe for work)
• “Science is Real” by They Might Be Giants!
• Star Trek meets Monty Python!
• The creepiest ten-minutes of music ever.

Oh, okay, here’s some pie.