Alex Jones: "Nerds Are The Biggest Danger In America"

Somehow, I missed this little gem:



Not sure what the context of this clip is, though last year I speculated if "nerd culture" would suffer a backlash in the wake of Aurora and "science nerd" James Holmes -- reference under the term "Neo-Nerdism."

Anyway, I thought I'd "meme" this clip up:

There. Now all of the world's problems are solved.

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Frank Miller Vs. Occupy Wall Street Vs. Zombies

"Dark Knight Returns" and "300" creator Frank Miller had this to say about the Occupy Wall Street Movement last year:

"The 'Occupy' movement, whether displaying itself on Wall Street or in the streets of Oakland (which has, with unspeakable cowardice, embraced it) is anything but an exercise of our blessed First Amendment. 'Occupy' is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America."

While it is uncertain if Miller will choose to celebrate the one-year anniversary of OWS today by perhaps doing a bit of performance art with an empty chair, we can all fantasize about the comic creator's badassery by checking out this Kickstarter project, "Frank Miller Vs. Occupy Wall Street Vs. Zombies":

What I find most interesting about this project is the zombie/protester symbolism -- as I feel many TV shows, books, movies, and comics have been focusing on the symbolism of undead hordes as a subliminal reference to  the fear of the disenfranchised rising up and revolting.

Not that the protesters are the bad dead undead guys here, necessarily -- the project page explains the plot of the proposed comic book:

 "Our story takes place at the doors of a major corporation. Hundreds of the Occupy Movement on the sidewalks surrounding its corporate headquarters. At the same time down the street is a major comic and sci fi convention. Their key note speaker? None other than Frank Miller himself.  

An idealistic young girl, Kerry Kelly, breaks off from the movement to angrily confront Miller and challenge him to back up his harsh and hateful words. Back at the corporate headquarters an untested weaponized gas is used on the movement in an attempt to disperse them - instead it mutates them into a pack of mindless flesh eating zombies. Soon the enraged zombies attack everyone, creating more zombies. It's not long before streets are filled with walking death.  

To survive, Miller and his new Occupy companion must team up against a horrific common enemy hell bent on tearing them apart all while trying to stop the corrupt corporation from selling its new found weapon of death to the highest bidder."

The addition of the comic book convention is even more intriguing, as I noted not only a marked affinity for zombies at the major comic cons...but also, in the huddled masses of fans being shuffled to one long line to another, a sort of zombie-like rhythm to the entire thing:

Comic convention: forced march

Fans are often "rounded up" and cordoned off in little "shanty town" like structures, surrounded by police-tape and barriers, giving the proceedings not only a "zombie" feel, but an OWS one as well:

Comic convention: the "Hall H" shantytown

And finally, we get synthesis between the fans, the zombies, and OWS:

What will happen at this year's OWS anniversary protests? Will Frank Miller make an appearance? Will Guy Fawkes? We'll find out soon enough!

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Recession Superheroes: Impersonators and Millionaires

This photo series by Nicolas Silberfaden, "Impersonators," features superheroes and other pop-culture icons literally "crying" over the economic crisis in the United States. Most of these seeming "cosplayers" are really celebrity impersonators who make their living posing for photos in Los Angeles...and are technically unemployed themselves.

You might recognize Superman, above, from the documentaries "The Reinactors" (2008) and "Confessions of a Superhero" (2007).  Christopher Dennis, perhaps more so than any other living actor, comic book creator, or Man of Steel enthusiast, currently contains the true Superman zeitgeist -- pounding the pavement extolling Kryptonian virtues, keeping his spit-curl jet-black, living in a small apartment crowded with comic book-themed collectibles, and choosing "superhero" as his official life-role.

every good American superhero knows to drink their milk

As textured rubber and military-style body armor replace nylon bodysuits and satin as the superhero costumes of record, Dennis and his fellow Hollywood "impersonators" get "priced out" of the game; who can afford a decent suit resembling Henry Cavill's upcoming movie Superman, for instance?

"Man of Steel": ribbed, for her pleasure

There might even come a time when the "classic" Superman costume design will be forgotten among the newest generations, the bright red-and-blue with the cape resembling no more than a naive glyph from another time.

