This is just a little story about an odd coincidence that happened in my life, but it contains some a spoiler for Captain Britain and MI13 #4, so if you don’t want an event from that spoiled, well, you know the drill.
Anyway, a few days back, I was reading a news story that mentioned that parole had been denied for Mark David Chapman. I thought to myself, “Is that the guy who shot John Lennon?” But I wasn’t sure I was remembering it right, so I looked up Mark David Chapman’s entry in Wikipedia. Sure enough, it was him, and I started skimming the entry, paying particular attention to the parts about how he was influenced by The Catcher in the Rye. I knew Chapman had a really weird obsession with that novel, but I didn’t know the details, but it’s one of those things that is just strange enough to make his already insane behavior seem that much more deranged.
OK, so fast forward two days, and I’m reading my comics on the bus on the way to work. (I do that because I’m of the delusion that reading them on the bus allows people to see someone reading comics and that will somehow get more people to read comics. Yeah, I know, but let it go.) One of the comics is Captain Britain and MI13, and one of the characters in it is a Skrull, who has taken the form of John Lennon and calls himself John. Here’s the spoiler: in this issue, John the Skrull is shot and killed. Right after reading John’s death scene, I look up, and the woman sitting across from me is reading … The Catcher in the Rye!
Kinda creepy, eh?
"When was the last time you were at a wedding that had a death defying hike, rogue waves, a luau, ultimate fighting, a presidential candidate and a budding bromance?" asks Papi Chulo. For most of us, the answer is never, but luckily, Papi Chulo and Secret Agent Scotch took the time to Vox all the amazing moments during their unforgettable Hawaiian wedding on 08.08.08 so we could all take part in the festivities.
The story began last February, when Papi Chulo popped the question and Secret Agent Scotch said yes! Since then, they've kept us in the loop about all the details, from the bride's veil to the wedding song to the final To-Do List. And throughout it all, they inspired us with their love for each other. (I'm pretty sure it doesn't get any better than knowing your future husband thinks you are The Perfect Girl.)
It's an amazing love story and we are thrilled they shared it with us. Watch the video of the ceremony and please join us in wishing Papi Chulo and Secret Agent Scotch the fairytale ending they deserve.
And What's a Team Vox Post without New Themes?
Spice up your Vox blog with one of our latest themes (found in the design area under "New") or any of our hundreds of themes. From shopping to sushi, comics to cycling, there's something for everyone.
Can't get enough of the wedding? A few lucky Voxers - Krissy, djchall, and Beau Smith - made the trip to Hawaii to take part in the celebration. Check out their Vox blogs for more pictures and stories.
Congratulations again to Secret Agent Scotch and Papi Chulo! Enjoy the Honeymoon!
Why didn't someone tell me about these sooner? I happened across "The Defenders of Stan" the other day on YouTube and I thought it was great. There are about 17 episodes and they are really fun. The premise is that virtually everyone has gotten super powers except this guy, Stan, who is the bother of the most famous and powerful superhero of all. I was surprised to see how few views these have gotten, and I can't figure out why I hadn't heard of this before. Maybe I'm just out it, but I think they are really funny and clever.
Anyway, give the series a shot. You might like it as much as I do!
At Vox, we believe that change is a good thing. After all, you wouldn't wear the same t-shirt day in and day out, so why should your blog have to suffer the same fate? Give your blog a new look with one of our latest themes (found under "New"), or pick from any of our hundreds of themes designed with your passions and personality in mind.
Until then... Enjoy!
-daisy
Gimme a V! Gimme an O! Gimme an X! What's that spell? VOX!
What better way to tell the world how much you love Vox than to announce it on Facebook? That's right: Vox now has an official Facebook page! Become a fan of Vox.com on Facebook and let your friends know what you really care about: staying connected with friends and family through blog posts, photos, videos and comments.
Once you're a fan, you can also add photos and videos to the page, write on the wall, and connect with other Voxers in ways you may not have previously. Plus, it's a great opportunity to let people know about your Vox blog, or start discussion topics. To become a fan, just visit the official Vox.com Facebook page and click the "Become a Fan" button in the upper right hand corner.
