A smörgåsbord of cartoon, caricature and MAD related website, links, news articles and announcements!
You Know What They Say About Guys With Big Heads Dept.-
A hilarious video demonstrating why caricaturists perhaps should not be police sketch artists… except in certain cases.
Put your Funny Where your Mouth Is Dept.-
The Pittsburgh area Toonseum is having it’s first public fund raiser in May… a worthy cause. Here are the details:
COMIC, CARTOON AND ANIMATION FANS UNITE!
You and your friends are invited to KA-BLAM! A party to benefit the ToonSeum
Your Host: Rob Rogers
When: Saturday, May 3rd, 7:30 – 11:30 pm
Where: ToonSeum, at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh
10 Children’s Way Pittsburgh, PA 15212
Tickets: $35.00 in advance (ordering details to come)
The evening will feature:
Live music, DJ and dancing, caricature artists
Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art Salon, demonstration by cartoonists, a silent auction
door prizes, food and drink by Pittsburgh favorites, and more!
Contact Info:
Joe Wos
Executive Director
ToonSeum
“A Museum With Character”
412-325-1060
joe@toonseum.com
www.toonseum.org
The mission of The ToonSeum is to celebrate the art of cartooning. Our goal is to promote a deeper appreciation of cartoonists and their work through hands-on workshops, community outreach,
cartoon-oriented educational programming and exhibitions of original cartoon art.
Let Friedman Ring Dept.-
MAD artist extraordinare Drew Friedman as an exhibit of his superb art opening this Thursday, March 27th at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle. Drew will appear for a book signing and the opening of the exhibition of his original artwork on the 27th from 5:00 to 8:00 PM. Visit here for all the details.
To PC is Human, to Mac… Divine Dept.-
Here’s an interesting link to a forum thread discussing the latest “Monkey theme” issue of MAD, issue #488… in a Mac computer forum of all places.
I’ve found that readers either loved or hated that issue. Seems these folks liked it. The most telling of the posts on the thread, however, is post #3 by “Abstract”:
They still make MAD?
Sigh….
While on the subject of MAD #488, it is exactly one year from right now when MAD #500 hits the stands. I started in #399, and #400 was a big deal at the time, so I hope they’ve got some fun stuff planned for #500.
As a kid in the 1970′s there were a few things I collected as much and as often as I could get my hands on them: Anything Star Wars but especially the bubble gum trading cards, Batman comics, Micronauts toys… but one thing I couldn’t get enough of was Wacky Packages stickers from Topps. My friends and I thought these parodies of popular products were hilarious. They are often associated with MAD Magazine, although they did not have any connection other than MAD artist Tom Bunk did some art for them recently. Other MAD artists may have contributed as well, but Tom’s the only regular one I am sure of.
This May a coffee table book about the Wacky Packages phenomenon will be releases which includes an interview with Art Spiegelman, the original artist and conceiver of the first series of Wacky packages. The book will feature images of all 232 stickers from series 1-7, circa 1973-74. Check out the official Wacky Packages website, from where you can preorder the book.
This Saturday’s “Surf’s Up Dept.” is very MAD video-centric, with a few other stories tossed in.
Revenge of the Mommy Dept.
Des Moines mom Jane Hambleton proclaimed herself the “Meanest Mom on the Planet” when she sold her son’s car through the want ads of the Des Moines Register after finding alcohol under the seat of the vehicle. The ad read:
OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don’t love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet.
Hambleton was then undulated with calls and e-mails from people supporting and applauding her for being tough on her kid and following through on her rules. Hambleton said she had only two rules with the car, which she bought for her 19 year old son around Thanksgiving: “Keep it locked, and no alcohol.” After finding the booze, she made her son face the consequences.
I also applaud this lady for following through on her rules and the punishment of their being broken. Too many parents today won’t do that because they either don’t want to be inconvenienced by actually having to raise their children, or they are too busy wanting to be their kid’s “friend” and can’t handle the confrontation. You can’t be a “friend” and a “parent” at the same time. Be strong with your kids and teach them right from wrong, and they’ll thank you for it later in life. Then you can get your revenge for all the “I hate you’s” and slamming doors by spoiling your grandkids rotten and then leaving the discipline for their parents!
Better Safer than Sorry Dept.
