Hair Trigger

I've mentioned before that I'm one of the few people who actively prefers going to the dentist than the barber's.  The reasons are varied, but they basically boil down to: getting my hair cut is a series of multiple micro-aggressions.  There's the constant hair-pulling, the moisture, the electric cord touching, the vibration of the razor, no glasses, no communication, and the cut hair gets everywhere, no matter how much I try to prevent it, even going so far as to clench my shirt up.  And it itches like mad until I shower up, which I'm reluctant to do.

Compared to that, the occasional stabbing pains from inside my teeth is pleasant in comparison.

However, even compensating for that, some people may still view going to the dentist a traumatic experience they'd rather soon forget.  Therefore, I've developed some little tricks to make your dental visit a more pleasant one:

1. Wear sunglasses to protect against the glare on your eyes.
2. Have a heavy book to press against your stomach.
3. Close your mouth when the dentist isn't looking inside your mouth.
4. Wear a shirt with a collar to protect against the cold chain of the protective bib.
5. If possible, have music to drown out the buzzing noise.  (I'm deaf, so this doesn't really affect me)

What brought this up was seeing this image on Tumblr.  It hurts just to look at it.  It's on par with the kid with butterfly wings and the caption, “Parents, don't be your child's first bully.”  It hurts, but for a different reason.

“art by @BottlngSunshine

Is it about butchering Black girls’ hair to keep white people comfortable? Is it about a woman visiting the same violence on her daughter as was done to her by her mother a generation prior? Is this girl just too… “different” to go into the world unaltered? Does she need to be toned down so she can succeed? Does she need to be defenseless before she is deemed safe by powerful people who would do her harm if given half a reason? Is one of those people holding those scissors?”

And the hashtag:

#ART BY OP #POSSIBLY VERY TRIGGERING #IT IS FOR ME #MY MOM USED MY HAIR TO CONTROL ME #EVEN INTO MY LATE TEENS #I RARELY GO TO THE HAIRDRESSER #AND IT'S A TRIAL EVERY TIME #BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH I AM (THEORETICALLY) IN CONTROL NOW #THERE'S STILL SO MANY NEGATIVE FEELINGS #ASSOCIATED WITH HAVING MY HAIR CUT VIA TEEJAY-KAYE

SOURCE ODE-ON-A-GRECIAN-BUTT

I also enjoyed seeing the mirror showing what was going on in my mouth, and missed that visual stimulus when they no longer used it.  The main thing that prevented me from panicking (apart from knowing what was going on) was the annual appointment where I would have to wear a weighed vest for the dental x-rays. 

In grade school, I was ferried about not by Bus, but by taxi.  And during these trips, I would invite anybody to rest their schoolbags on my lap.  Which they willingly did.  It must have been a sight, me being buried underneath these heavy loads, but I couldn't be happier.  And I carried that same sentiment when I could not longer go via Volkswagen and had to take public transportation to high school.

To compensate for the loss, I started carrying my heavy backpack on my lap, both to and from school.  I found it easier to lug these school books around than keep them in my locker, which had an easily bypassable lock, and apart from my school stuff, never kept any valuables inside.

I used to end the school days by racing out the door the instant the bell rang in a mad dash to catch the early bus before it left, which would usually come around the exact same minute, around when the light would be turning red.  Otherwise, I’d be crammed in with dozens of other students all waiting for the same ride.  And being around rowdy teenagers with little impulse control was an assault on my senses, which only further heightened my anxiety.

It was always a challenge to find a seat, since they would be quickly filled up.  It wasn’t unusual for me arriving home to enter the doorway screaming, wanting nothing more than to vent the frustrations of the day.  I saw no reason to stay behind and engage in after-school activities.  I'd already endured the trials of having to get through a whole day.  Why would I want to prolong that experience any longer?