Once you've joined, why not post a response to the current discussion topic? Just post a link (and a brief description, if you'd like) to what you consider one of your all-time best Vox posts.
What are you waiting for? Become a Vox.com fan on Facebook today!
Although we typically post on Team Vox to let you know about things that are going on with Vox (to, uh, state the obvious), once in a while, we like to let you know about other cool things that are happening around the blogosphere. And we think the idea of four hilarious mommy bloggers traveling across the U.S. on their way to the BlogHer '08 conference - all the while blogging and video blogging the journey - is one trip you will not want to miss.
Four adventurous bloggers from the Silicon Valley Moms Group were selected to participate in the Summer Road Trip '08 and blog about their travels, hotel stays, media appearances, time away from their families, and life on the road. Six Apart helped them partner up with General Motors, who provided the blogging mommies with a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV to help make their journey comfy, safe, and a little more green.
In case you're not familiar with them, SV Moms is a group of over 200 bloggers who showcase the ups, downs, outrages, struggles, victories, and everyday humor of motherhood. There are currently nine regional and demographically tailored sites that give mothers from D.C., New Jersey, the Deep South, Rocky Mountains, L.A., and Silicon Valley a powerful voice and sense of camaraderie across the country. Whether you're a mother, a child, or just a person who enjoys a good blog, you'll really love reading the words of these amazing women.
The moms buckled into their Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV on July 11th and even got an encouraging message from Katie Couric to kick things off! They are currently somewhere in the middle of America making their way to San Francisco where they'll attend an SV Moms Group Party, as well as BlogHer '08.
You do not want to miss these entertaining and irreverent bloggers -- or their spontaneous contest giveaways! -- as they blog from the road. Experience the journey at MomRoadTrip.com.
And let us know about your summer road trip - or plane/boat/bus trip - in the comments! (I like to live vicariously.)
Do you live in or around Cincinnati, Ohio? If so, you're in luck because Scott and the Queen City Voxers Group have organized a Vox user meetup!
WHERE: Ault Park Playground. 3600 Observatory Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45208. "We'll look for each other at the playground marked by the red X below. If it's raining, head for the shelter to the north of the [red] X."
To RSVP (which is not essential, but is appreciated), reply to Scott's announcement or send him a private message. All Voxers, as well as their friends and family, are welcome to attend.
If you do attend the meetup, have a great time and please take lots of pictures and send them to me so I can post them in Team Vox for everyone to see!
Thank you so much to Scott for organizing this meetup. Wish I could be there!
Although almost every day at Six Apart is Take Your Dog to Work Day, Friday was extra special because it was the official Take Your Dog to Work Day! Plus, as lovers of blogs and animals, we think it's great that active blogger and Human Society's President and CEO, Wayne Pacelle, thinks having dogs around the office is a good reminder of "who we're working for."
We realize some people have it ruff and aren't lucky enough to be able to bring their dog to work, but hopefully these pictures taken at Six Apart last Friday will get your tails wagging... And let me tell you, it's harder than it looks to get all the doggies and their fetching owners in one picture.
Prism Comics has an article up now about their new Guide to Comics that I contributed to. My favorite sentence in the article is this one:
Highlights include a report card on LGBT portrayals in everything from JSA to the X-Men books and beyond; interviews with famous alumni such as Chuck Kim, writer for TV’s Heroes, and Darren Davis, the founder of Bluewater Productions; an erotic comics roundtable discussion; a celebration of the Transgender Day Of Remembrance by Jenn Dolari; an exploration of the role of religion in LGBT comics; a tribute to the 25th birthday of Jeff Krell’s Jayson; and an intro by Erica Friedman to Yuri Manga (lesbian manga). Original comics include work from LGBT comics giants such as Paige Braddock (Jane's World), Leanne Franson (liliane bi-dyke), Tim Fish (Cavalcade Of Boys), Allan Neuwirth and Glen Hanson (Chelsea Boys), Patrick Fillion (Deimos), Justin Hall (Prism grant winner for Glamazonia), Tommy Roddy (Prism grant winner for Pride High), Chris Companik (HIV + Me), and many more.