Here’s a video of a late 1980′s interview by Morely Safer on 60 Minutes with MAD Magazine idiots BIll Gaines, Nick Meglin, John Ficarra and Dick DeBartolo. It’s long but worth watching
It’s interesting that Safer right away questions MAD‘s ability to keep up it’s subversive, shocking reputation in the face of what he says is “more outrageous stuff than you guys are” that is available to young people. That was in the late 1980′s. Today we have the likes of the Farley Brothers and Judd Apatow setting the tone for comedic films and media. Is it any wonder that MAD has become much more riske and racy in these days, with the tone set by the Borat‘s of the world?
It’s also ironic to hear Gaines talk about how he feels about advertising and merchandising, as these are the very arguments MAD purists make against advertising in the magazine. “You can’t make fun of Pepsi Cola and take money from Coca Cola”, says Gaines. That may have been true back in the days of real corporate sponsorship, when advertisers would literally dictate the content of the shows and publications they were in or else yank their ad dollars. Today advertisers only care about circulation numbers and demographics… they WANT MAD to keep doing what they do so their target audience is reached. That’s why MAD can run ads of video games in an issue where the lead article is “The 50 Wost Things about Video Games” (MAD #457). Even the hypocrisy of that situation is ripe for MAD to make fun of, which they regularly do. MAD‘s self-depreciating humor is not just for show.
MAD BAD TV Dept.
I have to admit, I have never watched a single episode of MAD TV.
The funny thing is, MAD TV might be more exposed than MAD itself these days. It used to be every time I drew a kid at the theme park with big ears and a grin, I got a lot of “that looks like the kid from MAD” from the onlookers. Nowadays I hear “that looks like the kid from MAD TV” more and more. In fact, some kids I talked to had no idea there was a magazine that the show was named after. That just goes to show that kids spend a lot more time in front of the boob tube than they do reading publications.
The other day I saw this first MAD TV clip posted on an Apple fan website. It makes fun of the “Fiest” iPod Nano ad, and really hits the nail on the head with the frustrating nature of Apple’s product releases.
I also ran into a few other MAD TV clips that I thought were pretty funny.
Charles Schulz‘s widow and my friend Jeannie Schulzwrites some public comments about the David Michaelis book. Jeannie is one smart lady, and her comments demonstrate that quite clearly. No one would blame her if she just took a few reactionary public shots at Michaelis over his portrayal of her late husband. Instead she shows that she is actually very familiar with the book’s content and calmly and intelligently explains why a number of Michaelis’s conclusions are poorly conceived or are outright erroneous. After reading these comments and talking with her, I believe Michaelis was bent on painting Schulz as the tortured artist, and conveniently ignored both facts and whatever opinions and stories about Schulz did not support that portrayal. -From the Canadian Sans Everything Blog.
Trailer Park Parenting for Dummies Dept.
Christian book publisher Thomas Nelson Inc. was preparing to release a new book on parenting on Mothers Day, 2008. The Author: Lynne Spears, mother of those fine, upstanding role models Britney and Jamie Lynne Spears. Spear’s book, “Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World” was to be all about “raising” (term used loosely) young Britney through her rise to fame.
The publisher has decided to shelve the book’s release. That decision came, I am sure purely by coincidence, shortly after it was reported that 16 year old Jamie Lynne was pregnant via her high school boyfriend. How long will publication be put off? “Indefinitely is the word we are using,” a source from the publisher told the NY Post.
“We don’t know how this happened,” Jamie Lynne has reportedly said… Apparently there is no chapter in Spear’s book concerning the “birds and the bees”.
Meanwhile plans for other rumored books by the publisher proceed including “Tips for a Successful Marriage” by Elizabeth Taylor, “Fair Play: Honor in Baseball” by Barry Bonds and the posthumous “Ethical Business Practices” by Kenneth Lay.
Ink Slip Dept.
Former Catfish Bend Casino employee David Stewartfound himself unemployed after tacking up this “Dilbert” comic strip on an office bulletin board:
Apparently casino management was not amused by the strip, and it’s referral to company decision makers as “drunken lemurs”.
“I find that very offensive,” and unidentified management source exclaimed. “We are not lemurs.” No comment on the “drunken” part….
Casino management reviewed security tapes to discover who posted the cartoon, and then fired Stewart saying he was not a “team player”. They cited the posting of the cartoon during a hearing over Stewart’s unemployment compensation, which they were trying to oppose. The judge sided with Stewart, saying that posting the cartoon was not done with malicious intent.