Silberfaden's photo series also touches upon non-superhero icons as well, such as Rambo:

At which I could only think of my post "Twilight Of The Action Movie Gods." These classic heroes have been handed a pinkslip, victims not only of aging but changing times. They seem too vulnerable in their long-underwear and muscle-displaying wife-beaters. Even the original Robocop seems too quaint, his rebooted makeover giving him more of that military-grade Dark Knight look:

Batman with a Power Rangers helmet: the rebooted Robocop

And that is why there is one superhero you will never see in Silberfaden's photo gallery:

It took many decades, but Iron Man is the superhero of our current times -- Tony Stark has the good sense to be fabulously wealthy, and, unlike head-cases such as Bruce Wayne, is unashamed to be so:

Millionaire-as-superhero: it seems like a premise tailor-made for the Reaganite 1980s. In fact, during the  "meat" of that decade, there were no major/successful superhero movies (the Superman films and "Batman" sort of bookending those ten years at opposite poles). And I believe this is because nobody thought to make that "rich guy superhero" movie. Tony Stark in the comics was too busy atoning for his fiscal sins by fighting alcoholism.

This leads into my final point in this post -- I firmly believe we are stepping into another Eighties scenario. In such a climate, will a Superman movie (especially a "dark, gritty" one) really do well? Won't the Millionaire Superheroes (Batman, Iron Man, Green Arrow) plus the Patriots (Captain America) lead the day, complimented on the opposite side by radical/anarchist heroes the kind of which I don't know if mainstream comics are capable of producing anymore (though certainly it's the subliminal reason the "Watchmen" characters were dusted off). 

In fact, if I had to guess, this is the next hero DC will reboot:

Now, there's a superhero for our times!

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Who Is The Master Who Makes The Flash Run?

“They say I'm The Flash! If it only were true I could help them! Please make it come true God!”

I've decided to give this blog a bit of a refocus. There's a billion comic book blogs out there, and I feel if I can't contribute some original thoughts beyond "I like this, I hate that; look at some coming attractions," this is a complete waste of my and your time.

I am specifically interested in the way comic books reflect -- and sometimes shape -- culture and politics. I can take an esoteric step beyond that and say that I'm very interested in the way comics reflect, shape, and even seemingly "predict" the elements of our very reality.

I think that last sentence really is the litmus test as to whether you want to keep reading this site.

Obligatory image at this point:

Sometime around the start of the 1990s, comics became Self Aware, due in large part to Grant Morrison's run on "Animal Man." Such a "meta" approach had been teased for many decades -- often though we already had those cute "the creators meet their creations" storylines such as "The Day I Saved The Life Of The Flash" in 1974, where writer Cary Bates appeared as himself to help the Scarlet Speedster out:

"Who is the mystery man that controls every move of the Flash's life?"

That caption makes me think of when Robert Anton Wilson discusses this Buddhist question:

"Who is the master who makes the grass green?"

In both cases, that Master is ourselves (or, in the case of Cary Bates, the person who wrote the cover copy). These stories and heroes are not created, maintained, and presented in a vacuum; we -- and our world -- are always a part of it. And the color of grass is dependent on how our senses and brain interpret it. Everything is dependent on our perception. 

This is why I think some fans get really psychotic over changes to, or "wrong interpretations" of, their beloved characters; because in their perception, Batman or Spider-Man or whomever really is -- in some timeless, objective way -- the way they perceive it to be. And a challenge to their personal experience of this character -- a challenge to their personal reality, which they see as an objective reality -- is taken as an act of "blasphemy" or even war.

One of my theories is that comics=religion to some people, even to those -- and sometimes especially to those -- who consider themselves "free" from religious belief. That's grist for what will do doubt be a lively future post.

Bates really got the ball rolling on the whole "metafiction" idea in comics, but Morrison wove it into the very heart and soul of "Animal Man" -- and, by implication, into the entire DC Comics universe as well, leading to such myriad self-referential elements in their comics such as the DC memorabilia-themed diner in Kingdom Come, the Bat-Mite/Mxyzptlk one-shot "World's Funnest," and a large portion of the animated series "Batman: The Brave and the Bold." 

Welcome to the Cafe Nostalgia; you can check in any time you like, but you can never leave

But whereas Morrison was getting at larger questions regarding the nature of reality and the totemistic qualities of these very familiar heroes, the "meta fad" in comics which started in the late 1990s and sort of slouched through almost every aspect of The Aughts, was obsessed and entranced with Nostalgia. In fact, "ultimate fanboy" Bat-Mite -- whose two appearances on the "Brave and Bold" cartoon pushed the "meta" button almost to unwatchable lengths -- became sort of the patron saint not only of transgressing the Fourth Wall, but of this whole period in comic book history.

