No Vember like the Present

It being November, you'd think that the theme for this month would naturally be hijacked by Thanksgiving; but since Canadian Thanksgiving happens in mid-October (and is such a non-event compared to the hype of Halloween), there have to be other things focused on during then.  For some reason, Lynn thought that the subject of school and studying would be the main focus, since two of them were shown.

One one hand, this is understandable, since the Winter finals are coming up, and they'd be hunkering down on research and last-minute studies that would otherwise be overshadowed in the specter of Christmas.  This doesn't stop her from reusing certain jokes though:

This isn't even the most obvious one - there's the "John eases a child's fears by doing a mock checkup on a stuffed animal", which was done not once, but twice.

I have no idea if this method is more preferable to reading children's books of anthropomorphic animals being subject to the very events that would make a child nervous.  I know they certainly helped calm me down, since I had an approximate idea of what to expect.

Other than that, there's the time-honoured tradition of waiting for every leaf to fall off the trees before raking the yard.  Others simply have no patience for doing so, and go ahead with cleaning up the lawn, even as other leaves stubbornly refuse to let go of their nurturing apron strings.


Then there's the look of dismay as a child messes up a pile of rampant leaves by either dovetailing into said pile or toss said leaves around, thus ruining all that hard-earned work raking those leaves in the first place.  An easier job would be to leave the leaves on the ground, then let the upcoming winter snowfall cover up the disgrace on the lawn and then do the double duty of collecting leaves and cutting the grass at the same time once the snow melts.

Alternately, this could also be done before the snowfall.  For some reason, people seem to display an inordinate amount of pride over the grass in front of their houses.

Is it Catching?

Apologies for not updating my blog earlier than I intended.  There was the after effects of that whole hurricane Sandy thing going on, which resulted in several power failures that kept going on and out on a regular basis.  I understand this is a regular occurrence in certain third-world countries, but the effect left me in a state of perpetual withdrawal, where I was never entirely sure if the power was going to stay on for longer than five minutes this time.  Ironically enough, every time a call was made to the power company to ask how long it would take for the power to come back on, the power would be instantly returned by the time we got through.  By the time we'd finally gotten used to the pattern, and had the number ready on speed-dial, we got news that it wouldn't be back to normal overnight.

The second reason for my delay was that I've been feeling rather sick the last day or so.  Nothing to the extent of my Kawasaki, but still destabilizing nonetheless.  However, despite my wooziness, I was still adamant in trying to do as much activity as possible within the confines of my limits, even if it took more time than necessary to get the job done.  I've never subscribed to the notion that when men get sick, they turn into infantile babies incapable of functioning without a mother figure attending to their every need.  I've got too much of a work ethic to ever allow myself that silly notion.

However, a funny thing happened once I told everyone I had a fever of 101.4 degrees.  (If it'd been 101 degrees Celsius, I'd be in REAL trouble)  All of a sudden, I became a social pariah, my every surface area being a potential health hazard for contagious diseases.  No food could be touched or transferred without sterilized instruments involved.  Feeling like a social leper, I recalled the Peanuts Sunday comic where Charlie Brown was lectured by his sister to wash his hands because he "Touched the Dog".  Snoopy taking offense to that started following Sally around with the intentionable threat of touching her with all the virulent effect of the Bubonic plague.

That's what I felt like, when I'm told not to touch anything.  I like to skirt the issue somewhat by slightly tapping something, then running away, similar to Garfield daring to touch Jon's food.  Fortunately, I'm used to being left alone, since feeling good about being left to my devices and thoughts was the only coping mechanism that kept me sane during High School.  I wouldn't have been able to cope otherwise.

The ironic thing was, for the past few months, I'd been watching the Canadian Science-Fiction show, ReGenesis, about a crack team of microbiologists who help solve baffling diseases throughout the world, though it's mainly situated between Canada and the US.  The head of the team, David Sandström is a rather arrogant figure very much in Dr. Gregory House mode (I'm still regretting that MAD didn't satirize his name as Dr. Peggory Louse), except that unlike the cantankerous doctor, the lead scientist has more respect for his employees and actually appreciates their input.  He just can't tolerate stupidity when it comes from higher authorities and intellectual know-it-alls who think they know better.  If you're going to gain his trust, it must be earned, and he'll fight you every inch of the way.  What I like about this show is that they'll throw up several possible solutions to what the problem could be, only to immediately reject it in favor for a more plausible theory that'll fit the situation better.  Not to mention that until the fourth and last season, analysis of various diseases weren't limited to one program, but were reoccurring on an episode-to-episode format.  Therefore, a virus that was mentioned midway in an episode wouldn't be resolved until the the next episode, when the latest biological puzzle would be introduced in tandem.  It demanded constant viewing from the public, since missing a single show would mean missing out on a lot of stuff going on.

One particular employee who stands out and has David's constant respect is Bob, the Russian analyst who has Asperger's.  However, despite his condition, his Asperger's is extremely subtle.  There was a scene where David and another employee were having dinner, and they were laughing about a kind of private joke between the two of them.  Bob, being clueless, looked momentarily confused, then chuckled, joining in the good humour.  He was laughing, not because he got the joke or found the situation funny, but because it seemed appropriate to do so.  Also, unlike most portrayals of people with Asperger's, Bob has a more human relationship with people, and enjoys their company, even if he doesn't always understand the underlying assumptions.

