Archive for October, 2012

The Monsters Are Coming to the Ballot Box

Check out this crazy story:

The Republican Party of Maine has revealed that Democratic State Senate candidate Colleen Lachowicz has a secret life that she’s been hiding from voters. Drug use? A Swiss bank account? No, sadly, even worse: she has a scary-looking World of Warcraft character.

“Colleen Lachowicz spends hundreds of hours playing in her online world Azeroth, as an Orc Assassination Rogue named Santiaga,” reads a flyer sent to voters in the district. It’s identified as funded by the Maine Republican Party.

“I love poisoning and stabbing! It is fun,” the flyer quotes Lachowicz as saying. The candidate is apparently a regular commenter at DailyKos, a liberal blog. And the Maine GOP has mined the site looking for what it regards as damning comments. Most of Lachowicz’s remarks were posted in 2009 or 2010, most likely before she began her current campaign for office.

(snip)

Lachowicz uses salty language in some of the comments, but someone needs to sit the Maine GOP down and explain the difference between fantasy and reality. Every day, millions of people engage in simulated video game violence without committing any real-world violence. By suggesting a World of Warcraft hobby should disqualify someone for office—and implying that voters are too dumb to tell the difference between virtual and real violence—the party is only embarrassing itself.

I don’t even know where to start with that one.

Obviously, there’s the bizarre equating of playing a game with real life, as if the candidate’s fondness of playing an orc rogue means she really is both a rampaging assassin and an inhuman, green-skinned, fanged monster. That’s just crazy delusional to the point where I question whether they should be allowed to roam outside of the insane asylum, much less running state political parties.

There’s also the way the flyer seems to be trying to say that Lachowicz shouldn’t be in office because she’s — horror of horrors — a NERD. Which is the kind of thing most of us, gamers or not, have been suffering through since junior high. Doesn’t matter if you play video games, read comics, play D&D, or another stereotypically nerdy hobby, or if you’re just a normal person who isn’t a member of the in-crowd, there’s always someone who wants to declare you socially unacceptable and deem you a pariah.

But nerdiness isn’t the horrifying curse we used to think it was. Millions of people play World of Warcraft. Almost 200 million play other online video games. Trying to be the party of the Cool Kids vs. the uncool geeks is a little foolish when the uncool geeks outnumber you, are more mature than you are, and may even be more valuable as consumers.

At any rate, in this case, I’d much rather be the orc.

FOR THE HORDE!

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For Lack of the Pack

Dangit, it’s been too long since I wrote something about comics, so we’re gonna remedy that RIGHT NOW.

Can we talk about the Power Pack? I know, the concept of a bunch of little kids with superpowers running around as superheroes in the Marvel Universe has long been something of a joke. They always seemed to be either lightened to the point where the kids were never in real danger from the supervillains, or grim-and-grittied up to try to make them more, well, grim and gritty.

But the various Power Pack miniseries that started in 2005 and ran to 2010 were really something else. They were definitely designed as all-ages comics, so the dark-and-dreary stuff got left out, thank goodness. They were made by various teams of creators, though they got their trademark clean-and-cartoony look from Gurihiru Studios, a couple of outstanding illustrators from Japan. They were great fun, teamed the Pack up with just about every major hero in the Marvel Universe, and embodied everything you’d want to introduce to younger readers about Marvel Comics. They had humor, action, great artwork, fun dialogue, characterization, and conflicts…

And nearly all of the miniseries are out of print right now. There are a few you can get for affordable prices on Amazon, but most of them can only be had by shelling out a lot of cash.

I think this is really unwise on Marvel’s part. They’re great stepping-on points for new readers, for one thing, and I really think they’re the kinds of books that could be, if not massive bestsellers, at least consistent movers in comic shops.

Let’s face it, kids who like comics want to read about Wolverine and Spider-Man and Iron Man and Thor and the Hulk and all their other favorite superheroes — and they were all guest stars in these wonderful, funny, endlessly enjoyable Power Pack comics.

So come on, Marvel, bring back the Power Pack, both for younger readers and for those of us old fogeys who enjoy these fun comics.

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Thanks for Nothing, Charter Communications

Sorry for the lack of content lately. It hasn’t helped that I haven’t had a lot of inspiration for comics blogging. And it really didn’t help that Charter Communications, my Internet provider, suffers from frequent slow connection problems. Usually just for an hour at a time, but yesterday, it was all evening long. Rebooting the modem multiple times didn’t do diddly. I wasn’t able to even check e-mail ’til this morning.

But that’s Charter for you. Probably not the worst company in the country, but that’s just because they don’t kill puppies, sell poisonous baby formula, or publish DC Comics (trying to figure the right profit margin, I reckon).

I’m not even sure there’d be any point in trying to contact ’em, ’cause this is how it’d go:

Charter: “Did you reboot the modem?”
Me: “Yes, rebooted the modem and the router. Even rebooted the computer, even though there’s no reason rebooting the computer would have the slightest effect, but I knew you douchemooks would want me to do that.”
Charter: “Can you reboot all those things right now?”
Me: “No, I can’t. I’m at work.”
Charter: “Can you go home and reboot all those things?”
Me: “No, I can’t. I’m at work. I have a job, and they’d rather me not spend half the day jumping through hoops for you. Have you checked for any outages? Maybe you need to boost the signal at the line nearest my apartment? That’s what you had to do last time there was a problem like this.”
Charter: “We never have outages. We never admit fault. The problem is obviously on your end, because shut up, that’s why. Bye, remember to pay your bill on time!”

Maybe this’ll be a continuing problem in the evenings from now on, but I hope not.

In happier news, though still non-comics-related, I’ve been losing a good deal of weight. Not sure about the actual poundage, but I’ve had to tighten my belt two notches, which is certainly a good sign.

And the seemingly-abandoned cat from next door, which I was considering adopting despite serious cat dander allergies and an un-catproofable house, just to keep it from starving to death or freezing in the winter, has already been adopted by one of my neighbors. I gave the guy the cat food I’d bought this weekend to encourage him to treat Kitty nicely.

Okay, here’s some comics-related stuff. You guys like horror comics, right? Nod your head, of course you do. Well, Amazon is currently selling giant collections of the horror art of Richard Corben and Bernie Wrightson for relatively cheap. Frankly, they were pretty cheap already, but the current discounts make ’em a lot more affordable. So check ’em out if you love beautiful horror art and if you can spare the scratch.

See y’all later, when I’ve got bloggable stuff to write about… and if my ‘net connection holds up.

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