“However, had he posted a “Cathy” cartoon, he would have had his unemployment yanked in a heartbeat,” the judge reportedly added. -from The Daily Cartoonist
The Year in Askew Dept.
Finally, web humor site JibJab has once again posted their annual “Year in Review” video. Not quite as funny as last year but still worth look and a laugh:
Disclaimer- Certain additions to the “news stories” above were added for satirical and humorous purposes, including fictitious quotes, facts and other nonsense. Treat the “reporting” above with the same amount of gravitas as you would Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update”, except not as funny…. and no Amy Poehler.
A study conducted at the University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom has determined that caricatures drawn of crooks were twice as easy to identify with their targets than traditional photofits. According to the article from The Guardian UK:
In tests, volunteers were asked to identify people from the standard photofit of their face and from their caricature.
On average, a photofit face was correctly identified 20% of the time, compared with 40% for the caricature, according to a report in this month’s Visual Cognition journal.
I can see it now…
“Attention all units, be on the lookout for suspect in your area. Identified as a white male, 30 to 35 years old, 16 pound 18 inch nose, head the size of a beach ball, tiny marble-like eyes, has name written in bubble letter floating over left shoulder. May be seen roller skating. Approach with caution…”
(Thanks to Hutch for the link!)
Tough on Chime Dept.-
Niagara Falls court judge Robert Restaino was presiding over a domestic abuse case when someone’s cell phone rang in the court. Restaino demanded the offending cell phone be handed over. When the owner did not step forward, Restraino went beserk and sent everyone in the courtroom to jail. According to the story from C/Net News:
“Everyone is going to jail; every single person is going to jail in this courtroom unless I get that instrument now,” he went on. “If anybody believes I’m kidding, ask some of the folks that have been here for a while. You are all going.”
46 people were searched and jailed in crowded cells. Fourteen who could not post bail were shackled and sent by bus to a different jail… I can only hope one of those was the Verizon “Can you hear me now?” guy. After his time in stir, his new slogan is: “Can you hear me now, bitch?”
A Drucker by Any Other Name Dept.-
A reporter at Park City, Utah public radio station KPCW-FM, recently flipped through the latest Park City Record newspaper and noticed that an editorial cartoon published in that paper contained a caricature that looked suspiciously like one drawn decades ago by MAD Magazine legend Mort Drucker. Reporter Rick Broughdug up the original published Drucker drawing and faxed it to the Park Record.
The editorial cartoon in question was done by longtime Park City Record cartoonist John Kilbourne. The result was his resignation from the paper amid the stated disappointment of his editor and publisher.
No word yet whether the incident has caused the dozens of cartoonists who make a living copying the work of Drucker and Jack Davis scurrying for cover.
A butcher in Fairmont, Minnesota was processing chickens when he came across a shiny object in a chicken gizzard. It was an identity bracelet with a name, address and phone number on it. After some amateur detective work, meat cutter Mark Olson tracked down original owner Aaron Giles through his father, who now lives in Arizona. Giles, now living in Massachusetts, was surprised to see his bracelet as he lost it 25 years ago as a young boy while playing in a barn in Fairmont.
Giles said the bracelet was in perfect condition… except it smelled like chicken gizzard.
Giles also said that he expects the bracelet to “remain in his family for years to come”… I hope by that he means in a drawer or jewelry box and not in a family member’s internal organs.
…The chicken did not return phone calls for comment.
Hitting the Street Artists Dept.-
I came across this video on YouTube. I think this guy might have applied to work for me once…
Here’s another collection of the weird, somewhat interesting and downright horrific from around cyberspace:
The Blubberfull World of Disney Dept.
According to this article, Disneyland in California will be closing down their “It’s a Small World” ride for some refurbishment. Not because the characters are looking tattered or the endless looping song needs updating… nope, it’s because the boats are bottoming out and getting stuck. Disney won’t come out and say it, but the reason?… riders are too fat.
Yes, it has come to this. Disneyland has to do reconstruction on a 41 year old ride because Americans have become so fat they are literally sinking the boats.