That, and the Contagion movie, were prime candidates for intelligent discourse of hypochondriac behavior.  At first, I thought they would turn out to be nothing more than Outbreak rip-offs, but the underlying themes, concepts and ideas presented were much more sophisticated and well thought out than I'd expected.  However, I wasn't as affected by the the onscreen effects of the plausible worst-case scenarios.  Like those donation commercials of horrific events happening in malnourished countries, it seemed to be the kind of thing that was outside of my experience, and have no possible relevance to.  There's also the underlying controversy that being hyper-vaccinated could make humanity more successible to outside infections than usual because we're not building up these defenses naturally.  The ironic thing is that people are more afraid of the potential side-effects of these vaccinations when they've resulted in saving more lives than anything.  To say nothing of the MMR vaccine = Autism controversy, which was most likely a cause of the mercury packaging than the triple combination cocktail.

It doesn't help that every year, we keep getting new media accounts of a new strain that's more dangerous than the last one, and further injections have to be made.  After a certain point, the constant scare-mongering begins to lose its allure, because we keep becoming reassured that it'll all work out in the end.  What's not taken into account is what David Sandström said we should be on the lookout for - the last virus - a virus that's so destructive, so infectious, so malicious, that it'll literally destroy every life on Earth.  This is the basis of what VGcats called the most depressing Flash game ever created; One Chance.  In closing, David argued by quoting Albert Einstein that what was needed was not more intellect, but more imagination, since it would be imagination that would give our minds new boundaries to explore and overcome the latest obstacles to come.

EDIT - I originally was going to finish off with a comparison between mercury, the Mad Hatter and autism, but my lack of experience and knowledge in that field left me abandoning that attempt.  (Basically, I chickened out) I hate ending these kinds of posts without a singular summarization to tie everything up together, because it just looks like the ramblings of someone who doesn't know any better.

My Kawasaki, Myself

There's been a lot of talk lately about the benefits and disadvantages of Medicare in America, and whether it's everything that's cracked up to be.  Complaints about hospital waiting times and being forced to the whims of the government.  However, there was a period in my life that I was seriously sick, and could've died without fast medical help.  My parents have often expressed their gratefulness for a Government policy that, despite it being widely in use nowadays, was decried when it was first implemented and suggested back in the days, even going so far as doctors going on strike in protest in the 60s.  Very much like the current political situation in the States.

This is also a rather long personal account.  More after the cut.

MetaLiterarics

Shortly after I read the Peanuts 1973-1974 collection, I was suddenly inspired to do a homage based on Good Old Gregor Brown in Sikoryak's Masterpiece Comics, where various literary classics were re-interpreted into their closest comic equivalences.  Considering the amount of humor and existential despair in Peanuts comics, it seemed a natural fit for Kafka's absurdist bureaucratic stories conjoined with some of Peanuts' more memorable surreal daily strip runs.


Sadly, that's the only reference that I feel knowledgeable about doing.  If I was more familiar with the contents of the other novels and comics presented in MasterPiece Comics, I would be more confident in producing more works.  Maybe somebody else out there will pick up the slack.

To compensate for the lack of available literary content, here's the opening of Genesis as portrayed by Jean Effel, best known for his depictions of the Garden of Eden in La Creation du Monde.  The fact that Adam and Eve are naturally naked with their privates showing, may explain why he's not better known over here, despite his ligne claire style.

Swinging' Spider-Man

Lately, there's been all kinds of attention paid to Spider-Man's 50th Anniversary, from the Atari ads that were far more entertaining than the actual video game, to the wonkyness of the newspaper strip.  It's the latter that I'll be focusing on with a certain book I picked up that collected some of the early stuff in a colourized cut-up format, and it's just as overdramatically bad as you'd expect.

It's usually the best interests of a starting comic strip to make a strong impression over the competition, even more so if it's a serial format.  So things get started at bat right away with the Daily Bugle inviting DOOM over to make a compelling argument in front of the UN.  I'm sure this won't go wrong at all.  In a way, this kind of feels like a cheat, since DOOM is more of a Fantastic Four villain than Spidey villain, but he did show up in one brief story early in the Dikto run, so I suppose it gets a pass.  That, and Doctor Octopus, Spidey's real definitive archenemy, (Green Goblin's reputation notwithstanding, Doc Oct is closer to Spider-Man's MO in terms of intelligence, scientific accident leading to power and tragedy) makes an appearance in the second story in the book, so it's not a complete loss.

One of the major reasons of enjoying Spider-Man is seeing the always amusing external complaints from Peter's antagonist boss, J. Jonah Jameson.  He's the kind of man you love to hate, (though only from a distance, since being in the same room with him would be beyond endurance) and pretty much the only character who can run his mouth off at every opportunity and yet, for all his verbal barrage, never even gets so much as a punch in the face.  Egg on his face maybe, but never any violent reprisal other than being tossed around and webbed a bit.

