An Unique Special Snowflake

Recently, people have been using the term from Fight Club in a disparaging way, to try to demoralize those who they deem too sensitive.  Ironically enough, those very same decriers seem to be the ones who are most likely to whine and complain about unfair tactics being done unto them.  It never seems to occur to them that
goes both ways.

But rather than go into the politics of name-calling, I'd like to present a chapter from a Steven Kellogg drawn book, back when early reader Children's Books were a whopping 64 pages before they were reduced to 32 pages, surprisingly similar to the page reduction of pamphlet comic books.  There's some kind of correlation there, though I have no idea if it's similar or just an outright coincidence.

These pages are from Leo, Zack and Emmie, a book I picked up from a library booksale, when they were cleaning out their old stock.  It's a shame these books are hard to find, since there's a certain charm to them.


I do so enjoy the childish overreactions here.

The reaction is perfectly understandable.  How impressive can a dinky Snowflake costume possibly be?  It's nowhere close to the theme of Halloween, let alone traditional to the other costumes that are typically worn.  Sure, it's seasonably close to Winter, but it's still unorthodox.

So, there's a full roster of a mixed variety of children banding about, with their nightwear, when a perfectly normal snowflake costume makes an appearance, and...

Apparently, the Snowflake costume is more elaborate than first suspected.  I went as a TV set for the first few years of Halloween, which was a cardboard box with a picture in front, and it was nowhere near as sophisticated as the Snowflake costume here.  I also never got as much candy as Leo got.



So, for those who are routinely mocked for being Snowflakes, go ahead and embrace your individuality.

Old-School Influences

One of the things I enjoy doing is finding certain influences that sprung from certain comics.  Some of them are obvious ripoffs.  Others are more subtle about it.  And others can be downright obscure.  The fun comes from finding connections, and how they wound up creating the building blocks to what would later become compulsive reading material.  And when you dig further back, those influences become even more obvious.

Comics are rife with stealing material from each other and other forms of media, which makes it somewhat easier for me.  One of the first instances was reading the history of Andre the Giant.

Until Ultimate Muscle (Kinnikuman) showed up, I had practically no interest in Wrestling.  (I still don't for live-action), but ironically enough, enjoy reading Wrestling history comics.  And Andre certainly made a big splash in Japan, who expressed their fondness with displaying larger-than-life characters in their entertainment. 



But it wasn't just the use of overly exaggerated bulky antagonists that was utilized.  What surprised me was finding out that within the macho portrayal of Wrestling, there were stories of fights between good and evil played up to lofty heights to garner audience attention.  So many of the tropes that are so inherent in Wrestling apply to a lot of Manga.  From the over-the-top acting to gritting through the pain of hurtful cheap tactics, to the taunting between two rivals before the big game, to the miraculous comeback to the tragic backstory reveal.

This is especially prominent in Sports Manga, but can also apply to Shonen rivals, Tournament arcs, and everything in between.  But sometimes the influence can be less overt.  Take this page from the early translation of Battle Angel Alita for instance:

This page in particular always stood out for me, because that piece of narrative insight in the second half of that textbox never shows up anywhere else ever again.  I always wondered why it was presented this way.  Then, out of morbid curiosity, I checked the recent Kodansha translation, which did away with the superfluous additive text.

I haven't been much of a fan of the latest translations, since they're notoriously dumbed down and more literal than natural modes of speech.  But a look at another Manga property showed where the previous insertion might have come from.

Every episode of Shigeru Mizuki's Kitaro ends with a chorus of crickets saying "GE GE GE GE GE" in thanks of Kitaro.

It's a little annoying, but it's a note that the story is over.  When you see something enough times, it lodges itself in your head, and I suspect that the original translator might've taken influence from this old-school Manga and inserted the extra bit as a reference point to explain the need for transitioning from a girl's inner monologue to the sky city's tubes.

It is a difficult thing to make a badass character have an air of innocence, and yet, Alita seamlessly manages to pull it off.  The only American examples I can think of are Horridus from Savage Dragon and Cassandra Cain of Batgirl fame.  Yet, for as much as she's an original (each book was radically different from each other), she's actually the combination of multiple factors.  And to explain that, I'm going to have to delve into some spoilers for the third sequel version of the series - the Mars Chronicles, which quite frankly, are the least interesting so far.

There's potentially spoilery material coming up, so if you want to remain blissfully ignorant, stop right here, and ignore everything after the cut.

Past NAFTA

I've been too preoccupied with current events.  Lately, the news has left me unable to concentrate, and I've been looking back on newspaper archives while I still have time.  Going through them has shown some revealing political cartoons that are sadly just as relevant as they were twenty years ago today.

This process of going through old online newspaper files would be much easier if it wasn't for an annoying new feature that's severely cramped my style.  Recently, they've added a new feature to prevent computers from browsing those very same files for some reason.  Having to constantly confirm that I'm not a robot, and the screens becoming blank after scrolling and enlarging is a major demotivator.  I have to constantly recall which page I'm on, then refresh the page, make a mad dash for the numbered page the comics are in, enlarge the section, and hope I image capture enough for posterity.  Not to mention that by the time I'm done, I won't be able to browse the rest of the comics page as well.