According to stories about the web, “Small World” boats have bottomed out and actually become stuck, forcing the occupants to exit and walk… or apparently in many cases waddle… out an emergency exit. Americans are now an average of almost 25 pounds heavier than they were in 1960, men going from an average of 166 lbs to 191, and women from 140 to 164. That’s a lot of Big Macs. You hear a lot of hype about the obesity problem in this country but sometimes it takes something like this to really drive it home.
I understand that some people’s weight problems are a result of very real disease and factors not within their control. However that cannot explain the epidemic we are seeing. American’s largely eat like pigs and get very little exercise, and that is the root of the problem.
Of course society is as much to blame as those who refuse to take their own health seriously. Take Disney, for example. According to the linked article above, when those fat folks sink the “Small World” boats and are escorted off the ride Disney makes sure they aren’t disappointed…
…they hand them a free food ticket!
Here Dumbs the Bride Dept.
A distraught bride in New York City is suing her florist for breach of contract, restitution and damages because the flowers that were delivered to her wedding were not the dark rust she ordered but pastel pink. Worse yet, they were wilted and brown and in dusty vases with not enough water. So, she’s suing for $400,000… the cost of the flowers was almost $27,500.
The florist claims they tried to match the colors to a picture given to them by the bride, but told her the color “might not match”.
I’m not sure what the worst crime committed here is… the bad job by the florist or the fact that somebody paid over $27,000 for FLOWERS for a wedding, let alone without actually picking them out in person? It’s a toss up.
Go Ahead… Make my Bed Dept.
A Montgomery, Alabama couple returned home from a week long trip to catch a thief red-handed after he had just ransacked their home, emptying drawers and throwing cabinets and piles of trash everywhere. Homeowner Adrian McKinnon caught the man walking through his home while inspecting the damage and held him at gunpoint while waiting for police to arrive.
As long as they were waiting, McKinnon forced the thief at gunpoint to clean up his house.
Police arrived to find a loudly complaining suspect, who felt he was being cruelly treated to be forced to straighten up the mess in the McKinnon household. No word on whether he flatly refused to do the windows.
Lake House-Be-Gone Dept.
Only in Minnesota.
According to an AP story, local ice fisherman Brian Young of Bowlus, MN, discovered friday that his fish house was missing. For you warm climate readers, that is not a house for fish, but rather a small shack that is hauled out onto a frozen lake, placed over bored holes in the ice and where grown men sit and stare at a bobber floating on the icy water trying to catch a fish, but mostly get really drunk.
Apparently some pranksters had placed a “FREE” sign on it without Young’s knowledge and unsuspecting persons had helped themselves to the fish house. It had been sitting near the intersection of County Road 13 and state Highway 287 about 26 miles from St. Cloud, MN. The cops don’t consider it stolen, but are just asking for it’s return. Local walleye are rejoicing. Local liquor stores are despondent.
… I should try that with my neighbor’s lawnmower he fires up at 6 am.
Urine Trouble Now Dept.
Lastly, this is an old video but I recently ran across it again on YouTube and it always gets a laugh.
I won’t be surfing but I may be spotting some giant, four fingered mice while visiting Disney World for a week with The Lovely Anna and the kids. We fly out today. Thanks to the miracle of advance posting the blog will not miss a beat. Today, however, is one of those cheap posts that just have links to several interesting and worthwhile stops when surfing the web.
Apple iPods are Supposed to “Rock”, but this is Ridiculous Dept.-
I’m still not sure this isn’t a joke, but the Texas Star-Telegram reported that little Regan Ritter got a big surprise for her 14th birthday… a box of rocks. It was supposed to be an iPod, one that her mom Melanie bought at a local Target store. When Regan opened the sealed, shrink-wrapped iPod package she found only rocks… of the approximate weight of an iPod. They returned them to the store, where apologetic employees would only allow “store credit” and they had no replacement iPod in stock.
After calling around, one was located in a store 20 miles away. Regan and her mom went to the store and were told she could not open the box and inspect the package before buying. She bought it and opened it in front of Target employees…
… no iPod, just rocks.
… and still no refund, just “store credit”.
XBox Einsteins Dept.-
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and apparently whether you are killed or not when playing, video games can make you smarter.
Tom Hanson at openeducation.net writes about a new book by Steven Johnson called Everything Bad is Good for You, which examines how apparent causes for the problems of society like television, videos and, yes, video games are actually doing good. He goes on to list 11 video games that will “unlock your inner genius”.