Ah, now we get to the main reason DOOM's been called over - so he'll be able to take care of Spider-Man once and for all.  That's kind of like using a heat-seeking missile to take care of a fly, but then, Jameson's never quite been the most rational person when it comes to a certain "public menace" whose only real crime is solving crime while being funny at the same time.

Expecting any reasonable compromise between DOOM and other S-heroes is pretty much a lost cause.  This is a man who claimed diplomatic immunity against Superman, for heaven's sake.  After some more jim-jawing with Jameson, Spidey decides that he's said his piece and jumps out the window to swing away...

...and then immediately, we get a recap of last week's events with entirely new dialogue.  This exchange is then intercut for a week with various people seeing Spider-Man swinging away from the Daily Bugle window, women fainting at seeing a man jump out the window, Mary Jane admitting she's got the hots for Peter Parker, Aunt May wondering who that terrible Spider-Man could be, with a photo of her nephew in the background, and news of Dr. DOOM arriving at the UN.

S-hero comics are basically regarded an action-filled soap opera, which would make them a natural fit alongside those other strips like Mary Worth, Modesty Blaise and the like.  But in a restricted newspaper panel setting, there's not much chance to show action on a day-to-day basis, which is pretty much why everybody is recapping information that happened five seconds ago, lest they forget their goldfish memories.  That must be why DOOM keeps dramatically announcing his name in the first person.

This is the fourth time that Spider-Man's swung away from the same window with a different snappy retort to Jameson's yammering.  (Keep in mind that this is supposed to take within the timeframe of about five seconds)  Repetition is the hallmark of keeping audiences satisfied with a certain level of consistency, but this is ridiculous.  Somehow you get the idea that Stan Lee would be perfectly content to write a never-ending daily strip of the two of them constantly bickering, but sadly, they had to move on with the story.

Naturally, at the airport, there's an accident involving a falling box that leads to a grand misunderstanding between Spider-Man and the police, so Spidey's on the run while DOOM gets treated like royalty.  This was presumably before there would be crowds of protesters vehemently rioting against letting such a dictator enter the country to pitch his sound bite.  That is, if any of said theoretical protesters weren't scared of being taken note of and blacklisted for future petty reprisal payback sometime later in the future.

That could explain why the UN is allowing such a ruthless dictator to come over in the first place.  Unlike the Star Trek universe which is representative of a UN that actually works, reality isn't so generous.  It's not unusual for diplomats and dignitaries to kotow to fanatics demanding the royal carpet treatment, even when their human rights records are reprehensible.  Given that the UN has spokesmen representing dictatorships and repressive regimes, it becomes clear why some democracies are lamented on, while repressive countries get an easier pass.  It's easier to go after countries that are just blowing hot air, than countries where implying that they're not that great could be grounds for violent reprisal.

In Quebec, there were student protests that'd been going on for a whole semester, and a bill that was intended to keep said protests down by notifying the police 8 hours in advance, so they'd be forewarned about such a gathering to reduce conflicts.  This was taken as an attack on democracy, since it's every citizen's right to complain and take to the streets if they want to.  Nevermind that the complaint came from a representative from a more repressive country where any protesters need to make their notifications a month in advance.  Other countries' demonstrators are jailed and shot if they're lucky.  And the bill didn't even get passed anyways.

Great motivational prowess there, Doomie.  You probably would be more convincing if you actually presented a resounding argument that didn't rely on menacing anybody you deem insignificant on par with your intellect, and go around dressed in medieval armor with flowing cape and hood.

Since the UN doesn't want to to be under any one country's thumb, it's no surprise that they wind up turning down DOOM's generous offer.  (They can't even agree on things between their own countries)  Naturally, DOOM doesn't take refusal of his perfectly reasonable offers very well.  And just as DOOM's finished sealing the door, preventing any authorities from breaking in and rescuing the hostages, Spider-Man breaks in through the window to stop the Latvian dictator from doing further damage, and that's a pretty good point to stop here.

It's just a shame that the main Spider-Man comic has been floundering ever since the relationship between Mary Jane and Peter Parker was dissolved in the most abysmal banal way possible, and the less that's spoken of, the better; and it's not really an argument I want to go into right now.  That's more for other people who're devoted to the character than I am.

Jughead's Nightmare

It's October, and that means it's time for my annual "Things that traumatized me as a kid", which nobody around here seems to enjoy.  This time, it's a certain Archie issue that I got from a friend of mine who knew that I liked comics, and lent me a few that they didn't want to read anymore.  One of these had this on the cover:

In the 80's it seemed like everybody wanted to emulate Max Headroom somehow.  Square One TV had Fax Headful, Doonesbury had Ron Headrest, and Archie comics had Jug Snaxful.  However, before we can even get 20 minutes into the future of the two-parter inside, we were first faced with this:

The opening scene then shifts to a picnic where Jughead demonstrates his culinary expertise by combining pickles with pepperoni and ice cream.  Naturally, his friends Archie and Betty warn him that such an unusual concoction is prime recipe for nightmares.  Jughead blows off their research claims, and decides to take a little nap before his next meal.  Just as he's dozing off, he's about to take a plunge into that realm known as the rabbit hole.