I never really wanted to grow up and face the responsibilities that being an adult entailed.  Getting facial hair was the closest thing to experiencing dysphoria in the same way that some women dislike having breasts.  I could no longer rub my hands over my smooth face.  It was that experience (and preferring the company of women to men) that led me to wonder if I might be Trans.  I wouldn’t mind being androgynous, but I never actively sought ways to permanently remove my facial hair.  I was worried about having to face too much pain.  I was afraid of shaving out of fear of cutting myself, and having a bad experience with shaving cream getting in my mouth as a kid.  I spent my high school and college years trimming my facial hair with scissors, hacking away until it was slightly shorter.  I didn’t even like calling my facial hair a beard, since I’d have to acknowledge that I was growing up, and I didn’t want to.

Even handling an electric razor years later was an uphill struggle, since the vibration made me uneasy.  Constant reassurances that the razor wouldn’t break my skin didn’t assuage my anxiety.

I got easily upset in work environments where the desk layout were radically different from mine, where the keyboards were precariously placed on flimsy plastic sliding woodframes that could fall apart from the slightest applied pressure.  I needed constant stability world where there was none, and the world wasn’t willing to accommodate those needs.

For a long time, I thought that unlike other Autistics, I didn’t have any visible stims such as waving my hands in public.  (I tend to do that when handling hot plates or in the privacy of the bathroom in order to dry my hands faster, which never get sufficiently dry enough even after applying a towel)  It was only recently that it occurred to me that my persistent need of wanting to sit near the table - constantly pressing my stomach against the edge of the table and wanting to lie down on the floor - THAT was my stim.

It’s why I got so upset when my parents got a dog for my sibling.  They got it as a gift and thought I would warm up to it.  But I never did.  I saw it as an usurper of my floor space, constantly giving me unwanted attention when I didn’t need it.  I didn’t like the idea of having to spend time with something that would never increase in intellect, remaining a perpetual child.

By the time my objections were made, it was already too late to give it away.  I spent my formative years in abject terror of having something unpleasant greet me whenever I came home, a constant reminder of a bad experience of dogs biting me while collecting payment for my newspaper route.  And it was a Yorkshire Terrier, a small animal that wouldn’t shed, giving an allergic reaction.  There was just something about those eternally black dilated eyes that unsettled me, much like how comic snobs look down on Manga characters with glinty expressive eyes.

(Of course back then, I was also cautiously nervous of Anime characters, because their eyes conveyed too much emotion.)

My thoughts which were once optimistic increasingly turned to darker areas not before traversed.  I devised several ways in trying to get rid of the animal.  I deliberately left the gate open so it’d run away.  I had it gorge itself on kibble, threatening to burst its stomach.  That got me a lecture, asking me to think about what it’d be like to imagine what it’d be like to induce vomiting / having my stomach forcibly pumped, to which I replied I’d gladly endure such pains if it meant getting rid of the creature.  Once, while my family was going away on vacation and the dog was being taken care of by someone else, on our day of departure, I fed it some rat poison I’d found lying in the school floors.  I assumed that it would die, far away from any assumed blame.  So when I returned and saw it was very much alive, I felt like I was in the presence of a demon.

Back then, I engaged in shoplifting, because I felt I deserved to be punished.  I had the feeling that I was a danger, since my thoughts and feelings were so out of tune compared to everybody else, and needed to be stopped before it was too late.  Upon being caught (I didn’t try to hide my theft very well), the mall cop asked if I liked boys.  This was a confusing question for me to answer, since while I’d looked at plenty of straight and lesbian Hentai, I’d also experimented and branched out on Yaoi, finding the feminine boys to be cute.  But actual human people?  No, I didn’t.  

Looking back, I'm left wondering if that's the kind of thing law enforcement is supposed to ask.

When my mother found out after I’d basically confessed to doing shoplifting, she had me go back to the stores I’d shoplifted from and personally pay for the items I’d filched and issue a public apology to the managers.  While this was a suitable punishment fitting the crime, I still didn’t feel this was punishment enough for me.  After all, I was still free to do whatever damage I was capable of.