With that little rant out of my system, I've been going through the microfiche archives of my newspaper, and among other comics, there was the Sunday feature called Drawn and Quartered that would feature a whole page of political cartoons from multiple newspapers.  They were visually interesting, even as the subject matter was beyond my ability to understand.

Some of them had Movie posters of Brian Mulroney.


Other political cartoons covered a wide breath of subjects (usually revolving around the Middle East), showing that for all the passage of time, things haven't changed much.

Racist cops...

Kavanaugh confirmation...

Brexit...

Saddam Hussein's origins...

President Hillary...

Fighting Nazis.

Probably the biggest issue is this one, which shows how enthusiasm for politics can die down after in a politically motivated election period, which may be why polling takes place during the end of the year, when the weather gets colder, as temperaments likewise cool off, and apathy settles in.

With all the insanity that's taking place, one of the most recent piece of news that affects Canada is the renegotiation of NAFTA, renamed as USMCA, which is just NAFTA under a different name, putting America first.

Before Trump came along, NAFTA was generally regarded as a good deal, having equal trading between three countries, so it was surprising to see that it was seen as a potentially disastrous proposal at first.



Part of the underlying fear was that Canada didn't have much to offer in return for American products, and would be taken advantage of.







Mexico doesn't exactly come off in a good light, and in the end, it all comes down to American values.

French Gorey Limericks

Recently, there was a preview of the latest MAD article that was a satirical take on Edward Gorey's Gashlycrum Tinies that's giving some mad respect for what was an out-of-date franchise that had largely fallen out of favor for its pandering to a clientele that relied more on gross tasteless jokes than thoughtful humourous look at the world.  In a world that had largely supplanted the influences from MAD and made them their own, the magazine was in danger of approaching irrelevancy.

Enter its renewal as a quarterly magazine, where it would try to focus on quality of Yetch! humour at a controlled pace, and the results are... kind of a mixed bag.  For most people, the quality level of MAD is dependable on how old you were when introduced to it, which artists were available, and how much you related to the parodies.

The Gorey parody is notable for its unflinching look at gun violence, but it wasn't the first time MAD tried to raise issue to the firepower problem.  It's certainly a far cry from when they refused to run a certain Fold-In for being "too controversial."  In the back of issue #520 June 2013, this was what was supposed to appear.

And when you folded the two images (or put one hand over the other and filled in the blanks), this was the result:

This happened around when there was a mass shooting at a movie theater, and the advertisers apparently were scared that this kind of disturbing imagery might discourage customers from going to the movies in the first place.  Nevermind that there are far more attractive outlets and easier ways to feed your viewing habits elsewhere, preferably from the comforts of your home.

When it comes to showing lighthearted commentary of Gothic darkness, Gorey tributes seem to be the way to go.  My only other contribution to Edward Gorey was from my parody of The Doubtful Guest in a Garfield setting.

I was thinking of Gorey's books recently, and only just decided to go about translating some of the French limericks from The Listing Attic, in the first Amphigorey book.  They'd been driving me nuts not knowing what they were saying, and I finally bit the bullet and Google-translated them.

For some, finding the proper rhyme was simple, but for others, it was much more complex.  I had to constantly rearrange the wording and sentence structure to make everything fit, while retaining the spirit of the message.

Yes, I know "uncomfortablist" isn't a real word, but rules are hardly strictly adhered in the realm of poetry.  What matters is that the chosen rhymes make the reader laugh, even if some lines have to get butchered in the process.

As you can see, I had to remove the line of the monk stabbing himself in the butt to make the last line work.  As tricky as that was, the one below gave me the biggest struggle, as I didn't know what "genièvre" meant, thinking it was "Juniper".  The bottle in the man's pocket was a big clue, and I deducted it must be Gin.  I looked up a long list of alcoholic drinks to try to find a brand that would rhyme with other words in the stanza, before realizing I was overthinking it, and decided to go for simplicity instead.  I also felt the preceding preemptive lines were too quick and short, and decided to slightly lengthen them.

You can judge the results for yourself, but if you think you can come up with something more accurate and better, be my guest.

What a Lovely Little Fridge Door

After the disastrous events of last month, Eugene and Noodles get to enjoy a moment of relative calm, complete with singing rocks and living noodles.


Nothing of terrible significance here... save a moment of shocking honesty that comes completely out of the blue, yet isn't that uncharacteristic.

And for reference, this is a Male Raccoon expressing his fondness for a male alien worm.

I'm only including these images because Noodles happened to show his head on the upper-left hand side of the page.

Even though the events from the last few weeks should be routinely forgotten, Noodles is still rather naive.




Next month - a shocking development that will shake the foundations of The Fridge Door, after which, nothing will ever be the same again.