He turned shoes into fetish objects, brought back the stiletto and counts Lady Gaga, Madonna and Oprah Winfrey as fans. But does he really think Barbie has fat ankles?

God forgive me, I interviewed Christian Louboutin while wearing a pair of trainers. Not fancy sci-fi ones either, but properly old and grimy ones. Louboutin is one of the most famous shoe designers in the world and officially the most prestigious, according to independent ratings company Luxury Institute, which has named Christian Louboutin as the most desirable shoe brand in the world for the past three years. He is also the man who is credited, or blamed, for bringing the stiletto back into fashion. So wearing trainers to meet him is a little like suggesting to Jamie Oliver that we meet at McDonald's for lunch.

But then – whaddyaknow – Louboutin turns up to his tiny and stiletto-filled office wearing trainers himself. (Although where mine say Converse, his say, in a discreet logo on the side, Christian Louboutin, which, presumably, would come in handy should he forget his name.)

"Your trainers are nicer than mine," I say as we settle on the striped sofa against the wall.

"Oh non..." he drawls in a tone that says, "Oui, oui, oui, oui, oui."

But he assures me that he does not judge women by their shoes. Well, not exactly.

"I look at the face first. And when I look at the face, I try to see the personality and, from that, guess what kind of shoes this girl would have."

"So what shoe would my face suggest?" I ask.

He stares at me very intently for about five seconds before answering: "A DM boot."

Perhaps he was just tired. He had flown in that morning from Dubai where he is about to open his 20th boutique – with another 13 planned this year – and did not sleep on the plane "at all". And once he warms up and we turn the conversation away from strict business chat, he is really good fun, making dry remarks and then smiling quietly afterwards. At one point I ask if, having shod pretty much every celebrity in the world, from Madonna to France's first lady Carla Bruni, there is anyone left he'd like as a customer. His eyes skirt around the office, settling at last on a pair of particularly high black stilettos, studded all around with silver spikes. He turns back and replies, po-faced, "The Queen of England."

For a long time, perfume sales powered the fashion world. Then it became jeans. Now, more than ever, it's shoes and bags, and it is no coincidence that Louboutin arrived in the 90s when this switch began. He, Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo's Tamara Mellon are the Holy Trinity of the luxury footwear market, having helped turn shoes from something you put on your feet to avoid splinters into fetish objects for women. Louboutin is now at the top of that triangle.

Where Manolo Blahnik shoes are either plain or quirky, and Jimmy Choos have the distinct sheen of Eurotrash to them, Christian Louboutin shoes say one simple word: sex. Everything about them – from their disco styles, to the aggressive thrust of the shoe's curvature, to the almost pornographic red sole, flashing observers from behind as the lady walks away – shouts sex.

Seemingly every celebrity under the paparazzi sun, from Lady Gaga to Victoria Beckham, has proclaimed their love of the man. But Louboutin himself proves to have remarkably little interest in the international celebrity scene. Was he starstruck when, say, Madonna was photographed wearing his shoes? No, he wasn't. But he was a little excited when he found out that the first Mrs Johnny Hallyday was a fan – "Hallyday is a big singer in France, you know."

Louboutin also recently received the highest honour a shoe designer can receive these days: his shoes are to be featured in the new Sex And The City film. This is not only a major plug, but a potentially controversial one, as Manolo Blahnik shoes were such a mainstay of the TV series that the term "Manolos" entered the lexicon. But is Louboutin excited? Bof.

"I think it's a good thing because people tell me it is. I don't have a TV, you see," he says with a shrug.

Any awkwardness between him and Blahnik? Another baffled shrug.

He even refused to go on the Oprah Winfrey Show when she did a whole episode about how much she loves his shoes, which is as close as you can get to being knighted in America. "They filmed the first part of the show in Paris and made me stand outside in the cold – so of course I got sick," he says, still outraged by the cheek of it. "So then when they said, 'Come to Chicago' [where Winfrey films her show], I said, 'Are you crazy? I'm sick, my God!'"

Instead, Louboutin prefers his hobbies: landscaping (there are often plant details on his shoes), trapeze (he has a swing in his studio) and, occasionally, dancing. He recently made a film of himself tap dancing for Simon Fuller's fashion website, Fashionair, which is a vision of unselfconscious joy (and, yes, he made the shoes).

Is he a regular tap dancer? "Well," he says with a hint of understatement, "I've got rhythm."

He has also been redesigning his Paris apartment for five years. "It's not that I'm a perfectionist," he says, before launching into a seven-minute anecdote about how he's made the builders redo the windows three times to get the angles right.

Most of all, he works: supervising the factories, having meetings around the world and then, twice a year, he will isolate himself in one of his four country houses (Egypt, Syria, France, Portugal) while he designs the new collections.

When we meet it's the first day of Paris fashion week, a prospect that does not suffuse his face with joy. "I never was interested in being part of the fashion world – I just wanted to design shoes. I didn't even know Vogue existed when I was growing up. Vogue, what is that?" he protests.

A few years ago, Louboutin was offered the job of designer at a major fashion label, though he won't say which one. "And I really was almost offended," he says, still sounding it. "I mean, the shoe – there is a music to it, there is attitude, there is sound, it's a movement. Clothes – it's a different story. There are a million things I'd rather do before designing clothes: directing, landscaping. Designing clothes?" His face indicates his opinion of that.

Louboutin was born in 1963 and raised in Paris. His father was a carpenter and his mother was "definitely not" a high heel fan. His four sisters liked "cork wedges", he remembers, with no fondness. "Pretty much the opposite of what I do now."

Yet his taste was established in his childhood. When Louboutin was 13, he and his friends would sneak out of school to go to Le Palace, a Paris nightclub, but while his mates looked at the girls on stage, he just looked at their shoes. "Some of the shoes I make today are still inspired by the Palace – the disco look, the metal, the glitter."

He never went to fashion or design school and instead got his training working for, among others, Charles Jourdan, Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent. However, he had an unfortunate tendency to get fired: "It's because I was a terrible assistant. An assistant is supposed to assist – I always wanted to do my own thing."

He is adamant that he never had any career plan or ambition to own his own company, which I don't wholly buy. It is very hard to be successful without wanting it very badly, particularly in the fashion business, and Louboutin, for all his Gallic nonchalance, does play the game. He once decided to miss a flight back to Paris from America so he could spend two more hours in a department store autographing his shoes. "To my favourite hot housewife," Time magazine claimed he scrawled on one customer's shoe.

Today, Louboutin shoes are known for two things: price and height. A pair of Louboutin high heels can easily cost $700 (£465); boots can go up to $2,000 (£1,325) and more. Nor are his the only ones: all designer shoes seem to have increased in price by at least 50% in the last decade, which Louboutin blames on the euro – "Everything got more expensive, even bread" – as opposed to designers simply jacking up the prices when they realised people were willing to pay them.

As well as being in the vanguard of higher prices, Louboutin is also at the forefront of higher heels, bringing stilettos back into fashion, together with all the contradictions that come with them. Jennifer Lopez once told Harper's Bazaar magazine that Louboutin's shoes "kill you. But they're the sexiest shoes around." How can immobility be sexy?

At this point Louboutin starts talking about "the construction of the shoe" and "the direction of the weight" and all the usual noises people make when trying to claim that a high-heeled shoe can be comfortable. But the fact is, no matter what the construction, the woman is hoicked up on her toes. The argument about whether or not high heels empower women is fruitless and, after all this time, a little tired. But even Louboutin seems stumped by the contradiction. When I ask if comfort is an important factor in designing his shoes, he ums and ahs a tad: "It is important because a woman doesn't look good if she's not comfortable. But I wouldn't take it as a compliment if someone looked at one of my shoes and said, 'Oh, that looks like a comfortable shoe'," he says with distinct scorn. When asked if there is such a thing as a too-high heel, he replies, "There is a heel that is too high to walk in, certainly. But who cares? You don't have to walk in high heels."

Germaine Greer recently wrote, citing Louboutin in particular, "While feminists have been struggling to set women free, high heels have conquered the world."

"I haven't heard that kind of idea since the 70s. Thank God that childish idea has vanished. Who said that?" he asks sharply.

Germaine Greer. "Who's that?"

A feminist academic. She wrote a very famous book in 1970... "There you go, she's a 70s feminist. She's keeping her bases covered," he interrupts, settling the matter. For the defence, Louboutin cites one of his heel-loving customers, Madonna – "And she's pretty independent."

Last year, Louboutin signed a deal to make a special Louboutin Barbie. He agreed on one condition: they would have to slim down the doll's insufferably fat ankles.

"Did you really tell them to make Barbie's legs thinner?" I ask, expecting him to deny it.

"Yes," he replies without a blink. "The ankle was a bit straight and there's nothing more pretty than a very curved ankle. So I said to them, the one thing that could really give her perfection is to give a curve to her ankle." He smiles. "It's not like she's going to suffer for it."

• Women's shoes
• Fashion designers
• Fashion

Crashed web sites, stolen credit card info — imagine seeing the damage caused by Internet viruses and worms unleashed on a fleet of vehicles. The results could include vehicle location data used with malicious intent, the prevention of a plug-in vehicle battery from recharging, remote starting of a car, or even — as a disgruntled young former car salesman in Texas has demonstrated this week — stranding drivers with a car that won’t start and a horn that won’t quit.

Here’s what happened in Texas, as Wired and the Austin News report: A terminated employee from a car dealership called the Texas Auto Center logged into the company’s web-based system and was able to remotely wreak havoc on more than 100 vehicles. The dealership’s system is able to disable the starter system and trigger incessant horn honking for customers that have fallen behind on car payments. It’s meant to serve as an alternative to repossessing the vehicle, and the ex-Texas Auto Center employee, arrested Thursday on charges of computer intrusion, was able to set off the horn command at will and make it so drivers couldn’t start their cars.

Cars are growing ever more connected to communication networks, and upcoming generations of electric vehicles will take it a step further with connections to the power grid. Already, electric car makers have unveiled smartphone apps designed to let users to remotely control certain vehicle functions and battery charging. Down the road, we’ll likely see not only electricity flowing to cars from the grid, but also the flow of data between cars, the grid, home energy management systems, utilities and third-party service providers.

As Ford’s director of connected services Doug VanDagens told us recently (GigaOM Pro, subscription required), “For electric vehicles, connectivity to the web and data are “required over and above what gas engines require.” Apps can use data — about topography, traffic, battery and vehicle health, infrastructure availability, driving behavior — to help orient drivers in the nascent world of electric mobility, both in and out of their vehicle.

While these tools and technologies could help reduce fuel consumption, make electric vehicles more convenient, and enable utilities to prevent excess strain on the power grid as plug-in cars create new demand, that shift to an increasingly digital transportation system brings with it (as Katie has explained in the context of the smart grid buildout) one of the banes of the Internet: hacking.

The stakes, of course, are very different. Certainly nobody wants a virus on their PC. But the prospect of a hacker seizing control of some aspect of a car — a ton of metal capable of going 60-plus MPH, that costs tens of thousands of dollars, and that maybe has a battery in its belly that requires a sophisticated system of thermal controls – is a far scarier thought.

The potential consequences of cyber attacks on a digital power grid could be similarly frightening. Andy Karsner said back in 2008, when he was with the Department of Energy: “This isn’t the cyber-attacking that you think of just for passwords. This is the capacity to destroy hardware in your home, at airports, at military bases, your car, if its connected through the grid.”

We should note that remote immobilization systems like the one involved in the Austin incident have been in use for a decade or more, and yet we have not seen vehicles crippled en masse by hackers. But companies should realize this could be a sensitive issue among consumers, while both companies and regulators need to recognize risks that go along with the transition to increasingly digital and connected systems for transportation and power.

Image courtesy of Defragged’s photostream Flickr Creative Commons.

Filed under: Sedan, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Ford, GM, Police/Emergency

Charting the Five-Ohs: Next-gen Cop Car Comparo originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Following the Congressional Budget Office's score of the health care reform reconciliation package, Fox News has attempted to portray the nonpartisan CBO as untrustworthy and unreliable. By contrast, after the CBO gave a "favorable" score to the GOP health care plan, Fox praised the office as "nonpartisan" and advanced false GOP claims about the CBO's findings.

 Beck mocks CBO score of health care reform: "Well, that's a party in my pants." On the March 18 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck, Beck asked, "How would the CBO numbers even make any difference? You know, 'Only 900 and' -- what is it -- '$954 billion.' Ooh. Well, that's a party in my pants. Thank you for sending that one by. How does that make a difference?"

 Doocy: "[C]an you really rely on the numbers that the Congressional Budget Office comes out with?" On the March 19 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy claimed, "Democrats say it will reduce the deficit by more than $100 billion over the first decade." After guest host Dana Perino responded by saying, "Well, but there are other members who say that it actually will cost $2.4 trillion over the 10 years once you add it all up," Doocy asked, "Because, can you really rely on the numbers that the Congressional Budget Office comes out with?"

 Perino: "[C]an we trust these numbers?" Introducing an interview with Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) on the same edition of Fox & Friends, Perino said, "Nine hundred and forty billion dollars over the next decade. That's the preliminary price tag for the Democrats' health care bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It also says the plan will cut the federal deficit by $130 billion in that time, but can we trust these numbers?" Weiner said the score "came out really better than we thought it would. It was a great savings number, and so the deficit hawks now have things that they can point at and say, 'You know what? This really does save money." Perino then asked him, "But do you think ... that those numbers can be trusted later on?"

 Johnson Jr.: "I don't expect or anticipate that their numbers are real." On the same edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said that the "average person" would say, "[I]f a plan costs $940 billion, tell me how I'm saving 130 billion. So it doesn't make any sense." Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. then noted that Perino had asked, "Do we really trust these numbers?" and claimed that "if you read carefully the latest CBO things, they say, 'Well, we don't usually project out another 10 years.' And there's so many variables and so many wiggle words that I don't expect or anticipate that their numbers are real." He later said, "I think we're being spun."

 Hannity calls CBO score "budgetary gimmicks and tricks." On the March 18 edition of Fox News' Hannity, host Sean Hannity called the CBO score of the health care bill reflected "budgetary gimmicks and tricks" and said that it is "[f]lat-out dishonest" that the score didn't contain separate legislation that cancels scheduled cuts in Medicare payments to doctors. After guest Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) claimed "the only way that [Democrats] pay for those additions is to reduce seniors' health care benefits on their Medicaid or raise taxes," Hannity responded, "[W]hy would the CBO not highlight this to give a truly educational, informational, you know, scoring of this to the American people?"

 Hemmer asks Juan Williams "do you believe" the CBO long-range forecast. On the March 18 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, Fox News contributor Juan Williams called the CBO score a "deal-maker" because it will "reassure those independents and, by extension, those Democrats that have been on the fence because they are deficit hawks" because of the deficit reduction. Co-host Bill Hemmer then said to Williams, "That's 20 years out. You've lived in Washington a long time. Do you believe that?"

 Fox Nation headline: "CBO Score Called a 'Lie.' " On March 18, Fox Nation posted a National Review article under the headline "CBO Score Called a 'Lie.' " From Fox Nation:

 Fox's Shively touted "favorable" CBO report on GOP health care bill and advanced false GOP claim that GOP plan would lower premiums more than Democrats' plan. On the November 5, 2009, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, contributor Caroline Shively adopted the GOP spin by reporting, "Now, on the other side of the aisle, Republicans have gotten favorable reports from the Congressional Budget Office on the cost of their health care bill. GOP lawmakers say that means premiums for millions of families will be almost $5,000 lower under their plan, compared to the cheapest plan in the Democrats' exchange." In fact, the $5,000 difference Shively cited ignored premium caps in the House Democrats' plan. As Media Matters for America has noted, because the Democrats' health care bill provides premium caps on a sliding scale based on income, the lowest amount that a family would have to pay in premiums is significantly less than the GOP alternative.

America's Newsroom attributes Republican talking point to CBO. On the November 5 edition of America's Newsroom, host Martha McCallum claimed, "The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is saying that the Republican bill ... will carry lower costs for Americans. The CBO estimates that health insurance premiums would be nearly $5,000 cheaper under the Republican reforms than the Democratic ones." In fact, the CBO never made that claim. The comparison was based on calculations done by Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee. From America's Newsroom:

Fox & Friends report obscures that GOP plan wouldn't cover uninsured, wouldn't significantly lower premiums, would reduce deficit less than Democrats' plan. Shively's Fox & Friends report ignored that the GOP plan would not cover most uninsured Americans. Shively also did not report that the CBO estimates indicate that House Democrats' bill lowers the deficit more than the GOP's proposal.

Experts believe release of pent-up energy after such a long, hard winter could produce the most spectacular spring in years

Up in the plane and ash trees, all London's wildlife appeared hard at spring yesterday. Tail feathers were shaking along the Regent's canal, the first buds were bursting on brambles and honeysuckle and carpets of crocuses were delighting crowds in the grand royal parks.

But in the more egalitarian Camley Street natural park, just 100 yards from St Pancras station, there was still precious little sight or sound of a new season. A heron was spotted last week, a few tits were investigating the bat boxes but the grasses were dead, the hedgehog boxes empty and the newts absent.

It's been the longest, hardest winter the UK has known for 30 years, with twice as many frosty nights as usual, says the Met Office. Wales has barely seen a daffodil and vast swaths of countryside that should be green by now are still dull and grey after months under snow. But – shout it! - tomorrow is the vernal equinox, the official first day of spring in the northern hemisphere, when night and day are the same length.The release of pent-up energy could spur the most spectacular spring for years, but there have been losers as well as winners.

For more than a decade, ever milder winters have led to ever earlier springs, with daffodils and frogspawn found at Christmas and confused insects and small mammals stirring in January. But this year, says Matthew Oakes, conservation adviser to the National Trust, harks back to older times when British life, to all natural intents, began near the end of March. "The trend is to earlier seasons, but this is a slow, late, old fashioned spring," he said.

Oakes, who keeps meticulous records of nature's first sightings, says wildlife in London is well ahead of the rest of the country because of the "heat island" effect of 12 million people driving cars and heating their homes. "Outside London, everything appears incredibly late this year. It's the first year since 1996 that there have been no bumblebees in January. In the woods very little has been happening. The bluebells and wild garlic are putting up their first spikes and the primroses are just starting. There a little bit of green from honeysuckle and rose but the woods are really leafless.

"Rooks are only building their nests now. The bluebells this year will be very late, perhaps not in full flower until mid-May," he adds.

Oates's predictions were echoed by Steve Marsh, a conservationist with the Woodland Trust, which has up to 40,000 people recording the arrival of the seasons and posting sightings on the web. He said: "This has been an exceptional season. We've only had one blackthorn in blossom so far, yet usually we would have 1,000 or more sightings by now. There have been only 10 recordings of coltsfoot when we would have expected hundreds. And it's the same with celandines. Normally we would see them now right across the UK, but this year there has been sparse coverage in the south and midlands and almost none reported in northern England and Scotland". But he adds that even this year's "late" spring is early compared to 1970s. "

Among those celebrating, say conservationists, are galanthophiles - snowdrop lovers - and those cherishing bats, who can expect a bumper year because the baby mammals thrive in a hard winter with its deep, refreshing hibernation. Equally, Jack Frost may have stopped some pests in their tracks, including the parasitical sturmia bella fly which has nearly wiped out tortoiseshell butterflies and the midge that can spread the bluetongue virus among livestock.

But pity the very small birds, says Paul Stancliffe, of the British Trust for Ornithology. "We don't know for certain yet what effect this winter has had on bird populations, but other bad winters, like in the 1940s and 1960s, really hit small ones like the goldcrest and the wren very hard. This winter will almost certainly have had an [adverse] effect on them. Frozen water and plummeting temperatures may have also severely reduced populations of birds like the kingfisher and heron, who have had less water open water to feed from."

But the growing British habit of feeding garden birds will certainly have helped, he says. "We spend £200m-300m a year on bird food. That will have seen many birds through the harshest months."

On the wing, there are further signs of winter easing its grip. Scientists in Ghana this week reported great flocks of swifts heading north and the first swallows and wheatears have just arrived in southern England from equatorial Africa after one of nature's greatest annual journeys.

"The migration is well under way," says Stancliffe, whose records suggest we can expect great numbers of swallows, swifts, willow warblers, ring ouzel and housemartins to arrive in the next few weeks.

"The early birds are taking a gamble. If we have had an early spring they get the best choice of nest sites and mates. But in a bad winter, like this, they could be in trouble. Next week we should get a rush of migrants. If this milder weather persists then they will have timed it right. All they need now is a rush of insects."

"It's all about to explode," says Oakes. "It could come with a bang and be one of the most spectacular springs in years. We've all – humans and wildlife – suffered a lot. We all need the sunshine now".

What's thriving

· Snowdrops

· Crocuses

· Bats

What's not

· Daffodils

· Bluebells

· Bumblebees

· Kingfishers

• Wildlife
• Insects
• Birds
• Weather
• Plants

Welcome to the two-hundred and fifty-second in a series of examinations of comic book legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous two hundred and fifty.

Comic Book Legends Revealed is part of the larger Legends Revealed series, where I look into legends about the worlds of entertainment and sports, which you can check out here, at legendsrevealed.com. I'd especially recommend you check out this installment of TV Legends Revealed to find out the story of how Michael J. Fox got "revenge" on Brandon Tartikoff!

Let's begin!

COMIC LEGEND: Frank Frazetta turned down the opportunity to play professional baseball to draw comic books.

STATUS: I'm Going With True.

Amazingly enough, the world might have missed out on the artistic talents of Frank Frazetta! Instead, it is the world of baseball that missed out on the athletic skills of Frank Frazetta!

A few months back, reader Ed wrote in to ask:

I read somewhere, don't remember where or when, that Frank Frazetta turned down a "bonus-baby" contract to play for the New York Giants baseball team. I think this was from an interview, so came from his own mouth. I can't find any information about this online. Could it be true, and would there be any way to verify that the Giants actually offered him a contract, or did he just have scouts looking at him. This would have been right after WWII.

This story appears to basically be true, although I'm sure there's a little puffery involved.

For instance, on the Frazetta Art Gallery site a few years back, it was said...

Frank did not start playing baseball until he was 15 years old, but within just a few short years of playing sandlot ball in Brooklyn, he was offered a contract to play center field for the New York Giants.

That's stretching the truth of the matter a bit, as in the biography section, there is a more realistic take on the situation...

In this spot on the Frazetta Art Gallery web site, his baseball almost-career is discussed:

Through his teens, he continued drawing and painting, however he began to slack off due to his discovery of girls and baseball. In school he set several high school records, and eventually caught the attention of a scout for the New York Giants professional baseball team. Frank was offered a position on their farm squad with a good prospect of moving up to the major league within a season, but he turned them down. " I was involved with a girl at the time," Frazetta says a little sorrowfully. "And going down to Texas and sweating it out in the minors for a year didn't seem very appealing. You have to remember that at that time athletes weren't making the money they do today. They bussed you back and forth and it was just a big disgusting hassle. I remember that traveling to another state seemed like going to the end of the world, so I told them, maybe next year. Time went by and before I knew it I was too old. It was just my way of letting time make the decision for me. If I have any regrets it's that I didn't turn pro. If I was in my twenties and had it to do over - today, at today's salaries - you better bet I'd do it. "

And yeah, that's basically the "rub" of the story - while yes, Frazetta most likely WAS offered a baseball contract (he was a very skilled baseball player in high school)...

what a "baseball contract" was in 1946 is very different than what you would think of a baseball contract today.

In 1946, the New York Giants had a whopping SEVENTEEN minor league baseball affiliates!

They were all over the country, in cities big and small!

Minneapolis
Danville
Trenton
Manchester
Hickory
Springfield
Anderson
Oshkosh
Jacksonville
Bristol
Jersey City
Erie
Peekskill
St. Cloud
San Francisco
Fort Smith
Richmond Colts

With that many affiliates, the amount of players who were offered "professional baseball contracts" was a lot higher than it it is now (not to mention the fact that pro ballplayers were chosen almost entirely from white people at the time) and with that many affiliates, your average player was not exactly making a lot of money.

And while Frazetta was a great physical specimen...

there was no guarantee that he would actually make the majors (he wasn't a prospect along the level of, say, a Whitey Ford - just to name a major prospect signed around the same time).

And even if he were to buck the odds and MAKE the majors, even THEN he would not be guaranteed a hefty salary!

So when you add in very little upfront money and a lot of travel, all with the promise of MAYBE making the Majors, it was not exactly a great job offer if you had steady work at the time.

And comic books in the late 1940s/early 1950s had a lot more definitive work for a guy like Frazetta, so it's not surprising at all to see him choose drawing comics over playing minor league baseball. So, coupled with the many accounts of his baseball acumen from the people who knew him as a youth, plus the fact that Frazetta has consistently told the story over the years (with just the specifics moving a bit as time goes by), I'm willing to say that yes, Frazetta did, indeed, turn down a professional baseball job to draw comics.

And from his perspective at the time, it surely seemed to pay off...

By the end of the decade and the beginning of the next, Frazetta was all over comics...

And when comics stopped paying, Frazetta moved on to comic strips, and then to book covers, which is where his real worldwide fame began, as his science fiction and fantasy paintings are famous the world over.

And it all could have gone very differently if he had said yes to baseball as a teen.

Thanks to Ed for the question!

COMIC LEGEND: A black and white EC Comics reprint uncovered a decades-old X-rated prank.

STATUS: True

Late last year I did a Comic Book Legends Revealed installment on how an issue of X-Men, when reprinted in black and white for Marvel's Essentials format, had some slight nudity where nudity was never meant to be shown (inker Terry Austin added some female anatomy for the sake of definition - it was intended to be covered up when the book was colored).

Well, a similar situation occurred in 1979 when Russ Cochran did the EC Archives Edition of Tales From the Crypt, with black and white reprints of the original series.

Here's a page from Tales From the Crypt #29....

Here's a panel from the issue...

Nothing weird, right?

Well, here's that same panel in black and white (you can click to enlarge it a bit more)...

And here is a detail of that panel....

Of course, in this instance, it was an intentional joke by original artist Joe Orlando that was intended to be colored over so that it would never be visible.

The best part about this story is that a few years after the collection came out , someone noticed the prank and informed Bill Gaines, who then wrote to Orlando to "complain" about the prank (Gaines was a noted prankster himself, so it's highly unlikely that he actually cared, almost certainly he was writing to acknowledge the decades-old prank).

And Orlando replied to him feigning outrage at the suggestion.

The great Bhob Stewart featured the prank on his great web site here. Stewart has a copy of Orlando's full letter to Gaines (written on DC Comics stationery) at that above link. It's a great read - well worth reading. Heck, Stewart's whole site, Potzrebie, is a great read as a whole and well worth reading.

COMIC LEGEND: Dreadknight was originally going to be the mysterious Masters of Evil member in Amazing Spider-Man #283.

STATUS: I'm Going With False

In the other week's Comic Book Legends Revealed, I discussed how Tom DeFalco was planning to introduce a brand-new Spider-Man villain during his run on Amazing Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man #283, but since he left the book soon after, he brought the character to his run on Thor.

Well, apparently there is some matter of debate over whether that was the ORIGINAL intent for that character in #283.

Readers Omar Karindu and trajan23 both wrote (respectively)...

The rumor I always heard was that the MoE-to-be was supposed to be Dreadknight.