It was a mystery as to why I was so sensitive to these minuscule details that didn’t seem to bother anybody else.  I made complaints about not wanting to be touched by fur that would have uncomfortable sensations.  I was given patches of varying fur samples to try to desensitize myself, but I didn’t like having to overthink these things.  I wanted to have these tasks done automatically and not have to focus on breathing, which I always did to excessive extremes, wanting to get the breathing in and out over with.  I wanted instant relaxation, and breathing simply wasn’t doing it.  Everybody put my actions down to hormones and teenage rebellion.

And then, my psychologist found the description for Asperger’s while looking for another client, and thought that the symptoms sounded a lot like me.  A test of 10 questions consisting of theoretical scenarios was devised to determine my reactions, choosing from multiple choices, and my answers were textbook responses.  My symptoms weren't easily noticeable, since I tended to look people in the mouth when they talked, and they never noticed.  I had an oral interpreter intervene on my behalf to clearly explain things for me.  I'd basically fallen through the cracks in the system for a long time before somebody finally noticed.

After that, my parents who’d been frustrated with my behavior finally had an explanation and better understanding of my thought process, and sought ways to accommodate my needs.  They couldn’t get rid of the dog entirely, but ways were devised to make the continued living experience not as unpleasant.  I compensated by having a raised cushion to block the dog’s resting spot away from my peripheral eyes while watching TV.

So when the dog finally passed away from old age, I wasn’t sure how to react.  I’d lived in abject fear and hatred, constantly pounding my foot to the floor to scare it away.  Every time I opened the door, it would greet me, and remind me of its presence.  All I wanted was to be left alone, and it never learned that much.

Ironically enough, if we’d gotten a cat, I probably wouldn’t have been bothered as much.  I didn’t want constant blind affection.  I wanted subjective affection, but only on my own terms.  My personality would be more on par with a cat’s being more introverted than extroverted.  And yet, my sibling would wind up owning several cats, while I wound up with none.

I was perfectly willing to let myself stay miserable rather than ever let myself admit that I could ever find welcome company with a dog.  It’s why I greatly empathize with women who’ve been assaulted and have to face their attackers at work/school/home who’ve gotten off scot-free.

Political Newspaper Cartoons

For the longest time, I wondered why so many Newspapers hated the Comics Page, even though it was the most widely read feature, next to the front page.  It was only when viewing the vast backlog archives of Newspaper Comics that I gradually began to understand.  So much of it is a vast wasteland of repetition, and it was only recently that some rare gems managed to shine their brilliance through.  Newspaper Comics are really just a lure for the real meat of the Newspaper, which is to deliver... News.  What a concept!

A word of warning - reading multiple Newspaper Comics in one sitting is not conductive to your mental health.  There's a reason they're spaced out on a daily basis.

Interestingly enough, the political editorial comics that are an additional feature giving commentary to the latest world events are labeled... Cartoons.  Apart from the occasional drawing that's broken down into multiple panels, they're not stories following a continuous narrative, but reflecting on the events of the day.

With that tenuous explanation out of the way, one of the ironic things is that while Newspaper Comics may be widely loathed in the Editorial Circle, they also happen to provide some helpful shorthand in expressing certain themes to a wider audience.

This was back when Kim Campbell was the first Female Canadian Prime Minister... for about four 1/2 months.

One of the most common inside jokes is that Canadian News tends to be rather dull compared to what's going on elsewhere in the world.  Nowadays, I would kill to stop that particular Chinese Curse.  (Well, not literally, but that's the general feeling)  As proof, here's a non-comic related example:

You can get a general sense of what was going on around the at the same time some of these comics - I mean Cartoons - were published.

This one below, was printed shortly after Herman retired from the Funny Pages.

And this was after Blondie entered her Catering business.

Considering the ease of some of the simplistic designs, aping other Cartoonist's art styles is hardly a challenge.  It's a wonder it's not carried out more often.

One such stellar example I looked long and hard for was an unflattering cartoonish caricature of Brian Mulrooney done in the style of... well, I'll let the results speak for themself.  I could swear there was another one along similar lines, but have been unable to successfully find it thus far.