Certainly I agree that many games involve intense problem solving and multi-leveled thinking and planning to play effectively. Even games like “Halo” involve the unravelling of mysterious plot lines and observational skills to discover things and concepts. They aren’t “Pong”! My brain is still sore from playing “The 7th Guest” years ago on my PC. However, it’s fair to point out that nobody gets much smarter if they play video games for 20 hours straight while their homework lays about untouched… and nobody pays the bills playing “The 7th Guest” for 20 hours straight while freelance work lays about untouched. Anna pointed that out to me once. Hard.
The Dork Knight Returns Dept.-
This is via a link from the marvelous DRAWN! blog…
Anyone who is familiar with Frank Miller‘s The Dark Knight Returns is laughing their ass off right now. See the rest of the fun here. Too bad comic’s writer Kevin Church, the guilty party here, didn’t use a font like Miller’s lettering. That would have been perfect.
Bizzard of Wahhhhs! Dept.-
According to this report, Denver area hospital’s maternity wards are overflowing with a baby boom right now, coincidentally about nine months after a series of winter storms closed down the city for a few days. Hmmmm. The cable must have been knocked out as well.
This is funny to me because the exact same thing happened in Minneapolis/St. Paul after the big Halloween Bizzard of 1991, when 29 inches of snow fell over two days starting on Halloween. Nine months later there were news stories of babies being delivered in storage rooms in Twin Cities’ hospitals.
Holy E.T., Batman! Dept.-
I ran across this video on YouTube the other day. It’s one that made the rounds among batfans a few years ago, done by director Sandy Collora. It was supposedly done to try and impress Warner Bros. and possibly restart the Batman film franchise, but that was just what I’d heard. It’s rather long (8 minutes), but about halfway through it takes an unexpected twist.
I remember it being much better than this, actually. But the Batman looks great. That just goes to show you can do some good visuals with a costume that isn’t rubber armor.
Some links and tidbits of interest from around the Internet-
Auctions of MADness- “The Journal of MADness” was a fanzine about MAD published by longtime MAD fan John Hett. It was a very well done fanzine and featured some great interviews with MAD contributors. John has a few auctions on eBay right now of some of his MAD memorabilia, including some pretty unique and rare stuff. Among the items:
Original Don Martin art for the cover of “MAD’s Maddest Artist Don Martin Bounces Back” (the Warner 1976 reprint), which was the book that started is all (by that I mean National Gorilla Suit Day).
Bill Gaines Paymaster Machine- This is very unique. I exepct it to be authentic knowing John is good about those kinds of things. This is apparently the actual Paymaster check machine Bill Gaines used at EC to pay all this bills, including to his contributors. Gaines was famous for using this machine and a giant tree of rubber stamps to process all his bills, invoices, correspondence, etc. It also comes with some “official E.C. Publications paperwork that came from the Paymaster company”… whatever that is. This is a piece of comic’s history.
There are other cool things. Check out all his auctions by following this link.
Paris Hilton Right of Publicity Lawsuit- Hmmmm. I thought only real celebrities could collect on Right of Publicity cases? The Smoking Gun is reporting that Hilton is suing Hallmark Greeting Cards over this card, depicting her face and her “trademark” saying “That’s Hot”:
She’s seeking $500,000… must need pocket money. It will be interesting to see how this case is decided. California has some of the most comprehensive Right of Publicity laws (along with New York and Tennessee (Nashville, et al), the entertainment states) and the decision will be cited as a precedent in future cases.
Initially I thought Hilton would win this one, but now I am not so sure. Clearly this is making fun of her and her pseudo-celebrity and is also clearly transformative in it’s use of the photo. Those are good grounds for a fair use exemption for parody/satire of a celebrity. The case will probably hinge on whether or not the court feels a greeting card is an acceptable venue for social commentary.
Nice Gesture from Caricature Enthusiast- Romina Tolu is a student and art lover from Malta who has a nice blog about the different kinds of art she likes, caricature being one. She wrote me last month to say she wanted to feature me as “Caricaturist of the Month” for September. In August the honor went to my friend Elgin Bolling aka the “Subway Surfer” from Noo Yawk. Romia has the feature up on her blog. One of the nice things about it is the way she went about it… placing the proper copyright disclaimers and checking with me for what was okay to show. She didn’t need to according to the fair use rules with respect to copyright, but it was a nice gesture and a nice honor.