If the first panel was a teaser for the kind of imagery we could expect to face, then then it certainly failed to convey the level of terror there.  Pop Tate shows up inexplicably wearing a bunny suit, but that's not the most unsettling element there (though some people would certainly find that unsettling on a different level).  What happens next is Pop Tate starts force-feeding Jughead, and holy crap, Pop Tate's expression in the 4th panel there is terrifying.  I've mentioned how I can't stand it when I see comic characters starving, but seeing them being forced into overindulgence is just as stomach-churning, and recalls the image of Donald Duck forcing his nephews to smoke the cigars they'd bought him for his birthday.

Jughead is normally a confident trickster, so to see him lose his cool when he's not in control of his surroundings is somewhat unsettling.  When Jughead's eyes are open, that's a sign that things are REALLY disturbing.  That guy with black hair in the style of Archie's hairdo is Reggie, Jughead's "best friend".  When Jughead retorts saying that Reggie isn't his BFF, Archie is; Reggie asks "Who is this 'Archie?'".  In this reality, Reggie is Jughead's lifelong companion, and Archie doesn't exist.  It soon becomes apparent that he's in a recursive dream where every time he "wakes up", he finds himself worse off than he was before.  The only thing that would make this worse would be if he was in a Slaughterhouse-5 situation where he was constantly shifting between these nightmare scenarios with no hope of release or escape.

When Jughead is next woken up by Betty, he finds himself attending a certain event that some people would later divide some fans apart.  Naturally, Jughead doesn't take this new development very well.  As the old saying goes, one man's heaven is another man's hell.  So how does Jughead get out of this predicament?  He gets the answer, somewhat fittingly, from his subconsciousness.  The only way to escape this anti-lotus eater machine is by using dream logic.  Easily making the transition from Wonderland to Oz, which goes to prove that sometimes the basics are still the best.  It's also somewhat ironic that throughout this story, when he's asleep, Jughead's eyes are open more often than when he's awake.

They soon go to Pop Tate's where Jughead announces that he's taking the pickle off his hamburger, "just in case" to the confusion of everyone there.  Therefore, the moral of the story is; don't be too experimentative with your combination of foods, lest you find yourself in a nightmare of your own making.  (Repeat trips to the bathroom not included)

The Colour of Peanuts

I realize that I haven't been updating my blog as much as I intended to, and I'm sorry about that.  I've been preoccupied with various other small projects, including doing some rewriting and scanning of other potential blog topics to be posted in the future.  I'm something of a perfectionist, and baring any sudden revisions that may come to mind, I'd like to jot down as much potential ideas I've got before I'm suitably satisfied with the results.  Another reasonable excuse is that I've got several Garfield ideas that I'm inspired to remix, but am slightly intimidated at the prospect of having to reference all the relevant comics and script, now that the main search engine has disappeared.  (BTW, when did the missing domain number change from 404 to 410?)

That said, I still feel somewhat guilty for not updating my blog within the course of a week, when I had all kinds of ideas rattling in my head; so here's a minor placeholder of something I scanned in the future, but doesn't seem likely that I'll find anything for immediate use anytime soon.  So to belay any fears that I've shuffled off this mortal plane, here's two more Peanuts strips that might've lost some of their potential punchline with the lack of colour in the Fantagraphics collections.

There's not much missing here, save for the semaphoric message at the end.

Now, this one is more visually striking, though nothing is really lost in the transaction.  At least it makes the outfielders look more likely to blend into the background than the black-and-white image would provide.  Or how it would look with just the lines - I haven't had much of a chance to check out the Peanuts albums past the 10th book yet, unlike some people who've noticed some disturbing... irregularities in the later strips.

Socktoberfest

I can't believe we're already at the three-quarters mark of the year already.  I had all kinds of plans that I'd promised to get around doing, that I still haven't even completed the skeleton outline of.  At least I'm consistent in bringing up these Calendar pages up at the beginning of every month.  I probably need a more focused plan outline, or somebody to force me into doing things I don't want to so they'll get done.

The interesting thing about October is that even though Halloween only starts at the end of the month, it's the overall focus of many people's perceptions of what it's all about.  Nevermind the first 30 days, it's the last day of the month that everybody thinks of when talking about October.  All the preparation and planning is just build-up for when that day arrives.  Though nowadays, this holiday which was once in the realm of children is now being taken over by adults who just use it as another excuse to go out and dress up in provocative skimpy outfits, and another excuse for sex.  Or at least that's how some people are complaining about it.

I normally leave out the extra drawing at the bottom, because they're not relevant, and are already available in the early FBOFW collections, but I'll make an exception here, because it thematically fits.

This month is noteworthy for having the most plagiarized strips out of any other month.  There's only so many Halloween jokes you can borrow before you run out of ideas.


This is just another example of how April was another expy for Elizabeth.  The setup is different, but the outcome is the same.