Pet Peeves - Newspaper Mistakes

One of the things that bugged me when reading daily comics was the rare occasions where a printing mistake would happen.  This wasn't the garden type variety where a caption would be switched with another, resulting in some dadaesque results, such as what happened with Dennis & The Far Side.
If a Newspaper comic happened to make a mistake, you couldn't go to another source to find out what really happened, since they were oftentimes the only place you could find them.  (Which oftentimes, was the appeal of Newspapers in the first place - offering comics the competition didn't)

Back in the olden days of Dinosaurs when Encyclopedias were bound in book form (Yet weren't called Thesaurus, since that name was already taken), the Internet as we know it hadn't been fully fleshed out for it's potential in porn, so if you missed a comic in the Newspaper, the only way you could find out was if the paper was generous enough to print an explanation the very next day, if enough complaints happened to reach their headquarters.  More often than not, papers weren't as generous with explaining any potentially confusing comics, unless they'd been given advance warning for excluding certain potentially controversial comics, such as Lawrence's Gay Reveal, or Doonesbury's multiple political subjects.

An example would be this Blondie, which ran on December 12, 1990:

At first glance, halfway through the comic, the scene shifts away from Dagwood talking to Elmo, to suddenly getting out of a Taxicab with his Boss.  The explanation is these are actually the setup to two different comics accidentally combined together without any comprehension, rhyme or reason.  It was basically Randomized Garfield before Randomized Garfield existed.  To make matters further annoying, the latter strip was printed in full the very next day, but gave no resolution to the previous strip.  I didn't get to find out what the punchline was until over twenty years later.  You're luckier - you can just compare and contrast with the full comics below.

Another Blondie mistake can be seen below:

At first glance, Dagwood screaming seems to be the punchline, with what looks like to be a rather weak setup.  But if you rearrange the above and below panels around, the sequence will make more sense.

Of course, panel mixups in Newspaper comics is nothing new.  But there's also the aspect of misplacing entire comics entirely.  To give an example of this, here's a cutaway view for January 1, 1990 and the surrounding comics.

Now, here's the comics page three days later on January 4th.  Can you tell the difference?  Or rather, what's stayed the same?

For some reason, they reprinted Calvin's Monday comic on Thursday.  It took me until the Comic Collection Scientific Progress Goes Boink to find out what actually happened.  For some reason, Calvin dousing Susie with a domino Snowball was considered more acceptable than assaulting her with a shovelful of snow.

There were other instances where comics had the order they were supposed to appear switched.  In most cases, this had no effect whatsoever with their story.  For instance, here's the Adam that appeared on July 12, 1990, when he was exercising in a Gym that had Babysitting services, which he took advantage of:

And here's the comic that appeared the day after.  (Side note, the latter was in a book collection, but the former wasn't)

But here's how the comics page appeared on November 13:

As you can see from the above comics Garfield & For Better & For Worse, the dates are ALL for July 13th, but the Adam strip is for July 12th.  Which means the headphones were handed back to Adam After he took decided to use them for marketing purposes.

But these are minor nitpicks aimed at daily comics that are for the most part, pretty self-contained.  The one comic I most wanted to point out that fell prey to this kind of slipshod maneuvering that has a story arc that is certainly infamous around Internet comic circles.  Particularly around October 23, 1989.  But you'd never know that from the innocuous opening here:

Okay, so apart from Elly crashing her car, there doesn't seem to be anything entirely out of place.  But that wasn't until the very next day that a certain sense of wrongness seemed to manifest itself:

A 4-panel Garfield comic?  You hardly ever see those happening.  It's closer to a Sunday comic if anything.  And Garfield's character design seems to harken to his earlier draft.

