A bit of this, a bit of that.

I suppose that the recent passing of David Carradine makes his speech in Kill Bill a sensible link at the moment. It is a good speech, so good that it was more or less written in 1968 by Jules Pfeiffer in The Great Comic Book Heroes, reissued by Fantagraphics Press not too long ago. Tarrantino often borrows liberally from other movies (so much that it's even commented on in other movies--Swingers, for example [Swingers...haven't thought about that movie in a while]), which makes me wonder if he's read Pfeiffer's book.

I'm not sure what to make of the St. Cloud Superman. Evidently he's all about free speech.

Again with Flickr. The makeup artist says it's inspired by Superman. Red, yellow, blue. Are there flickr people out there who come up with new make up designs (is that the right word) and post them regularly? Interesting. (sorry, the picture won't post.)

This review of Irredeemable is as good a reason as any to bring up the Superman pastiche. It's pretty common in comics to have a character who's not Superman, but is really Superman in all the important ways. This way creators can tell Superman stories that couldn't otherwise be told. It's akin to the Imaginary Stories, which I think have given way to Elseworlds (if those are still around, my comics information isn't the most current), which is similar to the Earth 2 stuff from a while back. In this version, the Plutonian is more or less an evil Superman. I think. Haven't read it yet, but I intend to. It's written by Mark Waid, who claims to be the only person on the planet to have read, watched, or listened to every Superman story ever told (in Superheroes and Philosophy).

Speaking of which, here's a blog entry Waid wrote earlier this year, which cover one of the reasons why he loves the character so much. Here's a passage:

It didn’t matter that he wasn’t real. What mattered was that he cared about everyone in the world, without exception, without judgment.
Everyone.

Waid has become one of the superstar writers in comics, and he's moved from a regular gig writing for DC comics, where he got to retell Superman's origin in a series called Birthright, to Boom! Studios, where he's now the editor in chief.

I’d walked into that theater with a very short future ahead of me, and I’d walked out feeling safe and inspired in Superman’s orbit. Without that, I can promise you I would not be here today.

That's a good note on which to end. Well, not as good as this: