Hot dog, a new awesome update for City of Heroes! Ya know what that means? Wait, actually, I don’t care if you don’t know what that means — I’m too busy playing on the computer!

Here’s some links, so keep yer yaps shut while Daddy’s busy!

• Possibly the best fake punt ever!
• Hey, you can follow the Hulk on Twitter!
• Has Halloween become overcommercialized?
• Roadrunner vs. Roadrunner!
• Ayn Rand was a horrible person.

‘Scuse me, gotta fight cybernetic supervillains now. EAT RADIOACTIVE LASER BEAMS, EVILDOER SCUM!

Wow, that was an amazingly ineffective weekend. Just two days? Weekends should be at least three or four days long, at the least.

Ain’t nothing like looking at the clock and realizing it’s almost bedtime on Sunday night and you’re not even ready for the workweek, much less a new blog post. So links? Yeah, I got links.

• Can you believe I missed Duff’s column about webcomics? Loved the reminder of demented video-game hater Jack Thompson’s many epic-fails…
• Wanna see what the best Friday Night Fights fights were, for all of the FNF participants, for the last 12-week series? Check ’em out, and then vote for your favorites.
• 21 artists who changed mainstream comics for better or worse, along with…
• …21 writers who changed mainstream comics for better or worse.
• Roland Emmerich directing Asimov’s “Foundation”? NO. No, No, NO. Seriously, why can’t Hollywood come up with good adapations for one of sci-fi’s best writers?
• Here are about a billion parodies of da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” some better than others, but all of them pretty well mapped together. It’s fun to see which characters get identified as Judas.
• Wanna be cruel to a Libertarian/Randroid cluttering up your life? First show them this cartoon. Then show them this cartoon. Enjoy the fireworks.
• The music from the Mos Eisley Cantina, as performed by an a cappella ensemble.
• Nothing — NOTHING — can ever prepare you for the sheer, astounding, infinitely and awesomely heart-pounding DRAMA of this.
• And finally, just because I love you all, here’s a happy and wholesome video about clowns.

Ahh, your screams of terror are just the music I need to carry me through this awful Monday…

My List o’ Fantastic Links is getting increasingly large and unruly, which means it’s time for y’all to get ready for a whole bunch of wonderful links to click on! Huzzah, it’s the true meaning of Christmas!

• First, an announcement: This Saturday, August 8th, Awesome Books at 3009A 34th Street here in Lubbock will host local author Sherrie Spychaj for a book signing from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sherrie’s book is called “Staying Safe: Helping Victims of Abuse,” and it’s full of information that could save your life or the life of someone you know. Come on down and check it out.
• “Weird Al” Yankovic’s new song is a tribute to the Baddest Man in Showbiz.
• Who here doesn’t love awesome dinosaurs? Right, y’all need to read “Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs” by Leonard Richardson, who is also awesome.
• Project Rooftop has the winners in their latest contest to redesign Wolverine’s costume.
• Hey, wanna see Daredevil strip down to his skivvies? Sure ya do!
• The most addictive site on the ‘net? Other than “Hero Sandwich”? It’s TV Tropes. Just surf through a few of their categories, and you may never be able to escape.
• And finally, the best Rickroll in history.

There, that should destroy any chance you’ve got to have a productive workday…

Well, goodness knows, we all want a better life, don’t we? And what easier yet more unreliable method is there to get a better life than to click on links on a comic book blog? Have at them!

• A bunch of superheroes just ran for mayor of Washington, DC! Better Life Factor: Anything’s better than regular politicians!
• Your Guide to Geek Arguments! Better Life Factor: Now you know what to listen for so you’ll be able to run away before any geek arguments break out around you!
• Results for the annual Bulwer-Lytton Writing Contest! Better Life Factor: The Bulwer-Lytton Writing Contest rocks, and you should go here and enjoy all the winners.
• And a defense of Bulwer-Lytton himself! Better Life Factor: ‘Cause yew needs some larnin’, fool!
• Nearly all of EC Comics’ “Judgment Day” story! Better Life Factor: This is an outstanding story, and it’s nice that EC was able to get this one published before they went out of business.
• The Big Three sci-fi magazines don’t accept e-mail submissions? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Better Life Factor: You can officially say you have more technical know-how than this bunch of supposed sci-fi geeks.
• Best reveal of a movie monster ever! Better Life Factor: This is awesome.

Huzzah! Now we all finally have better lives!

(sniffs) Hey, my new life smells like old socks.

🙁

My List o’ Awesome Links is getting increasingly long and unwieldy, so let’s trim it down a bit.

• A short list of phrases that originated in comic strips.
• Old Spider-Man is old…
• …and Young Captain America is not THAT blasted young!
• Dangit, is there some state law that whoever runs the Texas school board has to be a lunatic science-hating, education-hating hypocrite? Can’t they just pick someone who wants to keep kids educated, instead of going with yet another pathetic theocratic crackpot?
• Hope we’re not too far past Independence Day for me to point out this very cool art essay by Maira Kalman about Thomas Jefferson and Monticello.
• And finally, Dorian Wright finds a Golden Age comic with a black character who isn’t an insulting racist stereotype.

Hope that’ll keep y’all happily clicking away this morning — y’all have a happy Tuesday…

A little of this, a little of that. Click away, gang!