By Wednesday, Gerfield reverts back to his familiar design, which is actually a rerun.  For some reason, Marmaduke seems affected as well.  It shares the same date - September 3rd.  Whether there was a similar controversial theme happening there, it doesn't seem to be obvious.  It wasn't until Thursday that I got the sense that there was something very wrong happening here:

Yes, you read right - I got a bunch of unrelated out-of-sequence Garfield comics on the one week when it was vital that they arrive in order; meaning I missed out on all the setup to Garfield's infamous Halloween sequence.  Fortunately, after this horrendous misstep, there doesn't seem to be any more noticeable mistakes on the Comics Page (that I can recall), but this is the one that stuck in my craw the most.  This was bigger than missing out the punchline to a nonessential daily strip.  This was getting the setup to what was essentially an actual horrorshow from one of the tamest enjoyable comics in the Funnies.  And I didn't get to experience it on a daily basis.

Just what editorial decision led to replacing the essential Garfield comics for this week without any preparation or fanfare, I can't imagine.

Fixing the Sound Barrier

It's been a harrowing three weeks for me.  For months, I'd been receiving warnings that my Vista computer - that I'd been using for years with minor problems (a broken fan, the occasional data dump crash, caught viruses), would no longer be getting any updates.  After weeks of a yellow warning, that day of no further updates finally came.  To prepare myself for the possible inevitability that I'd no longer be using ol' reliable, I'd been saving as much of my recent files as possible, including the stuff I'd burned on CD and DVD on another laptop computer.  Especially after finding out to my horror that the old stuff that was saved in my LAST computer crash and backed up via sixteen CDs (computers had less memory back then) was getting harder to read, and had suffered data rot.

Of the burned stuff, only one DVD wasn't readable, but it was only contained a single obscure Anime title, Azuka Will Help, which I have no memory of, so there's not much lost there.  And the single corrupted comic image I had was easily found.

I'd been dreading the prospect of using Windows 10, after being less than impressed with their presentation (along with everybody else) and not liking their inability to have multiple folders conform to the same file settings, an uncomfortable image viewer, and no classic mode.  Fortunately, there are programs out there that'll allow me to reuse the efficient older versions, so I have some semblance of optimism there.

But that's not the main electronic device that made me upset to my stomach.  My Right Hearing Aid - the one I mostly depend on, since it's my good hearing ear - went on the fritz. When I put it on, there was a persistent whistling that drove me nuts.  I went to get it fixed, which took several hours.  Getting to the place, then waiting for my turn, getting replacement tubes, and waiting some more while they fiddled around with the thing.

At first, I thought the problem was solved, until it was found out that the whistling was internal. Ironically enough, when it wasn't whistling inside, it was whistling outside, where everybody else could hear. And when it whistled inside, nobody else but me could hear it.  At the time, I thought the main problem was that I needed new hearing molds, made out of silicone, which I hadn't done in a long time either.  This wasn't fully figured out until I was already at home, long after closing time, and the repair shop was closed on the weekend.  Anyways, I needed a replacement hearing aid - FAST.

However, in order to do so, I needed a recent audiologist report, which I hadn't had in about several years, the new regulations preventing my annual checkups to become routine.  I needed to take a hearing test to prove that I haven't been faking my Deafness all my life.  Well, okay, the actual reason is that a form is required to show that I'm still active, and in need of aid, but I like my explanation better.

Somehow, a requested rush test was requested, which wouldn't become available until the tester was available too, which meant several weeks of delays. And in the meantime, I only had one working hearing aid on my left ear. The whole while, I was dreading my remaining hearing aid going on the fritz too, since it hadn't been upgraded in a long time either. If THAT one went too, I'd be in BIG TROUBLE.

So when the available appointment time came, I was notably upset, because it was raining that day, and had been raining all that week too. And I hate getting wet.  A consistent running joke around this time of year is that I preface the lousy weather by proclaiming, "At least it's not snowing so hard we can't make a fire".  Only people who didn't devotedly read a certain newspaper strip growing up understand the reference.  (i.e., my parents)

The only way for me to get there on time was to take a train that would have me be there an hour early, when I could've used that time for doing other stuff. So I went there, had a quick lunch from a nearby place that sells Amazing Pita Gyros. (I always request them to leave the sauce off, which I can't stand, and have had to check to make sure they followed my instructions, which they don't always do) As good as it was, it wasn't what I Really was in the mood for - General Tao Chicken, which was all the way on the opposite side of town, and would've been a time-wasting a delay that I couldn't afford the risk of.