A cardinal rule of handling Halloween candy - don't trust anybody handing the sweet stuff out, and don't trust anybody in the presence of said candy alone.  (Even though there haven't been any documented proof of families poisoning children with anything but sugar)


To make up for John's embarrassment at having to wear an emasculating outfit, here's a more tasteful, (yet no less silly) more traditional costume.  Though bunny wabbits - I mean rabbits - are hardly the stuff of nightmares, unless you're Bugs Bunny.

While John's quite famous for dressing up in his traditional rabbit costume (and Elly wearing the pants in her man role), this is a rather funny take on what might've happened at the costume party.  When Lynn Johnson was talking about creating new strips to "fill in the blanks", this was the kind of thing I was expecting, rather than what we actually got.

Adolf's Secret Essays

(Alternate title; Hitler's Secret Essays)

With Vertical's re-licensing of the legendary Tezuka Adolph Manga (retitled to Message to Adolph), I thought it would be prudent to share the five individual essays that were present at the beginning of Viz's Cadence Books, along with my thoughts while reading this piece of work for the first time.  This isn't the first Manga to have an essay beforehand, but it's the most notable.  Other examples include an introduction to Domu, which is another Katsuhiro Otomo Manga deserving of wider recognition.  Another is an introduction to the anthology, Four Shoujo Stories, which had an aborted print run because the Manga creators didn't want their works compiled together.

The Adolf essay authors are as follows; Fredrik Schodt, Yuji Oniki, Matt Thorn, Annette Roman and Gerard Jones.  If there's any objections from any of the authors to having their introductions printed without permission, I'll take down the download link immediately.
http://slightlybiasedmanga.com/category/series/adolf/

In tribute to Covered's sudden retirement, I thought it'd be interesting to compare the American covers with the Japanese ones.  The realistic art come from some of Viz's editorial staff.  There's also some alternate covers that can be found here:

Adolf: A Tale of the Twentieth Century 

Although this is the first volume, I wouldn't get to read this book until I ordered it MUCH later, when I'd already finished the rest of the series.  Before the Tokyopop Manga Explosion, there was a deprivation of available English Manga when I was beginning to grow an increasingly taste for more of the stuff, forcing me to scour the backlog of past books in a hope to feed my increasing addiction.  When you're in need of a fix, you're willing to try anything new, even if you know you'll hate it in the process.  I got the two Yoshihisa Tagami Mangas, Horobi (a talking heads monster story) and Grey, a dystopian future.  I reluctantly picked up the Nausicca Manga Perfect collection with the itty-bitty page size.  I collected Rebel Sword and Venus Wars both by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, and released by Dark Horse.  I even collected the rather boring 2001 Nights once I'd gotten everything else.

My formula for getting any new comic was based on whether I'd read it beforehand, whether it was worth rereading a second time, and whether I would be able to get the whole story available.  I first became aware of Adolf when I saw that there were volumes of the stuff offered at comic book conventions at a discount.  But these were always the later books, and never the first.  Naturally, I declined paying for them, because why get something if you don't have the whole story?  Sadly, I passed over some Ranma 1/2 and Maison Ikkoku volumes that were going for $5 each when those books were selling for 4 times that amount at the Canadian price.  I foolishly thought I would get a second chance at the next convention when I brought some more money.

Coming into this after having already read the rest of the story revolving around the possibility of secret documents revealing Hitler's Jewish lineage, I was rather less than impressed with the overall setup.  The story begins and ends at an Israeli graveyard, with the claim that it's about three different men named Adolf.  Actually, it starts off with a sports reporter named Sohei, and doesn't begin to focus on the other Adolfs until about 100 pages in.  Starting out, Adolf Kaufmann, and Adolf Kamil, a German and a Jew are good friends, but circumstances will eventually drive them apart, despite all their attempts to prevent doing so otherwise.  Surprisingly enough, while mentioned as one of the three topical men, Hitler has the least screentime as the other Adolfs.

Interestingly enough, both covers deal with a dead body, but the Japanese version focuses on Sohei's brother's body, while the American version has the murdered Geisha, who winds up getting more investigation details later in the story.  In fact, she shows up more often even though she's dead, while Sohei's brother is practically an afterthought in comparison.  Special attention should be paid to the schoolkid with the letter where only the words "Der Fuhrer" can be seen.  The next two words, "Ist Jude" are only revealed inside, revealing a deep dark secret that would be the driving force of the story.

An Exile in Japan

For many who missed out on the first book, this would most likely be most people's introduction to the Manga.  It also brings a much more comprehensive explanation of the MacGuffin secret documents that would be the overall driving source of the story.  In the first book, it would be regulated to background rumours and such, and was only fully fleshed out and clarified here.  The rumours of the Fuhrer's Jewish ancestry was quite surprising the first time I read it.  I was used to Manga's style of cartoony expressions, so I wasn't put off by Sohei's exaggerated reaction to the documents, but didn't exactly feel drawn into reading more.  I skimmed ahead with the intent of seeing whether it would improve, and it never quite felt polished.  Turns out I wasn't alone in my disatisfaction with the craft of the dialogue and narration.

