I've Been Watching Too Much South Park Lately

How do I know? Because I got to the end of Runaways #11, and my first thought was, "Oh my God! They killed [redacted]! You BASTARDS!"

Attention Internet

Pluralizing words does not require the use of an apostrophe. Ever.

Thank you.

Well, Crap

In what's becoming an all-too common occurrence on my pull list, Captain Britain & MI:13 is canceled.

I blame you. Yes, you, right there, who sat blithely pumping your hard-earned dollars into bollocks like Blackest Night and Dark Reign and other tepid, creatively fallow endeavors because they had a cool logo on and the so-called authors promised that things would never be the same again, in full knowledge that this was all a great big mega-giganto-fib, and that they'd managed to sucker you into buying the exact same story as last year's Big Throbbing Event, just with the palettes swapped, while books that actually tried to set a unique tone, provide something one couldn't get anywhere else on the stands, and maybe, just maybe not depress the living hell out of you got treated like that one kid in gym class who got picked last for softball, even after the girl with the helmet and the boy who liked to play with knives. I hope you're proud of what you've done.

The rest of my day will be taken up with large amounts of cursing.

Good Idea, Bad Idea

Good Idea: Doing a Google Image Search for an Animaniacs character.

Bad Idea: Doing a Google Image Search for an Animaniacs character with SafeSearch shut off.

Jesus Christ.

Just A Reminder

Free Comic Book Day (or as I like to call it, Geekmas), is this Saturday, May 2. freecomicbookday.com has all the skinny on what books will be available and where to find a participating store near you. Stop in, see what they've got; I guarantee you'll find something you like.

Bad Pop Culture: Forgive Me, Father, For I Have Sinned

I have a confession to make. It's a confession that's been a long time coming, with a lot of rationalization and avoidance along the way. "I don't really have a problem," I've been telling myself. "I only watch it during commercials. And it's only syndicated episodes, not first-run. They don't even show the whole episode in syndication. It's only because that one woman has great breasts.

"Anyway, I can quit whenever I want."

Recently, though, I hit rock bottom, in way that made the nature of my problem undeniable. I was flipping channels, and came upon an episode I had already seen.

And I put down the remote.

I'm ashamed to admit it even now. I feel unshriven, leprotic. I have failed both the community of good taste and myself as a human being. But I don't have to stay that way. I can choose to take the first step and admit, to myself and the world, that I have a problem.

Hi. My name is Michael, and I watch "Two and a Half Men."

I have no excuse for my behavior. It's unforgivable. The show is misogynist, hackneyed, poorly-acted, misogynist, terribly written, over-reliant on tired bodily non-humor, misogynist, incurably Californian, and misogynist. And I don't think the creators are too fond of women, either.

I can't think of a single redeeming quality to any of the characters, recurring or one-shot. Charlie Sheen plays himself fifteen years ago, and John Cryer plays an older, more pathetic Ducky. The housekeeper character is latest in a long line of classist domestic cliches, best summed up by this Onion quickie. She's actually the best-portrayed female character in the show; all the other women are shrewish, stupid, slutty, psychotic, or some combination of the above. And did I mention this show seems to have huge problems with women?

All of this can be laid square at the feet of the show's writing team, Satan's hands on Earth if ever he had any. Sheen and Cryer sure didn't come up with the idea to name the harpy ex-wife Judith. (And if they did, shame on them.) The idea of "The Odd Couple, but they're brothers, and Felix has a kid" is a typical Hollywood ourobouros masquerading as creativity, but not terrible on its own. No, it takes a special human touch to revolve pretty much every script around their mirror-image objectification of women, wistfully chide "boys will be boys," and add a laugh track. That this facile excuse for characterization has made the show America's Number One Comedy does not surprise me, but it does remind me why I never considered a career in television.

Everything about this show is a cliche, and a bad one at that. Everyone in it is a taker: utterly self-centered, completely without empathy. It's great fodder for horror fiction, I suppose, but played for laughs, it becomes grotesque. Especially when they try to get us to feel sympathy for any of these people, which is all too often. A saying about bedmaking comes to mind. Charlie's drinking himself to death, and Alan's mommy fetish guarantees he'll never know the touch of a woman again? Good! Sounds like a happy fucking ending! Have the house collapse in one of those California mudslides with everyone inside, and we can all go watch something more aesthetically palatable, like videos of eye surgery.

It's also infuriating, to me at least, that the show has gone to the "Charlie wises up" well at least five times, by my counting. It's the show's "they get off the island," except on Gilligan's Island, they at least dashed those hopes in the last few minutes of the episode. On this show, Charlie has the epiphany, then everything's back to normal next week. That's like showing them being picked up off the island by the Coast Guard, and starting the next episode with them sitting around the Minnow looking at the hole in the side.

I will admit one softening of my opinion: I feel pretty bad for Angus Jones, the kid who plays Jake. I mean, he's going to have to go through life being remembered as "the fat, dumb kid from Two and a Half Men." Nobody should have to live with that albatross around their neck. As I pointed out above, it's not like he's writing this crap. And, given the way Hollywood parenting works, I doubt any of this was his idea in the first place.

So, the show is shit. I think we've established that. But there I am, tuning it in, willingly subjecting myself to it and bumping the audience statistics up by one. Why? Laziness seems to be the primary reason. An affection for fiction about fraternal relationships is second, but Jesus, I've got East of Eden on my bookshelf, so there's no real excuse for eating at McDonald's when there's filet mignon to be had.

But I gave up McDonald's, and I can give up the TV equivalent of the Filet o'Fish. All it takes is discipline. Discipline, and the fact that in no way do I ever want to end up like either Charlie or Alan Harper.

Still, Melanie Lynskey does have a great rack.

No, no! Bad Michael! Bad!

The Sequential Salon, In Technicolor

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but I'm part of a group of like-minded NYC-area comics wannabes called the Sequential Salon, that meet semi-regularly to share ideas, receive feedback and boost one another's egos. Member Jeff Brady taped our last meeting, and is in the process of editing and uploading the video. The first installment is currently available on Vimeo and the Sequential Salon blog. Be warned that it is basically thirty minutes of nerds sitting around a table and listening to me yap on and on. But, if you've ever wondered what I look or sound like (the answer is "a less masculine Radar O'Reilly"), here you are.