So lunch rolled over, the secretary came, and figured that I'd be called upon anytime soon. I waited five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. At the half-hour mark, I was getting nervous and irritated. I looked for the secretary, but she wasn't at her desk. When she showed up sometime later, I asked where the person doing my test was.

Turns out she forgot to tell my hearing tester that I was going to be seeing her THAT DAY.

After some pained internal screaming and wondering how she could've messed up something so laughably simple, was told that she would see me an hour from now. Which Really grated on my nerves - I could've picked up my General Tao order without any consequences. Now I had to wait another twenty minutes or so for my long-delayed appointment to come up.

I passed the time fuming, pacing the hallways, unwilling to allow myself the luxury of sitting still, filled with pent-up energy with no outlet to release them. After going up and down the stairs several times, my tester finally came. I was able to pass off my irritation through good humour, and got into the minuscule sounding booth where I finally took my test with bulky headphones over my glasses, and clicked the buzzer whenever I heard any sounds I figured didn't come from the ringing in my ears.

It took about maybe 15-20 minutes.

After that, it was just a matter of sending the report over to my Hearing Aid center, and I'd get my new hearing aid.  But before that, I went to get my long-neglected order of General Tao Chicken.  The place I go to puts something resembling pure MSG in their sauce, and I go into withdrawal symptoms if I don't eat it on a regular basis.  The downside to this was that eating two takeouts on the same day was extremely heavy on my stomach, and I didn't sleep well that night.

When the report was finally available at the Hearing Aid center, I eagerly went for my latest appointment, looking forward to getting my regular hearing back.  After being handicapped at half strength for so long, they helped me out by giving me a minor hearing test on my right ear to reassure my fear that I wouldn't hear anything out of there ever again.  However, the business had long since switched owners since I was a baby, and the new people in charge weren't as familiar with me as the old ones were, who I'd maintained a sort of familiarity with.  The procedure consisted of taking my hearing aids off, inserting some kind of hearing wire inside my ear (after checking inside my ears using a light - I never know what they're looking for inside there), and then pushing my hearing aid inside.

The procedure took multiple tries, and my frustration wasn't alleviated any by the handler who simply didn't have any idea of the proper way to squeeze in a hearing aid mold, obviously never having worn one himself.  I told him that the trick was to turn it, like an oddly-shaped key, not wedge it in, like an unusual square block in a round hole.  But he didn't take my words to heart, no matter how many times I told him.  That, and for someone supposedly used to talking to hard-of-hearing people, I had a tremendously difficult time understanding him.  (He hardly moved his mouth or gestured while he talked)

If it weren't for the presence of another co-worker who was familiar with me, who faced me, and clearly explained the process to me, I'd be much more frustrated than usual.  She said the wires was supposed to help gauge my hearing range, and vaseline would be applied over my new molds to make them easier to slide in and out.  After that, it was a simple matter of hearing the familiar testing beeping sounds increasing in pitch and frequency along the likes of "Do doo doo Doo DOo DOO TOO TOo Too To to."  (It loses a lot in the retelling)

Once the range of my hearing was programmed into my replacement hearing aid (which would've cost me upwards of $400 without proof) I was able to feel a contented breath of relief.  Even if my new hearing aid has a new on switch I'm not accustomed to, and the battery placement is still perplexingly enough, opens right on top of the ear mold, making exchanging expired batteries more difficult than they should be.

Long story short - I've got a new hearing aid now, and don't have to worry that I'm getting any deafer in one ear, and my remaining hearing aid could potentially self-destruct any moment now.

