Back On Earth-22

Sorry for the webcam shots, I can't seem to get my new scanner to work. What else is new? I'm not kidding about the multiverse, as these shots illustrate. I hope I am visible between Batman and Wonder Woman in the second shot. Alex Ross was involved with a story to rival WATCHMEN, KINGDOM COME, back in 1996, and you can see me in the crowd scene near the Earth-22 Superman. Long story short, this Superman, in his fifties, has been in Justice Society of America for the last six months and went back to Earth-22 this past week. Alex Ross has said that everything would fit perfectly, in KC#4 an atomic bomb is dropped on the superheroes, killing all but a handful. At the moment of impact, the older Superman was shunted to the Earth-1. When he goes back, he is at that exact moment, and the next few pages are newly drawn but reflect several scenes from KC#4, including the one with me as a member of the United Nations. This may seem like an odd & rambling post for those who do not read comics, but it was like deja vu for me, seeing the scenes leading up to my minuscule appearance. You can see I have a larger image, again as a UN delegate, in an oversized book called SUPERMAN: PEACE ON EARTH. I hadn't expected to see myself again, my Earth-22 self, and I haven't changed a bit. Once I figure out the scanner, I'll post the original page again. But now you know that when I ramble on about Earth-14 and such, I'm not making it up, I'm out there in multiple guises.

BAYOU GIRL

The flame gun is real, Lana & Von. Its from a 1950s ad that was reprinted on the LA Times' Daily Mirror blog. The snow isn't that bad and I actually walked out in my Chinese See Thru Kitchen t-shirt (yep, its at 109th & Western). Then I promptly slipped and fell into the snow, but screw it. I'm almost dry and I have an Arby's sandwich waiting for me in a few minutes. I read BAYOU GIRL, by John Thompson, years back, read the entire book on my way to and from the Chicago ComicCon. Its not that great a book, pulp fiction at its lurid finest. But I've always loved one passage of the book, and I have long saved it with a list of quotes I've saved over the years. The rest of the book is mediocre, but something about this passage just stays in my head.

It isn’t a Colorado moon...it is a lecherous red...almost. It leers...a carnal, fertile leer that makes the blood stir. Here I can wallow in richness, I can touch beauty. I can walk in that cypress and tear off its’ needles and smear myself with stickiness, the blood of the tree. Here I am part of the scheme of everything because I can creep into the bloodstream. I do not have to sit on a crag and admire a distant abstract. Here beauty is not something to be seen, but tasted, eaten, worn.