Ringtones for the iPhone- Finally, one of the dumbest things about the iPhone is getting fixed… albeit not as completely as I would have liked. Even the cheapest and simplest phones in existence have been able to use custom ringtones for years, but not the überexpensive iPhone. Apple finally released an update to the iPhone and their iTunes program that allows users to download ringtones and use them as opposed to the twenty or so standard ones that come preloaded. Of course nothing is that easy.
The rub is that hardly any of the gazillion songs in the iTunes store are allowed to be ringtones… just a handful. That is I am sure due to the agreement of rights for a given song to be used as a ringtone, which is not the same as just listening to it. That’s a good example of how copyright pertains to intellectual property (creative works). Buying a song on-line or via a CD only buys you the rights to listen to it, not to use it as music for your website, in a presentation, as a ringtone or any other use. The artist needs to grant those things as a separate right, and usually wants to get paid for it. So, it’s not Apple’s fault that only some songs are allowed to be used as ringtones, but it does suck that so few have those rights available.
And, of course, we have to pay for the privilege of using it as a ringtone. The iTunes program will search your music library, and will mark any songs that are available for ringtone use with a bell icon (once you check “ringtone” in the sort column menu bar, which you do by right-clicking or control-clicking any column header and checking it). It looks like it only checks “Protected AAC” files, meaning ones you bought from iTunes and not ones you imported from your own CDs. Clicking on the bell icon launches a little mini ringtone program that requires logging in to the iTunes Store. The mini-program loads the song on a nifty timeline at the bottom of your iTunes window. You can then select any portion of the song (up to a 30 second long clip), chose to fade in and/or out, your time between rings and some other options. Then you click on “buy” and you are charged $.99 for the ringtone. Once it’s complete it appears in your ringtones list and you can sync them to your iPhone. Make usre you got it the way you want it before you buy, as you don’t get to revise your ringtone later.
Therefore a ringtone from Apple costs $1.98 total… $.99 for the song itself and then $.99 for the ringtone conversion and rights. It will be better when they have more available, and hopefully they’ll also have ringtones that aren’t songs also available.
Right now I am trying to work ahead in anticipation of a short trip to NYC this weekend with The Lovely Anna and the kids (sans The Animated Elizabeth, she hates anywhere but her house and her videos). After getting assigned a short deadline piece for MAD yesterday, there is not a lot of time for blogging, so here is one of those cheap posts about some websites to visit:
Freelance Switch- The Daily Cartoonist, which is itself a must visit concerning news about the world of cartooning, had a great link the other day to a blog called Freelance Switch. It’s billed as “a Community & Resource for freelancers of all varieties – designers, writers programmers, illustrators, photographers …”. It is a great resource, chock full of useful posts like this one called “8 Simple Online Time Management Tools for Freelancers” or this one called “10 Essential Steps to Avoid Freelance Headaches”. A definite bookmark for anyone in the freelance business.
Renegade Fitness- My personal trainer, Ryan Branson, left Lifetime Fitness and has started his own PT business. This is his new website. Ryan is a very knowledgeable trainer and has helped me progress in the last two years even after I had achieved some pretty significant physique changes in the previous three years with my original trainer, Rich Dolan. Rich left to pursue a life in the service of God, and he hooked me up with Ryan before departing. Ryan’s site is new and a work in progress. If you want to see where I came from and where I’m at with my training, check out his client testimonials page for a brief article by me and some shocking before and after pictures.
Audible-Audible.com is the best source for reasonably priced audio books for download. It has quietly added one of my most eagerly awaited books to it’s library. I never thought I’d see it, but Dune by Frank Herbert is finally available, unabridged, for download as an audiobook. I’m a big Dune fan, really loving the slow burning books stuffed with social, political, religious, geo-scientific, economic and caste-system themes and concepts amid an inventive and far reaching science fiction universe. I hope this is the first of what will eventually be a complete collection of Herbert’s Dune series on Audiobook. I haven’t listened to it yet, but it looks to be a cast recording as opposed to a single reader. It will be fun to hear it brought to life.
Finally, a few posts ago I was talking about MAD and advertising, and mentioned how nobody complained about the Spy vs. Spy Mountain Dew commercials. That may have been because they were so darn well done. Here’s some I found on that bastion of copyright infringement, You Tube:
