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Cthulhu and I Lay Sleeping with Robots in Disguise

Presenting the only cool panel in the whole book!

Along with the usual assortment of DC "Dark" titles and zombie-Westerns, I picked up the first issue of a two part Transformers mini-series at the comic shop for my stepson this week. I had been quietly anticipating this particular issue as it tied into publisher IDWs company wide Infestation 2 event; this time the "infestation" of the title dealt with "The Elder Gods" invading Earth, where as last time it deal with zombies. The phrase "Elder Gods" immediately brings to mind H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and the cover of the comic certainly looked and felt Cthulhu-esque--heck, it depicts a steam-punk Opitmus Prime wrestling with a creature whose design is clearly lifted from popularized Cthulhu designs.

Unfortunately the issue delivered mostly set-up, offering only tentacled Decepticons "possessed" (I think--it was hard to tell) by the spirits of space creatures reminiscent of Cthulhu and his pals. Of course the other Lovecraft tropes made appearances throughout--fish men, underwater cities, zombified villagers, and a coastal town--but they seemed to lack any resonance or purpose. Despite reading the whole thing through, I had little idea what was happening and the 1887 setting confused me to no end--while I don't regularly read the Transformers main titles, but having thumbed through them on a number of occassions I'm fairly sure they are set in a more modern time frame. (They are but after reading online I learned that this story is set in some other Transformers dimension, one during which the robots were "undisguised" earlier in world history.)

There were some redeeming qualities to the book though. The art by Guido Guidi was suitable manga-esuq and evocative of both Transformer and Chtulhu mythos, and some of the nuances of the dialogue were fun and had an Easter-egg qulaity to them. For example, at least in one panel, shared above, Chuck Dixon, who has written many compelling comic books in years past, tweaked the familiar Cthulhu phrase ("Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn," which translates to, "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.") in the interest of dropping Megatron's name ("Megatron lies sleeping still...").

While I remain slightly disappointed, the book wasn't necessraily intended for me as a IDW Transformer comic universe reader, so I'll be passing this along to my stepson who, as a die hard IDW line reader, may be able to explain to me.

Cool Comic Book Colloquialisms

From The Sixth Gun #16 by Cullen Bunn, Brian Hurtt and Bill Crabtree.

During class, after saying something intentionally goofy or silly, I'll follow up what was said with the phrase "Just funning!" sort of like a cooler take on "Just kidding!" The phrase "Just kidding!", is employed to tip people off to the fact that the statement prior was not true. People often tell small lies to trick each other, and then say "Just kidding!" to reveal the trick. The phrase is often used by both children and the immature alike. Not commonly used in formal communication, it (and colloquialisms like it) are fairly common in casual speech.

"Just funning" somehow found its way into my lexicon and I had not given it much thought, that is until my students started spitting it back to me and I realized that perhaps I had gone to that colloquial well too frequently. Interestingly enough, the phrase also turned up in last week's pile of new comic books. As evidenced from the panels above from the most recent issue of Oni Press' spectacular Western-occult comic book series The Sixth Gun, depending on its delivery, the phrase can seem a pretty insincere apology for a "goof" to the recipient. (In the panels above the deliverer of that particular line had much more nefarious intent though!)

Though defined formally as the intransitive form of the verb "fun," meaning to engage in banter or play, funning seems most often used as a caveat to something intending to be hurtful by an individual not wanting to take responsibility for what preceded. This would make it kind of the back end answer to the Southern colloquialism "Bless his heart..." a phrase almost always seems to be followed by a comment intended for negative effect.

"Bless his heart, that has got to be the lamest blog post I've read in a long time... just funning!"

Django (1966)

New, ruthless, violent and armed with both a Gatling gun and
a catchy adult contemporary theme song!
With the recent announcement of Quentin Tarrentino's script "Django Unleashed" moving into pre-production and casting (Big Willie Smith, really?), there is likely to be renewed fan interest in all things "Django." Despite the fact that there are many, MANY movies that carry the moniker "Django" as part of their titles, there is only one ear-cutting, blood-letting, finger-smashing, coffin-toting, Gatling-wielding Spaghetti Western icon worthy of the name, the one introduced in Sergio Corbucci's genre-classic Django starring Franco Nero.

Ranked fifth on the Spaghetti Western Databases Essential Top 20 Films, Dajngo, is described in the following way: "Violence is a trademark of the genre. Corbucci upped the anti with ears bitten off priests and citizens slaughtered with a machine gun, but the skilled pistolero with the army coat and the coffin are what makes this a cult favorite."

Though I had previously described Nero as a "more wooden Gianno Garko" in my consideration of Keoma the Warrior (1976), that presence actually works to great effect in Nero's portrayal of the world weary gunman in this film. Partially set in a dank, muddy border town, Django plays both sides of the Mexican-American feud, using each against he other in a revenge shell-game that often sees our (anti-)hero facing tremendous odds, a number of which he fails to overcome without first suffering a great deal.

Online scuttlebutt has it that Franco Nero will be returning in some capacity to the screen with a role in Tarrentino's film, so there is no better time to check out the real deal. Available as a downloadable film on Netflix, Django has all the earmarks of a classic, entertaining Spaghetti Western: violence, brooding leading man, poor dialogue overdub, and gritty action.

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The comic opens with not just action, but also literary terminology!

While beginning to read a comic book miniseries I picked up on a lark this past Wednesday, I was surprised to be greeted by the panel above very early on in the story. A science fiction series, Dark Matter #1, published by Dark Horse, actually hit the stands a few weeks ago, but initially somehow missed my notice. There was a single copy left on the recent releases table as I stopped by the store today to pick up a new long-box and, always looking for quality scenic fiction, I decided to pick it up.

Published 1/11/12.

While the story, authored by two veterans of all three Stargate television series, was a marginally interesting take on the space sleep amnesia trope, I was happy to see the teachable moment provided by series of panels above--even if the teachable moment might be diffused slightly given that those (middle and high school aged students) might be missed as they are rarely the intended audience for comic books... especially these short non-caped offerings. That doesn't mean I can't trumpet its value on the net!

Though one of the more "minor" literary terms, at least as defined by a number of online literary resource guides, an axiom is nonetheless a valuable one to at least be marginally familiar with. In an apparent acknowledgment on the part of the authors that most folks would not be familiar with what an axiom is, they made the decision to overtly provide the answer to the question in the panel itself, "... a fundamental truth that informs their every decision."

In simple terms, an axiom can also be defined as "an obvious maxim" though that particular definition is slightly unsatisfactory as it requires a little additional clarification. If a maxim is "a saying drawn from life, which shows concisely either what happens or ought to happen in life, for example: 'Every beginning is difficult.'" (from Rhetorica ad Herennium), then an axiom is such a saying that is obvious in its truth. Axioms may also be defined a principles that are not questioned, or more simply put (care of Dictionary.com), "self-evident truth that requires no proof; a universally accepted principle or rule."

But, while a definition for the term "axiom" is easily found online, the word "kodan"? Not so much, in fact all I could come across was an inference of a kodan being a narrative device used as part of the Japanese oral tradition... a suitable  source for a (likely) manga influenced work of science fiction, especially given that in a previous panel (unseen in the above image) it is attributed to "the Senkarren high priests of Helios..." a science fictiony name if I've ever read one!