Brave New World

Just Plain Creepy

This set of photos I found on flickr, part of an abandoned building set, reminded me of a building I was stuck in, it was a dream I had as a kid, I was lost, lots of stairs with no railings and huge, bloated violet spiders swinging back and forth. At the end of a hallways was that Mr. Salty mascot, the pretzel in the sailor hat. Never knew if he was my ally or foe, as I always woke up when I saw him.

Sunset Castle & Unknown City

This Is The End, My Friend

More of Steely Dan's shots, and there's a shot of the Archer bridge before the Orange Line was built, then the fantastic sight of the multiple bridges (Archer Bridge, Orange Line, and Interstate 55), and the nice shot of how the soupy water just slops against the wall. And, again, I cannot explain why there are new homes being built anywhere within the vicinity of the creek, though Rich suggests they might be transplants from Innsmouth, which does make sense...

Bubbly Creek Panoramic

Well, if I'm to believe the photo by Steely Dan posted correctly, then yeah, panoramic. See, at one point the South Branch of the Chicago River breaks away to become that little turdball we call Bubbly Creek, running roughly from 35th to 39th Street, not far at all. So, in answer to Bob's question, you can kayak through those fumes. Hell, they're putting a nice little group of houses up called Bridgeport Village and they more likely than not have no clue about the fumes because they only read the stock ticker or watch whatever the hell cable channel you watch when you are some rich guy's anorexic wife. Let them suck up those cow corpse germs at the next backyard BBQ. Going back to what I started and then promptly forgot, the panoramic shot will show the intersection. I stumbled across this 1905 photo of the Archer Avenue bridge being built and thought I'd slip it in here. Also, Steve. The north side wouldn't toss wine bottles in the river, they are too cool for that. No, they drink their beer out of bottles, MGD or Budweiser all the way.

Bubbly Creek Via Kayak

OK, enough about comics and light bulb accidents. Yes, I flirt with death quite often. Sadly, I think I'm in Perdition. Yea, Steve, I've always thought I was the Bruce Willis character in UNBREAKABLE (more so in 12 MONKEYS), but a lot of people said I was more the Sam Jackson character. Quite a few people didn't "get" the film, I think because they aren't comic geeks. I always will be, though I am more often making my purchase based on a writer or an artist (examples being JG Jones and Alex Ross, as you by now know). Hell, I'm still geeked out over that last image of Superman & Batman, who, of course, is not dead. It's not a cop-out, though, if you are familiar with Jack Kirby's work, you'd get exactly what happened there.

Well, NOW maybe I'll get to talk about my favorite haint in Chicago. I was Googling images a few weeks ago and came up with some great posts, over thirty photos, a guy named Steely Dan took on an 11 mile kayak ride from downtown, past Bubbly Creek to about Western Avenue. I'll run maybe ten photos over the next day or so, as many of them are photos of downtown buildings. Posted here are an old radio tower, some weird square with a cannonball from the future in it, actual bubbles in the water, and the purest sign that we are on the south side of Chicago...an Old Style can discarded in the water. More tomorrow.

Final Crisis...Again

Issue 6 out of 7 arrived yesterday. This is the first issue that quite a bit of the artwork was not by JG Jones. For all intents, the last page is exactly as you see it, because for the next few years Bruce Wayne will not be Batman (Wayne will be back, but its confusing enough talking comics and keeping you interested w/o explaining everything, though I'll say, its not a cop-out or a sales ploy, there's a good reason why Wayne will not be around until maybe 2011). But check the final page (by Dough Mahnke) of #6 compared to JG Jones's final page in #3 (Wonder Woman, Catwoman, and Batwoman with a ball gag in her mouth), one can only imagine how Jones would have depicted the former. Something I forgot to mention in earlier posts, Grant Morrison created this wonderful Japanese superhero team led by Most Excellent Super-Bat and they are called the Super Young Team. Here is an entry from the sketchbook as well as from FC#2. I'm going to miss JG Jones's work on FC#7. Just compare those first two images, man. That second image is what my dreams look like.