• A blog all about the comics of one of my favorite cartoonists, Jack Cole, creator of Plastic Man!
• Here’s a really entertaining overview of the history of Captain Marvel by NPR, of all people.
• And a nice article about the very close connections between the Apollo space program and Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” comic strip.
• Graeme McMillan ponders why Wonder Woman is such a hard character for people to get. (Simple answer: Superman and Batman are simple characters, and Wondy is much, much more complex.)
• A bit of a longer rant, triggered by this post by Aaron Williams about the “City of Heroes” MMO game: The new “Mission Architect” feature, which lets players create their own missions and storyarcs for other players to enjoy, is in deep, deep trouble, despite being awesome beyond awesome. You can have only three games available for the other players to play, and even then, no one will ever play them because there’s no good way to promote your stories. My three published storyarcs (which feature evil undead monsters, a cheerleader cult, and my attempt at bleak horror) have been played by fewer than 20 people, and the other impossibly awesome stories I’ve designed (which feature battles against hero teams and villain teams, out-of-control robots, the world’s toughest gangster girlfriends, and hobos) will probably never see the light of day. I sure hope the game’s developers can figure out some solution to all their Mission Architect problems…

Aaaaand that’s it for today. Merry Tuesday, everyone — see youse guys tomorrow!

Maybe you’ve heard of this “Blackest Night” crossover coming up this summer? If you loves you some spoilers, you might wanna check out DC’s new solicits, with covers that show off some of the dastardly zombie plots that the Black Lanterns will be working on. (Also, Beast Boy needs a real girlfriend.)

Speaking of unspeakable horror, please enjoy this website dedicated to Awkward Family Photos.

Now, as promised, funny videos:

• The Goonies of the Caribbean
• Just one reason why Texas would be better off without our bizarrely science-hating State School Board
• Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus! (with Debbie Gibson!)
• Michael Bay’s “My Little Pony” (and the action director’s amazingly awesome Verizon commercial)
• Cat Yodeling!
• And finally, the world’s greatest ventriloquist Senor Wences on “The Muppet Show.”

One more little bit of fun for your Tuesday: build your own paper dolls of Alan Moore.

I’ve been writing about nothing but the Lubbock Comic Book Expo for a couple of weeks, and we all need a quick palate-cleanser.

• The opening cinematic of the new Ghostbusters video game.
• “The Sound of Music” in a train station.
• Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” as performed by a bunch of old computer parts.
• A giant centipede eats a bat.
• Can’t go wrong with the classics: Monty Python’s “Galaxy Song”.

And that’s that. You may now return to your usual workaday schedule.

Ain’t feeling like doing any reviews today, so let’s see what’s in the link stash.

• Who’s going to be mayor of New York City?!
• Who’s teaming up with the Punisher?!
• This seems fairly weird, ’cause I’m a big fan of this contest, but I’m pretty sure this is the first time in years that there’ve been no results announced for the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Did they get no entrants this year? Did they run out of money? Did they lose interest? Who knows…
• As far as this goes, (1) the Texas constitution doesn’t actually give the state permission to secede from the US — it says Texas can split into five all-new states, but it sure doesn’t give secession a thumbs-up. Bad enough that Rick Perry’s talking treason in an attempt to appeal to the crazies, but the poor idiot doesn’t even know his own state constitution. (2) Not that it matters. Kay Bailey is gonna kick his high-toned, hair-sprayed, uncharismatic, unbelievably desperate butt so hard, he’s gonna have to climb a ladder to put his pants on. No amount of kissing up to the crazies is gonna change that, ’cause Rick Perry is just a deeply dislikeable critter.
• Remember the trailer I linked a while back for the new film version of “Where the Wild Things Are“? You won’t wanna miss this trailer for “Everyone Poops.”
• Ladies and gentlemen: The NOM NOM Song.

That does it for my link stash, so I sure better have some actual content for tomorrow, right?

This seems like an appropriate day to post a bunch of fun links and news items.

ITEM: Project: Rooftop announces the winners of their contest to redesign Batman’s costume. Most of the winners went with a strategy of designing a Batman costume for Nightwing.

ITEM: Happy Birthday, Supergirl! The Girl of Steel was created 50 years ago!

ITEM: Augie De Blieck Jr. has a very cool review of John Byrne’s classic “Sensational She-Hulk” run from the late ’80s.

ITEM: Hack fantasy writer Terry Goodkind is a lousy writer and a horrible person, as these hilarious excerpts (with associated parodies) demonstrate.

ITEM: EXTREEEEEME SHEEPHERDING!

ITEM: Could I just register my amazement that, if this trailer is any indication, the creators of the upcoming “Where the Wild Things Are” movie appear to have actually made an excellent adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book?

ITEM: I’m wildly in agreement with this awesomely cathartic rant about the state of newspapers these days. There are way too many reporters looking for work, and way too many greedy, short-sighted media conglomerate owners walking around with fat pocketbooks and undented craniums.

ITEM: A free, demented SubGenius rant. Don’t like it? Reload the page for another.

ITEM: On a personal note, I gave my 30-days notice to move out of my apartment. Nope, haven’t gotten a job yet — I just don’t want to keep paying $600 in rent every month. I’ll be moving in with my brother at the end of April. I don’t like moving, for any reason, but it must be done. So expect light posting toward the end of the month.