Bat-Mite's meta-fart

Constantly fixating on and rehashing your Sacred Cows and favorite "gods" can be quite decadent -- and I see the last decade or so's obsession with nostalgia in both the comics industry and comics fandom as being the direct result of the anticipation of massive change on the horizon. There was a sense like every aspect of the Beloved -- heroes, retro-cool, key scenes, landmark issues, primal moments of adolescent pleasure -- needed to be honored and embalmed in the most elaborate and exclusive of collector's sets of all time. You know, before the impeding cataclysm (bad economy, corporatization, the death-knell of the paper format, steadily dwindling audience as the result of insular marketing strategies) wiped them away from the active stage.

And whereas these meta stories by Bates and Morrison posited the comics creator as the master who made the grass green and The Flash red -- increasingly the Artist's sovereignty was getting pushed to the side, as the Ultra Fanboy (as personified with our dimension-hopping Bat-Mite) duked it out with  what was revealed to be the true Creator (in the Old Testament sense of the word): the Company.

From the ultra-meta "Action Comics" #9 (analysis of the issue here)

In the war between Fan and Company, what is the role of the Artist?

And further: in such an environment, what becomes of the comic book hero itself -- his or her soul, the essence of the character? (It is my belief that they, too, have lives and existences of their own)

These questions -- and their answers -- are key to Understanding Comics in the present period. 

Morrison: "It's only a comic."

Animal Man: "It's not! IT'S NOT ONLY A COMIC! IT'S MY LIFE!"

And as we understand the comics, we can expand our vision and see what it says about our culture, our  reality, and our future.

I expect that only a relative few will take this blog journey with me; but if you do, I assure you it will be worth your while. Or at least give you a few blips until the next series of blips.

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"Jurassic Park" Thoughts: How Dennis Nedry Ruined Entertainment

Just saw "Jurassic Park" for the first time ever -- and Jeff Goldblum in that movie is my fucking hero!

It's a tribute to Spielberg that he didn't just kill off "The Cynic" or make him have some sudden revelation at the end that the world was all unicorns and rainbows. Of course, "Jurassic Park" itself marks a new period of cynicism and darkness for the director's work, though at the same time hearkening back to his first box-office success, "Jaws."

I don't so much have a crush on Goldblum in this movie as I recognize a kindred spirit. His attitude and philosophy really mirrors my own. People ask me what I think of comic books, politics, entertainment, technology, the future of our species, and I'm like: "Chaos theory chaos theory chaos theory: here are my predictions. You can't hold back nature." I feel that at the very least, there is always the potential for some fucking greedy Dennis Nedry with his fucking fake can of Barbasol to screw up our best-laid plans.

It's too easy for me to interpret "Jurassic Park" as an allegory about "science-gone-mad." I really see it more of a statement on the new era of entertainment that was dawning in the early-to-mid Nineties, and that would mutate and take over movies, TV, video games, and comics. I also read Wayne Knight's Nedry (an anagram for "nerdy") as the proto-Fanboy/"Neo-Nerd"* character that he would later define in "Toy Story 2" as the obsessive collector Al McWhiggin.

Indeed, the Jurassic Park souvenir shop with its love-lovely JP-branded merchandise (almost identical to the real ones being sold to tie-in with the actual movie) would be catered to a fellow like McWhiggin, who would probably buy the collectibles in twos or threes (one to open, several to invest).

In Jurassic Park, mad-scientist/Disney stand-in John Hammond states that he created the park for children to enjoy; but it is the selfish Nedrys of the world who will take it over and turn it into something truly bloated and monstrous, designed to stoke their own arrested-development adolescent fantasies rather than create content that the next generation can enjoy and learn from. This is so poignantly represented by Nedry stealing the fetuses and stashing them in the shaving-cream can -- literally, burying the interests of the children in exchange for that of "adults" (read: old enough to shave) like himself.

Greedy.