I’d be part of “and many more.” If I were on Gilligan’s Island, I be “and the rest.” Not bad company to be in. The Professor was my favorite. He was kind of mad scientist who wasn’t too mad. And maybe Mary Ann would share her pot with me. I’m not really bothered by not being mentioned. Most of those folks above have actual comics they’ve produced, and I’ve only … umm … actually, I haven’t even done that. My article on mad scientists is mentioned in the podcast interview that is linked to through the article. But I’m mentioned way at the end. Still, my article was the only specific article mentioned.
I have a copy of the Guide and it looks great. Really professional with topnotch graphics and layout design. And tons of comics in it. I’m really proud to be part of it. Speaking specifically of my article, I could not be happier with how it looks. I think it’s funny and now I think the layout with its sidebars and inserts plus the drawings that were added look far better than I could have imagined. Jason Reilly, who did the graphics for it, deserves accolades.
I’ll leave you today with a section of my article from last year, which dealt with love and romance. It was written in the style of one of those articles from Cosmo or Maxim, but with a superhero twist. Again, it wasn’t so much about homosexuality as it was about comics and being funny.
Sometimes relationships don’t work out and you need to break up. However, comic readers are used to alternate dimensions, malicious doppelgangers, and insidious mind control, so they may not accept reality unless you say it in a language they understand. Here are some options:
- You’ve been retconned out of my continuity.
- Those things that you see as "your needs" I see as "Crisis on Infinite You."
Over here, Absorbascon poses the following question:
Pretend you are the persons writing/editing Trinity.
You must select an "anti-Trinity" of villains to oppose the Trinity of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. You may not use the obvious choices (Joker, Cheetah, Luthor), but you may use anyone else, resurrecting them if need be.
Whom do you choose and why?
Kind of a fun, uber-geeky question that a lot of people answered in the comments section with Melissa throwing in her 2 cents here.
Most people seemed to pick one villain from each member of the Trinity’s rogues gallery. To me, that presented some problems in that most of Wonder Woman’s and Superman’s villains are kind of lacking, many of the villains wouldn’t work well together, and I’d have trouble seeing these people even getting together in the first place, especially since the Trinity itself is fairly informal. Seriously, who would want Bizzaro on their team? Yeah, he’s powerful, but could you trust him to do what you want? Do you really think that idiot will ever beat Superman? And would Zod work with anyone as an equal, especially some nonpowered Gotham City nut job? In fact, most of Batman’s villains seemed too local, not global enough, to be the kind of people who would work on the grand scale that an anti-Trinity would have to work.
When I looked at it, I used the following criteria (see? uber-geeky!):
- Characters must be well known, archetypical villains.
- Characters must be able work well together. (This knocked out some characters like Grodd, who I think makes a great villain but I could never understand why Grodd’s “Kill all humans!” credo would work with the “Let’s take over the world!” or “Let’s get rich!” credos of most villains, who as it turns out are humans.)
- Each member of the anti-Trinity must be able to cause trouble or even defeat any member of the Trinity. (I don’t like it when there are clear match-ups where some of the villains would be way overmatched by some of the heroes. To me, each member of the anti-Trinity should be able to face off against any member of the Trinity. This left a lot of Batman’s villains out.)
- There should be a mix of powers in the anti-Trinity. (But I wanted to be sure there was some muscle on the team and that means some serious muscle because that character has to be able to go toe to toe with Superman or Wonder Woman. BTW, one of the weakness of the Trinity, imho, is that WW and Supes have too similar powers, but whatcha gonna do?)
- At least one member should be female. (But that member did not have to be a Wonder Woman foe. See #3.)
- While having a strong connection to one or more of the Trinity is great, it is not necessary. (That the anti-Trinity makes sense is more important, and once they fight the Trinity, they immediately have a connection to the Trinity. Having to be sure that each member of the anti-Trinity was a high profile villain of a Trinity member made for some groups that just didn’t make sense to me.)
So I started with Superman because you’ve got to pick someone who has real power and because Superman’s villains are pretty weak once you get past Luthor. I figured Superman be the biggest challenge to find a villain for and I came up with
Felix Faust.