License Request - The Comic History of BD

When it comes to going through in-depth history about comics, such books tend to be filled with long lengthy essay-length journals full of investigative analysis of comic's evolution throughout the ages.  Unless you've had some familiarity with the subject material and massive plot spoiler summaries already laid out for you, or you've lived throughout the times when these comics were being printed, you're very likely to be glazing your eyes over the text, preferring to skip over to the pictures, of which there are massively few to appreciate.  Not to mention that when pictures are available, the whole story isn't included, which removes much of the context in question.  And for the most part, comic histories tend to overwhelmingly focus on Superhero comics rather than other works that would be more receptive to a general audience whose tastes run in a different direction.

With very rare exceptions, such as Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and Fred Van Lente & Ryan Dunlavey's The Comic Book History of Comics, going through information about an extremely visual art form can be an outright slog.  Now, we've got another worthy contender to add to the surprisingly small pond: Nervé Bourhis' le petit livre de la Bande Dessinée.  Or, as I affectionately (and appropriately) reChristian it, The Comic History of BD.

While there's some perfunctory attention to cave drawings and Rodolphe Töpffer, the vast majority of the book covers comic's growing trend near the end of the 18th Century all the way up to 2014.  The book highlights many comics and when they first started, along with notable cartoonist's births and deaths.  Furthermore, the sheer range of comics noted throughout each year is massively varied, covering not just BD, but also Newspaper comics, American comics and various Mangas.  It also notices when comics have been adapted to other mediums, such as movies and television shows, when comic magazines make radical decisions, and when cartoonists join up or leave various companies.

Another selling point is that various comic covers are redesigned by multiple (European) cartoonists who put their own unique spin on some of the most famous comics ever printed.  Not unlike the retired Covered comic blog.

No matter what your interest is, whether it's Superhero comics, Newspaper comics, Manga, or European comics, chances are high that there'll be something of interest to attract your eye on a history page.  And by extension, you may also find other intriguing tidbits of information you might not have noticed otherwise.

Of course, this mainly covers the three major exports of comics, North America, France and Japan.  Any references to other countries that didn't immediately gain massive commercial appeal or licenses years later are forgotten or left out.  This book mainly covers the major attention-grabbing comic stories that gripped the nation.

The only minus is that some covers may be somewhat radically different or obscure compared to what North American readers are familiar with.  Unless you were already acquainted with the wild drawings of Gotlib, you wouldn't know that this cover would be a "before", with Issac Newton & Co...

...and the cover below shows what happens "after" .

Also, the European market can sometimes change things more to their liking, which may be considered surprising.  The cover for the first Calvin & Hobbes collection was closer to a BD format with the front cover not being hand-painted by Watterson himself, but a blow-up of a single representative panel instead.

I mentioned before how some Newspaper comic collections in book form would be chopped up to meet a bookstore's shelf space requirments.  In France, Newspaper comics were rearranged in a typical BD format, four strips a page, and a vertical arrangement of normally horizontal Sunday strips.  The more experimentative comics would be rotated sideways.  To further add to the madness, in this format, a typical BD collection would only collect half the material in a regular North American comic 128-page collection.

Sometimes a redrawn comic can be close enough to the source material, while in others, they can be radically different, while still displaying the spirit of the original.

In other instances, figuring out the inside joke to a cover shouldn't be that large a hurdle.  A simple search request or familiarity with the art style should be all the clues you need.

Most likely, this license request is little more than a pipe dream.  Translating the vast amount of text would be an uphill challenge, and some parodic covers might have to be redrawn or rechosen to further reflect American interests.

The irony is, while other books with comic essays will have delightful drawings to cover up the lack of art inside, that's not the case here.  For a book that's chock-filled with nothing but multiple unique cartoonish and realistic drawings, it has possibly, the most banal cover in existence.  It looks more like a Classical Music Record cover than a book.

EDIT - turns out that there's some sound effects, punch explosions and exclamation marks that are just barely visible if you hold the cover up to the light at a certain angle.  And the author/artists have also done collaborative works focusing on the music industry.