Say what you will about Spielberg, he didn't make his reputation creating entertainment for babymen (and, later, babywomen) endlessly reliving their childhoods through the prism of their rehashed cherished icons. Instead, he had a pretty good grasp on the wonder of being a child and discovering cool things for the first time (reference "the Spielberg Face"). But by the early Nineties, he saw the writing on the wall with the newest crop of "blockbuster" films...he knew his era of movies was swiftly coming to an end.



The cinematic child, as defined by Elliot in "E.T."...

Gets replaced by that of John Connor in "Terminator 2" in 1991:

Both children have experienced trauma and loss, but John is almost a jaded adult in miniature. Elliot watches his hero ascend to the heavens at the end, but John's hero is lowered into a molten pit. John seems like he will never recover any of his childhood innocence. His spiritual "sister" is the strangely sexualized Mathilda in "Leon The Professional," which is released one year after "Jurassic Park":

Interesting to note that the dinosaurs in JP are all females trapped in an adolescent phase of development, their sexuality manipulated down to their DNA by a mostly (all?) male team; Ian Malcolm thinks this is a recipe for ultimate chaos and destruction:

It is here that I must point out the most "guilty" character in all of "Jurassic Park," even worse than Nedry: Hammond. The Disneyland/JP metaphor could not be more clear in this film. Hammond is more dangerous than Nedry because he is an Icon, a sacred cow. It's easy to hate on Nedry. But Hammond is a cuddly old man, charismatic, generous, witty...

...and yet he actively covers up the death of one of his employees**! He is the Joe Paterno of this story. More, he knows that his creation is potentially unsafe, and yet sends his own grandchildren into the heart of the park!! It's like something out of ancient times, sacrificing your kids to the Minotaur. Those kids = a literal kid, the young goat tied to a pole to feed to the dinosaurs.

Young Sacrifices

Further, when the Dennis Nedrys of the world are called out on their shit, they inevitably default to trotting out the mythology of the paternal John Hammond-like figure. These are the "elder gods" of popular culture that they use as a "shield." But there were problems with those elder gods and some of their philosophies. They are not sacred cows. Remember what happens to the cow in "Jurassic Park"? It is lowered into a pit of "DNA-raped", half-mad young female raptors and shredded to bits.

the slaughter of the sacred cow

"It's over," Hammond says ruefully at the end of "Jurassic Park." Yes, John...I think it is.

But if it is any consolation at all, please remember the immortal words of Ian Malcolm, Chaos Expert:

*I use the term "Neo-Nerd" as to distance this character type to the previous, Eighties version personified by "Revenge of the Nerds" and Anthony Michael-Hall's roles in "Sixteen Candles," "Breakfast Club," and "Weird Science." 

**Anyone else feel that the fact they used a nameless character of color as the raptor victim in the beginning of the movie "allowed" some viewers to let Hammond off the hook? What if that character was someone like Ellie Sattler instead? How would opinion towards Hammond change?

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So. There's Apparently A James Holmes Fan Community.

They describe themselves as (wait for it) "Holmies":

Before I left for San Diego Comic-Con I posted about fans of accused serial killer/cannibal/porn star Luka Magnotta. The post, which was a news round-up of a number of stories, has far-and-away been the most-visited of my entire site -- I'm not sure because of the Magnotta item or the "Chuck Dixon Needs To Learn Karaoke" piece. In light of recent events, the irony that in the post I made a comparison between the Magnotta groupies and the Joker/Harley Quinn relationship is also not lost on me:

Anyway, the online fan community built around James Holmes has the Magnotta groupies beat, especially when you consider that the tragic Aurora shooting happened only 11 days ago. They post fan art on Tumblr, speculate that he really didn't commit the crime or was part of an "Illuminati" mind-control program, organize letter-writing campaigns to Holmes in jail, and fetishize plaid shirts (cuz that's what Holmes was wearing when he got arrested).

Not the place to do a deep sociological analysis of this phenomenon just yet, but just to say: "yes, this too exists." But a couple of interesting points to note:

 1. These fans -- the majority of which seem to be females in their teens or early twenties -- have really sort of picked-up the fringe conspiracy lingo and ran with it. For example:

"do i think james holmes is guilty? that is not my place to assume. i'm not the jury, but i am someone who is fascinated. i've researched the whole illuminati deal and have read tons of articles."

Is this the partial result of the popularity of "Pop Conspiracy" sites like Vigilant Citizen, which focuses a lot on pop stars and youth culture?

2. You'll be reassured to know that apparently Columbine fandom has made a comeback, as well as moldy oldies like Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, etc.