He’s not specifically a Superman villain, but he has battled the Justice League, which includes Superman … and for that matter, Batman and Wonder Woman. I chose Faust because I don’t think that most villains can really stand against Superman on a purely physical level, but because Superman is vulnerable to magic, Faust could strike at Superman where he is weak in a believable way. Many of Superman’s villain who could battle him on a physical level are either too egomaniacal to work with others as equals (Zod) or too mindless (Doomsday.) Faust, as I mentioned, as connection to all members of the Trinity and could battle any of them. In fact, given that he has taken on the entire JLA, battling just the Trinity with his two teammates should give him the edge.
For Batman I chose someone who I thought had an international background and the kind of resources who could actually challenge Batman and came up with
Talia al Ghul.
She has a clear connection to Batman, but also was involved with Superman when she was running Lex Corp. I almost chose her father instead for this role, but I like that Talia is a woman, giving the anti-Trinity a woman, and that she doesn’t seem quite so full of herself as Ra’s, so I think she could work better with the other members of the anti-Trinity. Her connection to Bruce makes her more interesting when it comes to being in conflict with him than Ra’s does. Although Talia does have the pure power of some characters, she does have that kind of worldly might in influence and resources. She could battle not only Batman but Superman in the same manner that Lex does or Wonder Woman in the matter that Veronica Cale did. However, I think with a little magical aid, Talia could even fight Superman or Wonder Woman. I don’t think Talia is beneath using magical or scientific devices to win a fight, but mainly I think she’d be outwitting her enemies and using those worldly powers to battle them.
And finally as the anti-Wonder Woman of the anti-Trinity, I picked
Black Adam.
What I like about Adam is that his powers are a close match to Wonder Woman’s. While she is powered by Greek gods, he is powered by Egyptian. I wanted there to be some muscle on the team and Adam is one of the few villains who is strong enough and smart enough to actually battle either Wonder Woman or Superman, but still cunning enough and wise enough to work with other people to meet his goals. He gathered together that sort of anit-Justice Society to win back his nation. While Adam is not specifically a Wonder Woman villain, he has had a few run-ins with her and I think he’s a great match for her.
What I like about the three of them is that they have enough in common that I could see them working together. They all have connections to the Middle Eastern culture. Faust and Adam are literally from the ancient past and Talia is familiar with ancient cultures through her studies and father who is over 600 years old (OK, that might no be “ancient” but it’s pretty old.) I see them as working sort of like a king and queen (Adam and Talia) and the court magician, which Faust was for King Kor in 5000 B.C.! While Faust may not liken his lesser station in the anti-Trinity, it is a role he’s familiar with and I think Talia and Adam are the kind of strong, charismatic personalities who could convince Faust to take that role again for his how benefit. I think he would willing give up some independence if he thought he was gaining more power through Talia and Adam. I think Talia could make Faust believe he was using her while she was really using him to her advantage. And Adam has already been working with Faust to bring back Isis. Talia also knows something about bringing the dead back to life with her Lazarus Pits. I should think she could use that promise to manipulate Adam to her side. I mainly see Talia believing that she is in control, and for the most part being right about that, while Adam and Faust push for their own agendas.
The weakness of this group, I think, is that they are a little magic heavy and science light. I think if I were to write them, I’d push Talia use of science while acknowledging that she also has her hand in magic. Clearly, she wouldn’t be as adept in magic as Faust, but she’d know her way around the subject. I’d make sure that we knew that Talia was whip smart and well versed in all sciences, plus she would have access to all sorts of scientific organizations and individuals. I see her making offers to Hector Hammond and Prof. Ivo that they can’t refuse.
So anyway, my anti-Trinity would be Felix Faust, Talia al Ghul, and Black Adam. I think they would be strong opponents to the Trinity that have enough connection to the Trinity to make them viable opponents, they could work well together, they have an international sense to their mission, and they’d actually have a real chance at defeating the Trinity while having enough internal conflicts among themselves and enough external conflicts with the idea of defeating the Trinity in that Talia really like Bruce and Black Adam really wants to be respected as a good guy, that their conflicts with the Trinity would be more multi-leveled than the usual slugfests. And they are solidly classic villains that I think readers would like to see be big leaguers.
Totally geeky, right?
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