Dreadknight was listed as a Master of Evil in the Marvel Handbook a few months before the Under Siege story began, and I think Roger Stern said somewhere that he wanted the evil Black Knight's successor in there somewhere.

and

The Marvel Appendix also goes with the Dreadknight as the intended MoE-to-be as well.

As to the first point, here is the page from the Handbook...

Note the circled part.

And here is the quote from the great Unofficial Marvel Appendix site on the Masters of Evil...

The mystery member of the Masters of Evil in Amazing Spider-Man I#283 was almost certainly supposed to be the Dreadknight, who was from Europe, was a good match-up for the Black Knight, and had been named as a member of the Masters of Evil in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #4. However, Tom DeFalco decided to make it his newly-created villain the Mongoose instead. He was also intending to set up the Mongoose as a Spider-Man villain, but wound up establishing him in Thor after his abrupt departure from the Spider-Man titles.

Well, awhile back, someone asked Roger Stern about Amazing #283 on his web forum, and he replied:

No, Tom DeFalco wrote AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #283. The last issue of ASM that I scripted was #250.

However, Tom and I coordinated events between AVENGERS and ASM so that the Absorbing Man and Titania bounced back and forth between the comics and stayed consistent.

(Believe it or not, there was a time when this was common.)

I believe that Tom and Ron Frenz intended the mystery villain to be a new Spider-Man foe. But they ran into editorial problems and left the book shortly after that issue. I believe they later used the mystery villain during their run on THOR, but I don't remember who he was.

So it sure seems that the Mongoose was always intended to be the mystery character, as Stern does not even hint at anyone other than a new Spider-Man villain being the character in #283.

I think it's clear enough that I'm willing to go with a "false" here!

Thanks to Omar Karindu and trajan23 for the suggestion and thanks to Roger Stern for the info (and Dicky El for asking Roger the question)!

Be sure to check out the Unofficial Index to the Marvel Universe, while you're at it! It's a great site!

Okay, that's it for this week!

Thanks to the Grand Comics Database for this week's covers! And thanks to Brandon Hanvey for the Comic Book Legends Revealed logo!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is cronb01@aol.com.

As you likely know by now, last April my book finally came out!

Here is the cover by artist Mickey Duzyj. I think he did a very nice job (click to enlarge)...

If you'd like to order it, you can use the following code if you'd like to send me a bit of a referral fee...

Was Superman a Spy?: And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed

See you all next week!

On Fox, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Stephen Moore claimed that one reason the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the health care reform reconciliation package reduces the deficit is because it scored "10 years of revenue ... but only six years of spending," adding that "if you match up the cost with the revenues, I think most analysts believe that this is a revenue loser." In fact, CBO estimated that the bill will continue to lower the deficit after 2019, long after all the spending has kicked in.

Moore claims spending and revenue "mismatch" kept bill from looking like a "revenue loser." From the March 18 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren:

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN (host): How do they say we're going to pay for this?

MOORE: OK. So, first of all, this is roughly a trillion -- let's just round it to about a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. But, remember, this runs into the problem we talked about a couple weeks ago that it's -- the way that CBO has scored it: 10 years of revenues, Greta, but only six years of spending. So, it's a mismatch.

VAN SUSTEREN: OK. All right, so, for 10 years we're going to be paying for it, but we don't get 10 years of services?

MOORE: Right. We get six years.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right.

MOORE: That's one way they keep the deficit down because they don't start spending until the year's out.

VAN SUSTEREN: But they start collecting.

MOORE: Right. And so, actually --

VAN SUSTEREN: That's like going -- that's like making a car payment for four years but they don't deliver the car for four years.

MOORE: Well put. I like that analogy, and --

VAN SUSTEREN: And so you sit there and wait.

MOORE: And so, in fact, if you match up the cost with the revenues, I think most analysts believe that this is a revenue loser.

VAN SUSTEREN: I think that's silly the way they do that.

CBO: Senate bill yields "a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion" over 10 years. On March 18, CBO released its preliminary estimate of the effect of the combined effect of the Senate bill and reconciliation proposal on the federal budget. It found:

CBO and JCT estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation -- H.R. 3590 and the reconciliation proposal -- would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion over the 2010-2019 period.

CBO: Over second 10 years, reconciliation bill would save "around one-half percent of GDP." CBO also estimated savings for the decade following the 2010-2019 period:

Therefore, CBO has developed a rough outlook for the decade following the 2010-2019 period by grouping the elements of the legislation into broad categories and (together with the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation) assessing the rate at which the budgetary impact of each of those broad categories is likely to increase over time.

[...]

Using that same analytic approach, the combined effect of enacting H.R. 3590 and the reconciliation bill would also be to reduce federal budget deficits over the ensuing decade relative to those projected under current law -- with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP.

When we were driving out of town I said, "I hate the corpses of empires, they stink as nothing else. They stink so badly that I cannot believe that even in life they were healthy." "I do not think you can convince mankind," said my husband, "that there is not a certain magnificence about a great empire in being." "Of course there is," I admitted, "but the hideousness outweighs the beauty. You are not, I hope, going to tell me that they impose law on lawless people. Empires live by the violation of law." (Rebecca West, from Black Lamb and Grey Falcon)

Strange week this week. All Marvel and Vertigo. And lots of sex. Weird. And yes, I'm aware the fourth issue of Daytripper came out last week. I didn't get it, for some reason. I should have it this weekend. Dang. Let's move on!

Avengers vs. Atlas #3 (of 4) ("Hulk Smash!"/"Hey, Venus!") by Jeff Parker (writer, "Hulk"), Paul Cornell (writer, "Venus"), Gabriel Hardman (artist, "Hulk"), Leonard Kirk (artist, "Venus"), Elizabeth Breitweiser (colorist, "Hulk"), Brad Anderson (colorist, "Venus"), Tom Orzechowski (letterer, "Hulk"), and Joe Sabino (letterer, "Venus"). $3.99, 30 pgs, FC, Marvel.

Everyone reading this should know what I'm going to rant about. When Thor transports the Avengers and the agents of Atlas to Norway, he says, "But I know of one place on Midgard I can bring us all to!" Sorry, Thor - it's TAKE!!!!! Seriously, poor "take." No one loves it. So sad.

I love how Parker casually makes Hank Pym a dick even when he's not really trying. When the old-school Avengers find out that Bruce Banner is the Hulk (because Venus sang to him and calmed him down, turning him back to Banner), Pym says, "That's Dr. Bruce Banner! He's maybe the top physicist in the world -- well, besides me ..." Ha! And Parker makes Tony Stark a bit of a wuss, too - Marvel Boy telepathically informs Pym about what's happening, and Stark says, "He could have put the knowledge in me ... I would have gotten it." If that's not enough, in the next panel, Stark looks down at himself and says to no one in particular, "I built this suit ..." Whenever a writer is clever enough to drop stuff like that into his fairly standard superhero team-up (which this is), I appreciate it, because it just humanizes them and makes it easier to deal with the wackiness of a team from the 1960s (or a decade ago, according to Pym) joining up with a team from the present thanks to some time anomaly. They all fight the Hulk, Bob figures out what's up, and everything is set up for the final showdown. It's good, clean fun!

In the back-up story, Cornell and Kirk bring us Venus, love advice columnist. It's pretty hilarious (see the panel of awesome below), as she answers questions from Hercules, Deadpool (which is particularly hilarious), I assume Jocasta, the Hulk, Norman Osborn (more hilarity!), Kitty Pryde, and Clint Barton. It's very dependent on knowing Marvel continuity (unsurprisingly), and the only one I didn't get was the letter from Miss Dean. Help me out, more knowledgeable readers! It's a fun little tale.

Sex in this comic? Hoo-boy, you bet. It stars Venus in both stories, for crying out loud! In the first, Venus has to sing to calm Bruce down, and two superheroes get caught in the sound wave. Macking commences! And in the second, well, Deadpool's letter is the highlight, and I won't spoil it.

One panel of awesome:

Oh, Hulk, no one understands you!

Fables #93 ("The Little Murder Part Two of Two") by Bill Willingham (writer), David Lapham (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), and Todd Klein (letterer). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, DC/Vertigo.

It's been two months since the last issue of Fables. Strange. Anyway, I always dig the short stories of this series because they seem to contain standalone stories, but Willingham always makes sure that things get tied into the main story later. In other words, I doubt we've seen the last of the some of these characters. The story itself is not great but not bad, as Ambrose needs to figure out a way to deal with the serious transgression from last issue in a way that doesn't rip his kingdom apart. He does it, of course, but there's still some restlessness among the subjects, and that can't be good. I do like the only witness for the defense - at first, I thought it was absolutely idiotic, but once John started expanding on his story, it made better sense. And hey - those people who wish to read political intent into writers' books can kind of have a field day here, as Willingham tackles the death penalty and the idea of culture leading to what some would call crime. I honestly don't care when writers inject their political beliefs into comics (if, indeed, that's what Willingham is doing here), because this issue, while not superb, does show how much difficulty Ambrose is going to have moving forward. That's what makes this such a neat series.

Sex in this comic? Definitely. Off-panel and after the issue ends, but oh yeah, someone's getting lucky!

One panel of awesome:

Won't someone think of the ... squirrel children!

Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #1 (of 2) (Hercules main story/"Greek Tragedy") by Greg Pak (writer, "Hercules"), Fred van Lente (writer, "Hercules"), Paul Tobin (writer, "Tragedy"), Ariel Olivetti (artist, "Hercules"), Reilly Brown (penciler, "Tragedy"), Jason Paz (inker, "Tragedy"), Wil Quintana (colorist, "Tragedy"), Simon Bowland (letterer, "Hercules"), and Joe Sabino (letterer, "Tragedy"). $3.99, 30 pgs, FC, Marvel.

There are a few writers that I simply will not read. I've read their stuff, disliked it enough to know it's kind of a pattern with them and not an anomaly, and won't try it again. There are some writers who I dislike so much that even if they hook up with a fantastic artist, it's not enough to get me to buy it. However, if I like the writer, usually I can take lousy art, because I'm much more interested in the writing in comics than the art. If the art doesn't make my eyes bleed and tells the story serviceably, I can deal with it. Very rarely will the art on a book I want to read by a writer I like keep me from buying it. Let me tell you, I had one of those moments on Wednesday, when I looked at this book and Ariel Olivetti's art.

I can't really put my finger on why I don't like Olivetti's art. I didn't always dislike it. A decade ago, when he was still drawing using heavy lines rather than whatever the hell he's doing now, it wasn't great art but it had a kind of mad energy to it. Then he started doing more and more delicate line work, it appears he's given up on inking, and I don't know what's going on with the coloring (an Irene Y. Lee is credited with "production" on this book; does she do the coloring or does Olivetti?). It's that faux-"realistic" look that, to me, is ridiculously static and, at times, downright creepy. It's kind of the same thing that Salvador Larocca has done in the past five years or so, with color washes that drains everything heavy from the page but makes the art far too ephemeral. It's not a good look. Olivetti is fine telling a story, but the art just repels me. But I bought this anyway, because I knew that Pak and Van Lente wouldn't let me down. And, heck, they didn't. Well, except for one brief exchange. I'll 'splain.

The premise of the book is that Amadues Cho and a bunch of heroes congregate at the Parthenon to honor Hercules. Amadeus is peeved at Athena and wants her to show up, but instead the heroes do. So they all tell stories about how groovy Hercules was. Thor talks about the time he and Herc had to outdrink a bunch of giants, while Namor tells them of the time Herc beat on him to get him out of a funk. (I wonder why Namor is wearing his new, "I'm so cool" outfit in his flashback when he's wearing his old-school, "I'm so cool I can look UNcool" underpants in the original comic. I mean, will people reading this comic be that confused that he ... changed his clothes?!?!?!?) These are not bad stories, and Thor's is quite funny. Then the babes show up, talking about how hot Herc was (it's true - they all say it!). Snowbird says that they all "lay" with him, then continues: "I know there are others in the crowd who should join us ... don't be shy." At which Northstar says, "Is that the time? Gotta go!" while Namor looks on, a question mark above his head. Ha ha, Jean-Paul had sex with Herc and he's embarrassed about it! Now, this bugged me. First of all, Herc is a god. And he's, you know, Greek. I always assumed he was kind of pansexual, so the idea of him having sex with men isn't that strange. Second, Northstar is (wait for it) gay. And everyone knows he's gay! Who cares if he had sex with Herc? It felt, to me, that Van Lente and Pak were saying that a gay man would be embarrassed that he had sex with a man, while the women aren't. This would have, actually, been a perfect opportunity for another Marvel hero to come out of the closet - the joke would have been funnier if Snowbird had said that and someone like Warren or Logan had shrugged and said, "Hey, it weren't no big thing." But it's weird that Northstar is embarrassed about it. This weird feeling continues on the next page, when Alflyse starts talking about her time with Herc (see the panel of awesome below). Wolverine and Fandral looked shocked. After she's done talking, Namor too looks shocked (and Thor looks like he's fondly remembering his own experiences with the Elven Tickler, which isn't too surprising, given that he's, you know, Thor). Logan is older than a century, and he knows how to get with the ladies. Fandral is a freakin' god. Namor, I suppose, is the most stuck-up of them, so him I can forgive. But the idea in mainstream comics, it seems, is that men like the sex as long as it's not too weird, while the women kind of tolerate the sex but certainly don't do anything wacky. Pak and Van Lente are subverting the second assumption, but reinforcing the first. Are you telling me Logan never got really weird with any of the seriously crazy women he hooked up with? Are you saying Fandral never did anything bizarre to mix things up after a thousand years of the missionary position? I've seen this attitude before in Marvel and DC comics, and it's a bit strange. If someone who looks like Alflyse starts talking about how much she enjoyed Herc's mastery of the Elven Tickler, I wouldn't looked shocked, I'd be breaking out the instruction manual to figure it out!