A helpful chart for the noobs

3. Not all "Holmies" should be painted with the same brush: while some seem to actually find him attractive and are "fans," others are into this as just a (obvs, bad taste) joke and are "doing it for the lulz". Some also claim to be genuinely interested because they feel he is mentally ill and didn't get enough help/should not get the death penalty.

As disturbing as all this is, I don't think sites like Tumblr banning these pages is really going to help anything. All it does is drive the "fandom" further underground, and add to the "dangerous" mystique which is probably one of the driving factors in the "Holmies" phenomenon to begin with. Similarly, filling their pages full of angry comments won't really help in the long run, either; they have gone so far as to consider such actions cyberbulling, and claim they have the right to free speech.

If I haven't mentioned this before: having sympathy for, or "being in love with," serial killers is hardly a new phenomenon. The Columbine duo had their fans back in the day, as well as "Vampire Killer" Rod Ferrell, etc. But whereas in the Nineties one might emulate one's fave psycho by wearing black and perhaps wearing an inverted pentagram (a result of the media erroneously labelling such killers as "Goths" and "devil-worshipers") -- if you're a fan of James Holmes, you might dig brightly-colored "plaid shirts and Slurpies" (a motto sometimes used by "Holmies"), post photos of young "mad genius" Holmes hanging out in the science lab, or draw surprisingly-skilled chibi versions of the carrot-topped individual.

How times change...

Postscript: throughout my perusing of many pro-Holmes Tumblrs, I found surprisingly few references to "The Joker," Batman, or comic books of any kind. Not sayin' they aren't there, just saying I didn't find many, and they were certainly not the main thing the "Holmies" were fixated on. This may be the one case where the comic book industry's failure to appeal to young female readers is actually a good thing.

Postscript 2:

Just had to say that.

Also:

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The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning: From San Diego To Aurora

Before I make any commentary on the tragedy at Colorado, I'd like to go back in time and tell you how I spent my "summer vacation." Indulge me, will you?

Menu at the Hilton, SDCC

Last week, I was knee-deep in San Diego Comic-Con. I had been in sunny San D since Tuesday, July 10th. Throughout all the festivities, I felt a sense of...what is the word...objectivity about everything I saw. I just couldn't let myself fall into the "wonder" of the pageantry before me -- instead, looking at the whole shebang with the clinical eyes of a sociologist, not a fan. Maybe I was just too tired from my journey. Maybe I ate too much seafood. I didn't even really drink a lot. I felt bad about my lack of zest, totally Charlie Browning the entire event. As I waited for the taxi to pick me up to go home, a travelling companion even whistled the "Christmas Time Is Here" song from the Peanuts special.

Line for "Hall H" -- SDCC

Anyway, I took about 200 photographs at SDCC, mostly not of cosplayers, celebrities, and various wonders -- but instead, of long lines, advertising signage, people wearing giant billboard-like bags, protesters of various stripes, "Twilight Tent Cities," and the like. I took these photos casually, not really with any end-goal in mind. People looked at me like I was crazy. Why was I taking in-depth photos of a group of tired, twenty- and thirty-something women with Robert Pattinson t-shirts slumped under a tent like refugees; sleeping bags, blankets, water-jugs and shopping carts filled with what looked like their life's possessions strewn about? Why was I carefully photo-documenting the ads for new television shows and movies about the post-apocalypse that plastered the restaurants and sides of buildings...and even covered entire buildings, like the hotel I stayed in, and the one that loomed ominously across the convention center?


"Looper" advertisement, SDCC

Why was I taking photos of people cheerfully standing in line to be literally chained as zombies, or painted to look like zombies, or undergo a simulated alien violation of their body, or be packaged under plastic as an action figure? Didn't I want a photo opp for myself, to share on Facebook?

Con-goer at "Falling Skies" exhibit, SDCC

Throughout it all, I had the following vague idea: our pop-culture both shapes, and reflects back to us, our own selves and the world in which we live in. (It also very occasionally -- in some very strange, somewhat uncanny way -- presages future events.)

Murals on restaurant windows, SDCC

Now, in fan circles, the concept that comic books, movies, video games and the like might have any impact at all on a person's emotions/actions/beliefs is highly taboo. We shan't go into that concept here.

What I would like to talk about instead is my trip to San Diego, and what happened afterward. Indulge me, will you?