This volume also stars my favorite of Tezuka's star characters, the eternally grinning mustachoid man, Hamegg.  (Better known as Astro Boy's circus slavedriver)  He deals a tremendous amount of escalating violence and mental torture on Sohei in order to get the secret documents.  What's remarkable is that despite the amount of unwarranted brutality dealt out, when Hamegg gets his comeuppance later, it pales in comparison to the damage he's done to the point that you begin to feel sorry for him.  Quite a remarkable feat to accomplish for such a reprehensible man.

I'm quite enamored with Hamegg's overall appearance, simply because no other character quite looks like him.  It's not apparent at first, but the coolest incarnation of Hamegg would have to be Mudou, the scarf-wearing youth-balls villain in Kekkaishi.  Also check out Hamegg and Lamp's appearance in the BlackJack DS game, which looks like a cross between Trauma Team and Elite Beat Agents.  Needless to say, this game has never been attempted to try be translated, because of so much ingrained Manga text balloons and Lampe's portrayal as a Nazi agent in Adolf.

What really put me off was how after all the torture and suffering that Sohei goes through to save the documents, he winds up losing them along with everybody he's with and the book ends in an awful cliffhanger that felt like a pretty definitive ending.  After going through the wringer so many times, who would want to bother continuing to read some more?  That's probably why Vertical released Adolf as an omnibus collection, because they wouldn't want to scare off potential readers who'd been punished for investing so much of themselves into this story.

The Half-Aryan

After the depressing events of the last book, you'd think they'd relieve the tension of the fate of the secret documents, but no, the scene shifts instead to a female bartender who's taken a liking to Sohei, and agrees to help him recuperate.  Needless to say, it takes a good 40 pages before the documents are verified to be safe.  The act of delaying the reveal is very maddening for someone not accustomed to this kind of thing.

For anyone thinking that it would be far-fetched for a Jewish couple to be living in Japan, far away from prying Nazi eyes Japan wasn't the only Asian country to provide a safe haven; but China as well.  The story of how a Jewish family travelled there can be found in the biography Ten Green Bottles.

Near the end, there's a certain panel of a Jewish couple praying in a Christian manner (on their knees) rather than the typical autistic rocking method.  This is a minor technical mistake in a Manga noted for historical accuracy, and a footnote was added rather than change the artwork to reflect the correct religious method.  Though the confusion is understandable.  There are various methods of Jewish prayer, not just limited to going to the Synagogue, but also whether there's 10 men present, different rituals for men and women, torah readings, candle lightings, blessing foods, etc, etc.  Not to mention that visually speaking, kneeling with your hands clasped together is a more striking image.  Judaism is notoriously famous for actively discourage anybody into joining their faith.  They don't want any namby-panby followers - they want people who'll actually want to go the distance of going to the trouble of following their traditions.  But then, Adolf is more about WWII as seen from a Japanese perspective than a Jewish one.  Nowhere is this more evident than the focus of the next book: Ramsey.

Days of Infamy

Adolf Kamil decides to employ some outside help from Richard Sorge's information network in making the best use of the incriminating Hitler documents.  This was the first time I'd ever heard of Ramsey, and showed how differently other countries can focus on certain details depending on the realm they're in.  Russia is closer to Japan's waters, so it makes sense that they'd have more political ramfications there.

It also has the most references to the 1st book, particularly the murdered Geisha who continues to get screentime beyond the grave.  Interestingly enough, even though there's some inquiry over her past from what anybody who'd read the first book would know, the characters themselves have no idea who killed her.  (The killer's face is blocked out by a word balloon)

For the most part, the first half suffers from an exeunt of trivia and soap Opera-ish tendencies that dull an otherwise intriguing story.  The romantic elements that crop up feels amateurish and out of place, particularly the exposition of the characters spouting lines such as; "Why do I feel this way? I can't stop thinking about her!"  But it makes up for that with the second half, with Adolf Kaufmann's fully embracing the Nazi role he'd so heavily resisted during the early years of his life.  This is further exacerbated with Hitler's continuing internal rambling shouting tendencies that would be the foundation for the hundreds of Downfall Youtube parodies.  There's probably some unwritten rule requiring all dictators to do so.

One of the hallmarks of Manga is its ability to portray a series of events in such a way that the reader becomes emotionally invested.  If I'm not feeling a sense of being there, then the author/artist has failed to convey that sense of emotion in the story, and I consider the work to be wasted.  To this day, I STILL get chills while reading the DragonBall Saiyan Saga.  That's generally what I get when Adolf Eichman goes on his definitive journey back to Japan.

1945 and All that Remains

This is where it all comes together or falls apart under of its weight.  The two Adolfs finally meet each other again in a tearful reunion after nearly a decade apart.  But it soon becomes apparent that their ideologies are completely incompatible with each other, and a conflict begins that won't stop until one or the other is dead.
This intense rivalry was mentioned as a similar metaphor in Tezuka's other Magnum Opus, Phoenix.  In the Civil War arc (titled Turbulent Times in the essay for some reason) where two tribes of monkeys and dogs become fast acquaintances, but eventually their differences become too wide to fully reconcile, and their relationship disintegrates into a war between the two of them.  This was where I first learned the Japanese metaphor of dogs and monkeys being incompatible with each other, as mentioned on an episode of Medabots.  When I finally was able to read the relevant Phoenix arc, that subplot was all I could think of, and I was disappointed when it turned out to play a minor point, only cropping up near the end.

While the two Adolfs are fighting each other over the location of birthright documents, the most memorable finale of Adolf Hitler is shown.  What surprised me other about Hitler's last hours was how sad and pathetic he'd become compared to his charismastic behavior.  The last image of Hitler and Eva Braun's bodies being doused in gasoline was more sorrowful than I would've expected.  Particular note should be paid to the revisionist history of his suicide.

In the end, the documents turn up playing no real major outcome in the end of the war, though it's hinted that they might've contributed to the Fuhrer's mental collapse.  Possibly the real irony is how in his final moments, Hitler reveals a prophecy that after receiving a setback in 1945, he would make a comeback in 1948 to revive his great nation.  And yet, it was simply because of Hitler's fanaticism that made the foundation of Israel a reality when past anti-semitic measures failed to support the Jew's cause of having their own country.

It's only after you reach the end that we get some explanation for the man decked out in Arabic clothing.  The conflict doesn't simply end with the end of the war.  You'd think that having a genocide against a certain "race" of a faith would be proof enough to reach a consensus for playing nice, but as history has shown us, that is not the case.  Rather than one war leading to an everlasting peace, there are brief periods of peace continually broken up with various wars.  Already, there are rumblings that the Greek's Golden Dawn organization has anti-semitic overtones, along with their symbol that disturbingly looks like a swastika.

Despite Gerard Jones' discomfort with comparing the Nazis with the PLO, the metaphor is somewhat apt. Any nation that has the majority of its foundation completely demeaning and calling for the destruction of a religion 1000 times smaller than its own should raise some eyebrows.  As pointed out in The Wave, 90% of Germans weren't Nazis, yet they simply sat back and let them get away with the atrocities they later became well known for.  They knew what they were up to, and did nothing to confront them, because they were afraid.  Simply accommodating fanatics isn't going to discourage them - it's only enabling their activity.  How many times does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have to keep promising to wipe Israel off the map, while simultaneously saying that his Nuclear program is for peaceful purposes?  At some point, you've got to  connect the dots before it's too late.

From GlamourCerebus to FantastiCerebus?

Dave Sim of Cerebus fame just recently announced that his monthly project of using photo-referenced girls as a parody of fashion magazines, Glamourpuss, would be coming to an end because of low sales.  This was shortly after his failed attempt to emulate Maus with his Judenhaus one-shot, which failed to take the world by storm.  The fact that it focused on the same insular comic book market that increasingly became one of the many things that drove him around the bend at aiming his unorthodox material at a particular niche audience might've had something to do with it.  To get an idea of what I mean, Judenhauss was an analytical look at Antisemetism through the ages, and near the end, references were made to praiseworthy Jews who were spared from the Holocaust were mainly limited to comic book creators.  An admirable sentiment, if somewhat limited in the larger scheme of things.

The cancellation of Glamourpuss was probably inevitable, since there was no single coherent ongoing narrative, and the comic was devolving into insanity in later issues. In addition to his Cerebus Kickstarter program suffering a setback due to a fire destroying his originals has led to an outpouring of praise and recognization of the man's works around the comics blogsphere who put it much more succinctly than I could.  This has also led to a surprising offer from Fantagraphics to take ownership of Cerebus for one of their reprint projects, which would take some of the edge off worries of reprint  costs and keeping Cerebus in circulation.  So faced with this generous deal, what was his response?  An insistence to make this matter public rather than do a backroom deal.  Mystifyingly enough, he feels that his work wouldn't be up to Fantagraphics New York Times style reporting, even though no such claim was made.  Feeling insecure that Cerebus wouldn't be up to par for the high standards of Fantagraphics? Producing an influential and intimidating body of work isn't praiseworthy enough?

Ironically enough, there WAS a point late in Cerebus when he did a parody of the Comics Journal, part of the Fantagraphics editoral line. (These pages are a spot-on parody of the Comics Journal, right down to the blurbs distracting attention away from the attractive pictures) While the last arc is often lambasted for its heavy-handed religous screed, Latter Days also has some of the funniest Cerebus moments in it. It's probably just best to focus on the stuff at the beginning 2/3rds, and ignore the last half when Woody Allen appears. 

Trust me, it only gets worse two pages from here.

As Dave Sim admitted to himself, Cerebus was never quite a hot seller, even back when it was revolutionary.  Only a smattering of interested parties would even dare to crack open this intimidating tome.  Personally, apart from the few masterpieces early on, the majority of Cerebus can be considered for hardcore comic fans only.  Cerebus was always something of an odd beast, even when it was being published.  The few tie-ins that WERE allowed by the creator would've been impenetrable by anyone hoping for some explanation or clarity.  Upon flipping open the pages of a random book, the average reader would be completely flumoxified with the going-ons of the sequence of events, particularly anything to do with the Roach, the S-hero parody pastiche.  Anybody wanting to jump into this serious undertaking of the Earth Pig's "adventures" would have absolutely NO IDEA of what to expect, let alone get any satisfying explanation for anything that was happening.  They would be put off by all the rampant confusion, and go seek easier-to-understand comics elsewhere.  One such example was when Cerebus made a rare crossover appearance with other independent comic creators, such as the Ninja Turtles and Spawn.  These would happen outside of the main story narrative, and wouldn't be considered canon by Dave Sim's standards.  To someone who had absolutely NO IDEA of the many inside jokes that were inherent within Cerebus at the time, a new reader would've been absolutely mystified with a certain piece of fanart shown in the Spawn 3-issue miniseries, Violator, written by Alan Moore.  (Yes, THAT Alan Moore)

Imagine seeing this off-model character for the first time, and being clueless
as to why there was no "Sim" in the Spawn comics.

As has been pointed out, one of the major sales resistance points of Cerebus has always been the certain lack of explaination of exactly what Cerebus is about.  There's simply no description of the contents or summary on the back of any of the 200-500 phone book collections.  There's not even a blurb of the contents, or a list of the cast characters.  Disappointingly enough, any serious attempt to analyze Cerebus on a issue-by-issue basis have all been suspended before they even finished the first volume.  Of course, Cerebus is the kind of comic that defies categorization, and can't be simply pigeonholed into one specific category.  Is it a satrical take on Conan the Barbarian?  Is it a parodic take on the underlying face of politics?  Is it an analysis of religion and corruption of power?  Is it a look at the life of a single woman growing up on a mountainside?  Is it a biography of the last days of Oscar Wilde?  Is it an attack on feminism with ties to the Comic Book scene in the late 80s?  Is it a play on the author / creation mindset?  Is it a tribute to a bar?  Is it a homage to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemmingway?  Is it an increasingly detoriating descent into madness?  Is it weird?  Cerebus is ALL of these things and more.

It would be nice to have the whole run of the legendary comic, as well as some of the one-shot comics that were never fully collected, such as the issues making up Cerebus Zero, ElfGuest, some of the colour short stories, and even a collection of the comic covers.  Including the run of covers with some problematic advertising on them.  (Only Guys has the ingrained covers essential to the story)  For all his devotion to his craft, it's surprising that Dave Sim hasn't taken full advantage of the unpublished works and promotional art of his Barbarian Aardvark in various comic anthologies and fan contributions.  Until Cerebus Fangirl pointed out a rare hardcover printing of all the covers (issue 113 isn't included, since 112 was a double issue), I wasn't even aware that such a thing existed.

Advertising in the pages of your own comic doesn't count.

While having Cerebus reprinted at a smaller size would be feastible for a more attractive model on the bookstore shelves, (something that's been done for foreign publication), it would also play havoc with the immensely teeny-tiny text that shows up in the later books; creating a discrepancy between volumes, something that readers hate.  There's also the question of whether some of the smaller volumes, particularly the Mothers & Daughters arc would be collected in a larger and more attractive format.  Of course, that also brings up the uncomfortable misogynic rant in Reads, which is where the slide into insanity begins.  (Some would argue it was always there to begin with - it just didn't become obvious until that point)  Of course, as it has been pointed out, Cerebus becomes immensely more enjoyable if you ignore the prose in the later books and just focus on the comic portions instead.

As a self-righteous self-publisher who's held steadfast to being in charge of his own comic for some 25+ years, Dave Sim is in a ballpark all by himself.  He was able to make his vision of publishing the comic equivalent of a Russian novel into a reality.  He foresaw the benefit of collecting his lengthy issues into one comprehensive package, when comic stores decried his practice for doing so, because they were detracting from sales of his past issues.  He constantly employed innovative use of the medium in ways that is STILL just barely influenced by 1% of current cartoonists.  And he did it all on a 20-page monthly basis.  (Having Gerhard do the backgrounds didn't hurt either)

And yet, Dave Sim probably feels reluctant to go hand in hand with another comic publisher after holding steadfast to not tying down to any comic company that would dictate their own agenda over the cartoonist's ideas. However, Fantagraphics is on a different level than the so-called Big Two that's been the main focus of the American comics industry, and is a completely different beast altogether. As an Indy publisher, they're closer to Dave Sim's onnus for self-creation, even though he's the most successful model AND the cautionary tale of being too involved with your own comic for too long.

Then again, Dave Sim claimed that Cerebus would never be translated into other languages, because of the immense translation and redrawing hurdles, and yet it's available in Italian and French. Likewise, being a Luddite, Dave eschewed any attempt to share his Magnum Opus online, yet finally broke down for sponsoring the Kickstarter program, which suffered something of a minor setback with the fire and all.  It's not obvious upon first glance, but these smattering examples are pieces of evidence that he CAN change his previous POVs. Maybe not the most problematic misogynist ones out there, but the ones that matter when it comes to staying fiancially active.

To be continued...

EDIT - it turns out that after a teasing fling with Fantagraphics, IDW will be printing the 300 Cerebus covers instead.  Whether this will lead to their publishing the remainder of the epic revolutionary descent into madness of the main comics remains to be seen.