And then Athena shows up and tells Amadeus that he's the new leader of the Olympus group, which leads into next issue. And the back-up story has Venus and Namora going around telling people that Herc is dead. It's a clever idea by Tobin - apparently Herc invested money in stuff and then forgot about it, so he has all sorts of weird holdings all over the world, some of which have done very well for him (he was an early investor in Stark Industries, for instance). It's a nice little story that features a hydra. Which is never a bad thing to see.

Sex in this comic? See above. Plus, Venus get naked in a totally non-sexual situation (one of Herc's holdings was a nudist colony), and all the people who lived in homes that Herc owned happened to be women. I wonder why?

One panel of awesome:

I love Wolverine's expression!

Joe the Barbarian #3 (of ВосемБ) ("The Dying Boy") by Grant "Yes, this is just propaganda to get you to keep rats as pets, why do you ask?" Morrison (writer), Sean Murphy (artist), Dave Stewart (colorist), and Todd Klein (letterer). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, DC/Vertigo.

Morrison unveils a few more secrets in this issue, as Joe is shown something that makes his journey through the strange world of more import than it already was, and a new adventurer joins the team. And of course, because it's a Grant Morrison comic, the very odd bad guys (well, I'm just going to assume they're bad guys; they could be kindly monks for all I know) are revealed at the end. There are typical Morrisonisms sprinkled throughout the dialogue, and it all moves along at a nice clip. Murphy remains the absolutely stunning star of the comic, though. The chase at the beginning of the issue is terrifically exciting, and when Joe and Jack arrive in Draka's town, Murphy gives us a full-page drawing that is simply gorgeous. When Joe collapses near the end of the issue, Murphy looks downward through his house, almost giving us vertigo. The book itself continues to get better, writing-wise, but Murphy's art is so staggering you almost don't need to read the text. That's so rare with a Morrison comic that it's almost unbelievable. But there it is!

Sex in this comic? It's about a boy in a fantasy land. Let's hope not!

One panel of awesome:

So portentous!!!!!

Marvel Boy: The Uranian #3 (of 3) ("Man of Two Worlds") by Jeff Parker (writer), Felix Ruiz (artist/letterer), and Val Staples (colorist). $3.99, 22 pgs + 18 pgs of 3 back-up stories, FC, Marvel.

This isn't a bad comic, and it looks great, but it does feel more like Parker is filling in the gaps of the characters from Agents of Atlas (or, I guess, Atlas) than telling a standalone story. He fleshed out some crucial points about Bob's past, namely his connection to Uranus and what his overlords really want (and if I call them "overlords," they can't be too benign, can they?), but this feels a bit trifling, as if it could have been told in a flashback in the regular series over the course of an issue or possibly two. Three issues is a bit much. I mean, we get to see a giant 1950s Marvel monster (see below), some nice parts about Bob's life, and a groovy mad scientist, but it still feels a bit too slight. Oh well. The art is fantastic, Parker's writing is fine as ever (even if the book itself is slight), and we get to see a bunch of reprints drawn by Bill Everett. If you're a fan of Jimmy Woo's team or Parker's writing, it's a fun book. For four bucks a pop, though, it's a bit steep.

Sex in this comic? Bob gets busy in a rocket with Violet. There's nothing better than zero-gravity sex! (Or, you know, so I'm told. By my astronaut friends. Of which I have many.)

One panel of awesome:

Jeff Parker + Felix Ruiz = awesome!

Spider-Woman #7 by Brian Michael Bendis (writer), Alex Maleev (artist), and Cory Petit (letterer). $3.99, 35 pgs, FC, Marvel.

Bendis writes at the end of this book that it's over, because it's way too much work for Maleev to do it, motion-comic style. Why they specifically had to do it motion-comic style isn't addressed, but apparently putting together a motion comic takes a lot more time and effort by the artist, and it was killing Maleev. KILLING HIM!!!!!! So they pulled the plug. Oh well.

I'm not that put out by it, because I was probably going to drop the book anyway after the first arc. I will defend the Bendis/Maleev Daredevil to anyone who tries to put it down (which, to be honest, isn't many people), but this just never got good. It had a nifty hook but Bendis simply didn't do anything with it, and in the end, he had to bring in the Avengers to bail Jessica out. This issue is just a big ol' dumb superhero fight with a few clever Bendisisms, but mostly, it's dumb. And Jessica is a total bitch. She's not a bitch in a charming, fucked-up way that Jessica Jones was in Alias, she's a bitch in a "Gosh, I really hope that Skrull kills her" way. She keeps calling the Asian girl "dumb" because she claims that her Skrull boyfriend is Spider-Man. Now, the way Maleev draws her, it seems like she's blind. Second, the Skrull is, you know, a shape-shifter, so even if she's not blind, he could look like Spider-Man. Jessica points out that Spider-Man "famously" lives in New York, but she's only been dating him three weeks, meaning he could be on vacation or something. So, um, Jessica? Shut the fuck up. As Abigail points out, your track record so far in this comic isn't great in the intelligence department, so if the girl from Madripoor believes she was dating Spider-Man, you're the last person in the world to call her dumb. And then, later, the Skrull tells her that the queen chose her form because "of all the people in the world ... we discovered that no one on this entire planet cares enough about you to notice you at all." Really, Skrull? Okay, from the way Jessica behaves in this comic, I see Skrull dude's point, but that's a bit extreme, isn't it? I mean, she has plenty of friends, after all. It's one of those things that sounds cool the first time you read it but then, once you think about it for more than a second, makes absolutely no sense. And then Wolverine tries to stab a shape-shifter to death. You'd think he'd know better.

So I would have ditched the book anyway, but now I don't have to. If you've been thinking about getting the trade, I'd skip it. Spend it on something, you know, good.

Sex in this comic? Not a bit. Jessica finds the Skrull in a strip club, though.

One panel of "awesome":

Really?

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #6 ("Shock and Awe Chapter 6") by Gregg Hurwitz (writer), Jerome Opeña (penciler), Jay Leisten (inker), Paul Mounts (colorist), and Joe Caramagna (letterer). $2.99, 23 pgs, FC, Marvel.

And now, Moon Knight And Me: A Love Story.

I have never made my love of Moon Knight a secret. I dig him. I love the whole multiple personalities thing, I love the whole weird network of operatives, I love the Doug Moench/Bill Sienkiewicz run with a love that is probably a little unhealthy, I love the Doug Moench/Kevin Nowlan run that followed it, I love the "Fist of Khonshu" series that followed that only lasted six issues and wasn't very good, I liked the 1990s series that also wasn't very good but lasted longer than any Moon Knight series ever, I loved the James Fry issues in the latter part of that run that were really bizarre eye candy, I loved the Stephen Platt issues that ended the run ... okay, that's a lie. I hated those issues. They're AWFUL. I loved the late 1990s mini-series that brought the character back from limbo, with Mark Texeira and then Tommy Lee Edwards on art. I loved the new series that launched a few years ago, which made our hero truly insane for, really, the first time (as much as Moench explored the idea of multiple personalities, you never got the sense that Moonie was all that crazy). And I loved the first few issues of this series, which returned Moon Knight to New York and brought back Bushman (okay, that wasn't too great an idea) and featured out of this world art by Opeña. I bought the first Moon Knight Essential volume because I didn't have the early appearances of the character. I'm going to buy the new hardcover of the Moench/Sienkiewicz collaborations before the first series launched even though I own some of them, because I love the character so much. I think that the first series is wildly underrated, as it was one of the first (if not the first) series to be released through the Direct Market, bypassing newstands and therefore allowing Moench and Sienkiewicz to tell more mature stories than mainstream comics before it. I think the character has a ton of potential that has been tapped a bit, but not enough. But that's just me.

So why am I explaining this? Well, as much as I dug what Hurwitz did in these first few issues (even though I didn't agree with bringing Bushman back and turning him into Bane), I thought this was a terrible way to end this arc and it makes me wonder if I will even buy the next arc. It makes me sad, but that's the way it is. In the first issue, it seemed as if Hurwitz was poking fun at the silliness of superheroes, but doing it subtly. I can deal with Moon Knight as satire, because it's an interesting take, especially as he's a bit, you know, out there. But as we got further into the arc, Hurwitz stopped doing that and this became much more of a straight-forward superhero comic. And I'm just not that interested in that anymore. I mean, Hurwitz brought Bushman back. So what? What happens to him? He ends up in an insane asylum. So what? Bushman's death was interesting because it pushed Moon Knight even further over the brink and set the stage for the previous series, which was excellent. Now he's back, and he's just another boring villain. Even in the mediocre 1990s series, he ruled a country, which added a bit of tension to his dealings with our hero. Now, he's dull. And we get another joke about Crawley getting hit on the head and changing his personality, back to what it was. This wasn't funny when it happened to Guy Gardner twenty years ago, and it's still not funny. I realize that I'm too close to the situation and I should be able to laugh at head injuries just like those uptight [insert ethnic group here] should be able to laugh at jokes at their expense, but it's not the fact that Crawley sustained a head injury and it changed his personality. It's that this book isn't a comedy, so tonally it was all wrong, and it's also that nobody seems to care. That's what bugged me when it happened to Guy - wouldn't someone think, "Hey, maybe we should check him out?" even if they liked his new personality more? Shouldn't Moon Knight have suggested that Crawley ought to get an MRI? It's too fraught with potential pitfalls to make it really funny, and Hurwitz didn't do(...)

The FCC has had it with ISPs. For more than a decade, the agency has relied on ISP reports to get a picture of broadband speeds and availability in the US, and the results have been uniformly terrible. The ISPs don't want to report numbers detailed enough to be useful, so the feds finally dropped a pile of cash on the table last year to do some proper broadband mapping.

Last week, the FCC went a step further, rolling out tools for Android, the iPhone, and the Web that enable users to test—and, crucially, to report—their broadband speeds. In addition, it decided to fund a third-party measurement company that will use hardware devices to test actual line speeds in tens of thousands of US homes. It's all about the data, and the FCC is determined to get it one way or another.

Read the comments on this post

The FCC has had it with ISPs. For more than a decade, the agency has relied on ISP reports to get a picture of broadband speeds and availability in the US, and the results have been uniformly terrible. The ISPs don't want to report numbers detailed enough to be useful, so the feds finally dropped a pile of cash on the table last year to do some proper broadband mapping.

Last week, the FCC went a step further, rolling out tools for Android, the iPhone, and the Web that enable users to test—and, crucially, to report—their broadband speeds. In addition, it decided to fund a third-party measurement company that will use hardware devices to test actual line speeds in tens of thousands of US homes. It's all about the data, and the FCC is determined to get it one way or another.

Read the comments on this post

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is the first United States museum exhibition of the late works of American artist Andy Warhol (1928–1987) and the first major Warhol survey in New York since the 1989 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Created amid the frenetic activity of Warhol’s celebrity, the nearly fifty paintings on view reveal the artist’s vitality, energy, and spirit of experimentation. (PRWeb Mar 19, 2010)

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/03/prweb3744744.htm

The history of the development of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory is reviewed from a personal perspective. This review is necessarily...

This presentation reviews Chandra’s major contribution to the understanding of nearby galaxies. After a brief summary on significant advances in...

UK ISP O2, the “leading provider of mobile phones and broadband” in that country, has condemned the approach to illegal P2P taken by law firm ACS:Law in which it’s been ending thousands of “settlement letters” to suspected file-sharers.

It prefers a “win-win” approach to the problem that involves “encouraging the development of new business models that offer customers the content they want, how they want it, for a fair price.”

Even the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), hardly an advocate of developing new business models to combat illegal file-sharing, has criticized ACS:Law, though it prefers a “three-strikes” graduated response system instead.

ACS:Law announced an initial plan to target some 15,000 alleged illegal file-sharers across the UK last December as part of a “revolutionary business model that “generates revenue for rights holders and effectively decreases copyright infringement in a measurable and sustainable way” unlike what it says are “costly and ineffective” anti-piracy measures used by other companies.

After careful review it later decided to drop a number of those cases, limiting their lawsuits only to those it deemed “viable” or “beneficial to its clients.”

Soon thereafter Which?, the largest consumer body in the UK with over 650,000 members, reported it had received letters from more than 150 people claiming to have been wrongly accused, with even more now choosing to come forward after hearing they’re not alone.

Some of the P2P lawsuits were handed over by Davenport Lyons, the law firm which in many ways pioneered the controversial strategy. It’s worth noting that two of the law firm’s partners at the time, David Gore and Brian Miller, will soon face the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal over complaints they engaged in “bullying” and “excessive” conduct while acting on behalf of client copyright holders.

However, ACS:Law seems immune to any criticisms.

“Neither we nor our clients threaten or bully anyone,” said Andrew Crossley of ACS: Law. “We send out letters of claim to account holders of internet connections where those internet connections have been identified as being utilized for illegal file-sharing of our clients’ copyrighted works.”

Crossley emphasized that the real crime is not overzealous lawyers, but rather the fact that his clients are losing money to illegal P2P.

“My clients are losing money because of copyright infringement and they are equally upset that their copyright is being stolen,” he said. .

That may be so, but suing people en masse will never solve the problem. Crossley, apparently unaware of the failed history of the RIAA pursuing a similar approach for almost a decade, even chastises the BPI for not doing the same.

“I think the BPI is letting its members down. I think they are scared of alienating their customers,” he said. “My clients don’t have the same fear. They take the view that the people they target aren’t their customers because they are stealing from them.”

If that’s what his clients truly believe then their sadly mistaken. How many of you have downloaded a movie and then saw it later at the theater? How many of you have downloaded and album and then purchased it to support the band?

Furthermore, potential loses are not theft. One can’t suggest that simply because a person illegally downloaded a piece of content they would have otherwise purchased it.

Stay tuned.

jared@zeropaid.com