So anyway, I took all these photographs, jotted down a bunch of notes -- but that isn't all I took back from San Diego Comic-Con. I also invested $25 -- a huge sum for me -- to buy a cute little stuffed animal of Batman-as-a-puppy-as-a-skull-creature. Part of a toy line heavily promoted at the show called "Skelanimals," I was initially attracted to the doll because he heavily reminded me of Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god of the dead. I'm a big fan of Egyptian mythology, and I thought this toy was just adorable.

Anubis Batman "Skelanimal" display, SDCC

Anyway, I got home -- and before I even really had a chance to recover from my trip, me and my husband had to make the painful decision to put our eldest cat down. Suffering from hyperthyroidism and rapidly losing weight, we had boarded Simon with a vet who could monitor his condition and give him steady nourishment and meds. Unfortunately, he not only didn't gain any additional weight -- he had a stroke. Near-blind, unable to walk steady, and mostly skin-and-bones, it was clear what had to be done. But it was so unbelievably sad, the type of sadness that I think only cat-owners really understand. At one point I made a drunken Facebook post about how cats really are individuals with their own interior lives...I'm sure some friends and family somberly witnessed the screed and feared I was becoming a Crazy Catlady.

At the very same time, I received a promotional package for "The Dark Knight Rises" movie.

Throughout the last month, I had been reading/reviewing a large amount of Batman-related material. I worshipped Batman in my youth, but never really felt close to the character after that -- with the possible exception of the "Batmania" of 1989 when the Tim Burton movie came out. Recently, I was feeling that very same "Batmania," the hype and ballyhoo surrounding "TDKR" whipping up the same sort of excitement -- to the point that recently I had a dream in which I was the "TDKR" Catwoman being saved by Batman from the Joker. Looking over the promotional materials for the movie, I made a decision right there to watch a screening this weekend, and catch up with the first two via On-Demand.

Admittedly, the recent stories about obsessive Batman fans ganging up in droves upon reviewers who didn't like the movie -- and going so far as to write death treats -- sort of soured the festivities somewhat. But it's the *Internet* after all...

On the night of July 19th, I went to bed with my subconscious swirling in a stew of those pictures from SDCC, memories of my cat Simon, and Batman. And when I woke up, my husband informed me that there was a shooting in Colorado at a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises."

While the scope of the massacre was not on the level of casualties of Hurricane Katrina, or 9/11, I still felt that sickeningly-familiar feeling of numbness, depression and utter horror. I spent the day in a daze, unable to write, my eyes glued to the news on my computer and my phone. It was unimaginable to me the sorrow the families of the victims were going through. Lives were not only cut too short, but would be impacted for a long time to come via injuries and post-traumatic stress.

But, according to some fans and even industry professionals, that wasn't the *worst* thing to come out of all this. The very worst thing would be..."letting them take away Our Batman!"

Really, Misters Trey Parker & Matt Stone, get on a cartoon parodying this jaw-dropping lack of tact and empathy, stat!

But I'm not going to get into all that here, or break down for you all the myriad of feelings, theories, interpretations, outrages, and etc. I have regarding this entire horrific incident. I'm not sure if a personal blog that theoretically is "targeted" to comic book fans is the right place to have these discussions. I really want to devote more of my private writing pursuits taking a sociological/psychological/symbolic view at our pop-culture, and I don't know if that's something some "traditional" fans can handle without completely losing their shit. I'm reminded of a particular quote from "Easy Rider" about "freedom" that in itself is, in context of recent events, too incendiary to repeat here. But I am reminded of that quote.

I have nothing against the makers of "The Dark Knight Rises." I don't want to see Batman "banned." I will see the movie eventually, but it won't be any time soon because I'm just so sad. I'm just sad. I'm just depressed and haunted over the loss of life, here -- as I'm sure Christopher Nolan is, and Christian Bale, and Batman's publishers and writers and artists.

What we need to always remember is:

In the end, it isn't about comic books and your favorite fictional characters. It is about the lives and well-being of your fellow human beings.

In the end, it isn't about comic books and your favorite fictional characters. It is about the lives and well-being of your fellow human beings.

In the end, it isn't about comic books and your favorite fictional characters. It is about the lives and well-being of your fellow human beings.



              Batmobile display, the morning after the last day of San Diego Comic-Con

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