Uncle Warren points out that MySpace is watching my ass very closely, apparently…

I was just flipping through some pre-One Year Later issues of Green Arrow. Here's my question: is it possible to have a page with Doctor Light in it where he doesn't remind us that he's a rapist?

It almost gets this bad:

Street Vendor: Say, mister, would you like a ice cream cone?

Doctor Light: Hmmm, yes. It melts just like the innocence of Sue Dibny after I RAPED HER.

I mean honestly. This shit is horrible.

Their tag line for their movie, Shut Up & Sing is this:

SHUT UP & SING illustrates that freedom of speech is fine… as long as it's not exercised in public.

Is there any better illustration of the fact that free speech works in this country than three chicks who are so blatantly unaware of how free speech works who make a documentary showing off their ignorance?

The way the Dixie Chicks think free speech works, apparently, is that by me using my right to free speech to criticize them for using their right to free speech, I am somehow usurping their right to free speech. Their definition of free speech apparently is the ability to say whatever you want and not get criticized.

Does this qualify as irony at all?

P.S. "God bless them," for those that don't know, translates from Southern into English as "They're so stupid."

An e-mail in which I am told:

Warren Zevon has posted a new comment about you on MySpace!

Is it truly possible to do both things at once? According to The Neil, it's possible.

Therefore: Penn Jillette.

Stumbled across an interview I did with Joe "The Quessiah" Quesada for a long dead site called The Last Comic Site. This was a few years back before, I think, even Ultimate Fantastic Four was announced. Milligan's X-Force had just kind of taken off. I thought this was interesting and wanted to share.

W: Backing up a second to the subject of death, because one of the things in our Last Comic Site manifesto was that death is final, and I know I'd read some other interviews where you talked about that death have meaning, like with—I think the examples were Colossus and Karen Page, that you wanted them to stay dead.

JQ: Yes.

W: And I've got to tell you, that as a fan, when I read the issue when Colossus died, I thought it was handled really well, and I thought "Wow—that’s amazing!" And then I thought in the back of my head, "You know, they’re just going to bring him back when they run out of ideas." And then the next issue, he's cremated, and I'm still thinking, "Well, it's Marvel—they’re going to bring him back…" I mean, what do you say to a fan like me who's been burned before to make me feel better about something like that?

JQ: The only think I can say to you is to just watch our actions. I think Marvel is dealing with a lot more consistencies today than we ever have. We're saying things and we're sticking by them. You know, we tell you that X-Force is really new and different, and it's really new and different. I mean, we're trying to be as up front with our product as possible, and again, you know when I talk about it, you know, I've quantified this. I've said, "There's death in comics, and then there's meaningful death in comics. And Karen Page was meaningful. Colossus was meaningful. The minute you bring those characters back, you cheapen everything that happened in that story. So if you’re going to tell that story, tell that story, and be prepared—I'm not going to let you bring that character back. Then, of course, there's the traditional comic book death, which is, you know, the bad guy jumps off a ledge and you know, you look down and he's gone and you presume, "Well, he’s dead." But you know, it's the bad guy, the villain kind of death, and you know he's going to be back. And I'll let those go, but I'll be honest with you—I want to see fewer and fewer of those kinds of endings, because it's a cheap way out, for a writer to do that. So I want, I want there to be a reason that if this character is going to die, it's got to be meaningful, and it's got to do something to drive the Marvel universe forward.

Quesada was a nice guy. I appreciated him taking the time to talk to me. Far as I know, he's still a nice guy. I think Marvel's irreparably damaged at this point, but regardless. The point I wanted to make is that, based on this, at some point, Colossus was downgraded from "meaningful" death to "cheap" death. So roger that.

Read the whole thing, including the links.

Yes, it's about the whole Aqua Teen idiocy. A couple of points to make:

5. The FCC can't pull a private cable network's license, Mayor Hyperbole McFuckwit.

You shouldn't have told him that, amigo. Now he's going to push for some way of making that reality. Government folks want absolute power like Stephen Colbert wants to control reality via Wikipedia.

Sidebar: ten years ago we would have truly thought that "Wikipedia" was some kind of silly-named device used to take over/destroy the world. Omegahedron, anyone?

And from the ToonZone editorial he links to:

The government's handling of this situation has proven incompetent at best.

Why am I a borderline anarchist? Because in this world, that statement is applicable every single day. Think about it. When's the last time you looked at something the government did and went, "Hey, you know what? Wow. I wouldn't have changed a single thing about that. Goddamn, that was slick." Instead, that same line can be used for: border security, airport security, port security, the war in Iraq, Katrina, the national budget, respect for the Constitution especially free speech, and on and on and on. Go ahead, try it: think of something, and that line just fits doesn't it? We need that line on billboards.

Also, people keep talking about the other cities in which the campaign was based and how only Boston freaked, but I wonder how many people actually called in a freakout? I think–and this is based on the normal amount of hysteria that's in the air (liquids on planes, anyone?)–that the other cities were a phone call away from doing the same thing.