Category: So MANY Superheroes

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What, Me Worry?

Gone but not forgotten!

This video is only concerned with the artists who contributed to Mad in it’s first two decades – even if some of them carried on for longer. I’ve got nothing against those who came later but I’m selfishly only dealing with the ones who inspired and influenced me as I grew up. They taught me more than 4 years of college ever did. Apparently in the early Kurtzman comic years Mad was printed in colour, although all the examples I found were black and white only, and according to a particularly grumpy viewer Dave Berg didn’t die until 2002. Mea culpa.

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Nice Song Ray

When you’re ignorant, everything is new and exciting.

I had no idea that Mr Davies wrote this tune until I learned it in the episode of Waterloo Sunset, which just dropped. It’s awesome.
As are the Pretenders live in London.

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Viva Schroeder

I read Peanuts over and over as a youngster. Our discussion of “Well-Tempered Clavier” triggered an old panel in my head. I couldn’t find it, of course, but seem to remember Schroeder’s involvement. It was a good springboard to look up his outstanding output.

I’m sure the classically-trained bastard among us can identify Schroeder’s enthusiastic tunes by a single measure.

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This Is Weird, For Many Reasons

… but mostly because Welles is an opinionated genius and world-class hater. It’s hard to imagine him being a talk show host who could get guests comfortable.

Throw in Andy Kaufman, and I’m not sure what I was expecting. I was pleasantly surprised. It’s clear that Welles had watched Taxi, and had thought about it in some depth.

“I want to know why it is that you go and wrestle with people, when you can act so well.”

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Faster, Pussycat! Flee! Flee!

Maria Alyokhina (above left), a member of Pussy Riot, has managed to escape Russia. She posed as a food carrier to get into Belarus, and then an Icelandic performance artist convinced a European country to issue her a travel document, which got her safely into Lithuania.

Great recap of the entire cloak-and-dagger operation here. After multiple instances of being jailed for proclaiming Russia’s suckitude over the past decade, she got out. The picture of relative incompetence of the authorities that she paints matches the extensive coverage on Renfield’s website.

“I don’t think Russia has a right to exist anymore,” she said. “Even before, there were questions about how it is united, by what values it is united, and where it is going. But now I don’t think that is a question anymore.”

The Icelandic performance artist was not Bjork, but being Icelandic, he is of course related to Bjork.