Excellent Comics and Artists

Well, I could not in good conscience go without recomending some excellent "comic" book artists and their work to you. When most of you think of comics you think of either juvenile super-hero nonsense or something like Archie. There are comics and graphic novels, however, that are intelligent, witty and excellent. My first reomendation for the day is Zach Weiner. He's a brilliant artist who originates the sharp and witty single-panel comic "Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal". He is also working as the author, with other artists, on the excellent web-comics "Captain Excelsior" and "Grumps".

The last two are roughly narrative, the former being about a "jerk" superhero and his family (think Increadibles gone horribly wrong) and the latter is about about some senior citizens in a nursing home who have not yet stopped living it up, but have ceased to have anything resembling balance, not that anyone else has any in their world! Here's a link to get you started on Zach Weiner:

SMBC: http://www.smbc-comics.com/

Grumps: http://www.grumps.ca/

The second comic that I want to recomend is a really nice Australian one created by Trudy Cooper and a few of her cohorts. It's excellent because of the aesthetically pleasiing, mildly realistic and sexy art style as well as the slightly strange humour.

Here where to get started:

http://www.platinumgrit.com/index.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum_Grit#Creators

Do look these up! They deserve your attention!

Listen to Lissie!

Well, I've discovered a new voice out there that I love! I wonder how many of you have heard of Lissie? She's a relatively new independent musician. She is brilliant. She may live in California, but she is not the typical new female voice you find American music producing. I've been sick to the point of nausea at seeing new female "talents" who offered nothing more than the typical mixture of sacharine-pop and R&B-lite ulation. Lissie is different.

She's sounds deep, different and intelligent. She's intense yet mellow, and not overly sweet. She's a true artist, and though she is as unique as someone like Amy Winehouse, thugh she seems like a more reasonable and likeable person.

How can I describe her voice? Slightly velvety, slighty country-ish, a bit pop-like (but she does not scream or yell in cliched and unnecessary endings to stanzas or songs), and spiritual, yet simple and independent. Her spirituality is due to a vague and hard to quantify quality, not any heavy handed new-age pretensions. She has melody, but in a slightly strange sense of the word. And she manipulates her voice and accent in a way that is subtle and new to me. She feels independent and strong, with a subtly implied strength of character.

As I said, she's a true artist. You only need to listen to her songs "The Longest Road" (both the original and the Deadmau5 remix) as well as "All my Life" which is particularly beautiful and brilliant. Her simpler songs are sweet but not overly and tritely so. She also happens to write most of her own music and lyrics.

Besides this, in her written and video blogs she has a nice habit of addressing her audience as "friends" rather than "peeps" or "hey everyone!" or something more typical all the time. I found that somehow endearing. Here are some essential links to get you started:

http://www.indie911.com/index.php?cID=7603

http://www.youtube.com/user/lissiemusic

Check her out! She's brilliant!

China and Tibet: Recent Protests

Tibet has been part of China for most of the last few centuries. The leaders of Tibet formally accepted the relationship. Why is murder and pogroms of the Hans and the Muslim Hui Chinese acceptable to the West as "freedom fighting"? Are riot police not supposed to supress violent riots and pogroms??

And why are the Palestinian terroriststs evil for resisting an artificial state created by european Jewish settlers if the Tibetans are noble for killing Hui and Han Chinese?

The US assisted the breakaway of Texas from Mexico at the behest of the Anglo-Saxon minority there, later chaging it into an Anglo-Saxon territory through settlement. The West has accepted the continuous rape of the Kashmiris and stood by while the Bosnians were decimated, yet rather magically, China is evil for defending a territory that has been associated with the Chinese state for centuries?

China has spent billions on Tibet, with the world's highest railways, schools and modern facilities, and yet it is evil!

The West supported the artificial settlement and carving up of Palestine at the behest of european Jews who were not even semitic and, at best, who's ancestors had been in Palestine 2000 years ago, helped by a little known Jewish terrorist campaign duriong the British mandate.

It seems that only the terrorists you don't like are the "bad" (anti-Western) ones!

It is quite obvious to me that the US and its allies are merely using "human rights" as a pretext to back-stab and sabotage an upcomming political and economic competitor. After all, a more equitable distribution of resources in the world would lead to lower living standards in the West. There is only so much to go around! It would also lead to the loss of its political dominance. The coddled, lazy and luxurious "first world" would cease to exist.

Talk about hypocrisy. And these riots are so nicely timed, right before the olympics. I wonder if foreign elements were involved? I would not be surprised.

I am not saying that China's treatment of Tibet is valid or even that Tibetan independence is illegitimate, but why are the Tibets opressed by pro-Western or Western countries acceptable? Why is it that occupying another nation is only wrong when it's done by a country that is an economic and political competitor to the West?

My pint is that the Western governments' concern over Tibet is insincere and hypocritical. It has more to do with hamstringing a competitor, and little else. The brutal opression of Kashmir is alright, the popular seccession of the Confederacy was unacceptable to the U.S, yet China should yield to seperatism and is particularly evil for defending what it sees as its territorial integrity? Is that fair? Your territorial integrity is sacred, but not China's?

Kosovo could be made independent because it was useful for poking Russia in the eye, but Palestine, Kashmir and Corsica, not to mention Puert0-Rico are "good" occupations. That seems a little too convenient in my opinion.

So hands-off China you germanic nouveau-riche! Back to the moors and bogs with you! China is re-awakening, you recently evolved Norsemen and Saxons. You are not in the same league. Learn some respect!

P.S. I hope Western readers enjoyed that last bit of reverse jingoism. This is what you wold have to put up with if Ann Coulter was Chinese. Consider yourself lucky that the arrogant butts are on your side!

Red Demon (Revised Edition)

Well, I realized that my short story Red Demon was full of typos and the paragraphing really needed to be improved. The density of adjectives and the general flow also needed to be improved.

I uploaded an improved verision to Storiesville.com.

I hope that you enjoy this latest edit:

http://www.storiesville.com/content/view/2626/65/

As before, my advice is to print and read at a relaxed pace in two sessions. The reason is that the story is quiet descriptive and slow and sensory