I’ve been occupied finishing a script over the holiday weekend, and when that was done I sort of fell under the weather and was crushed. So I haven’t posted much the past couple of days. I’ll make an effort to remedy that starting tomorrow.
For instance, I’ve been wondering why I don’t blog more about comics…
The little picture of Jennifer Kale came from this site, as did this drawing of a character who was created in 1975 by Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes.
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I still don’t know the name of the artist, but he seems to have done hundreds of these.
I haven’t written about Sandra Day O’Connor’s resignation, because I too am resigned.
This is the moment the troglodytes have been waiting for — the opportunity to roll back at least forty years of gains for individual citizens in the realm of civil liberties, fairness, and privacy. And they’re going to have their moment. One way or another, the Prostident will manage to seat whatever Supreme Court nominee he wants.
I once asked a friend of mine who professes to be a moderate *why* he was voting for Bush. His answer basically boiled down to “defense.” When I asked how he felt about the potential for reversing Roe v. Wade or whether he was comfortable with a government in the grip of the Christian right, he pooh-poohed my concerns. “All the rhetoric is just for their base,” he said.
Horseshit.
My defense-minded friend is about to find out that our Prostident is a *member* of his goddamn base.
We’re about to kiss off four decades of progress toward a marginally more equitable, more rational, more humane civilization in favor of the law of the jungle (for poor people, that is; the rich will still get to *be* the jungle) and a culture of native superstition.
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Jennifer M. writes:
I’d love to read in your blog how you feel (if anything at all) about Tom Cruise’s recent remarks regarding depression. I personally thought it made him sound incredibly ignorant —
Mostly, Jen, it made him sound like a Scientologist.
A bit of comics trivia before we proceed: Jennifer M. is the young lady after whom the character Jennifer Kale was named. See the interpretation of her comics persona below. (Can someone identify the artist?)
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Now, back to the subject: I’ve noticed a number of skeptical comments regarding my posts on depression. At least a few of you aren’t even convinced there *is* such a thing, apart from the emotional lows that are brought on by external circumstances and that everyone experiences at one time or another.
As usual, there’s no simple answer. Depression *can* be situational. It can last for a day or a week or a month and then go away without the use of drugs or therapy. Depression can also be chemical in origin. That variety, too, can sometimes — though more rarely — go away by itself after a short time.
Chronic depression is typically a combination of *both* types, situational and chemical. A single event — or a lifetime’s worth — triggers the depression. If it deepens, one’s thought processes change. The physical brain is actually retrained to produce the combination of chemicals that perpetuate the depression. (I’m grossly oversimplifying, of course, but you get the basic idea.)
The next logical question is: “If the brain can learn to produce depression by itself, why can’t it be trained *not* to produce depression by itself — i.e., without the use of antidepressant drugs?” Well, in some cases, it probably *can*; it’s just infinitely more difficult. But that retraining is vital. For most people, the combination of antidepressants and therapy proves *vastly* more effective than the drugs alone.
Also, just to dispel another notion — antidpressants aren’t “happy pills.” Most require a few *weeks* to build up to effective levels in the bloodstream. There’s no buzz. There’s no high.
So please don’t think I’m saying that you can just take a pill and make your problems go away. If you’re depressed, something’s probably wrong in your life, and ameliorating the brain chemistry won’t solve your problem by itself. What antidepressants *can* do is keep the physical brain from undermining you while you pursue your therapeutic efforts.
Robert H., who accesses the net via WebTV writes:
if only marvel would of let you write the hulk he would killed bush junior for being the dummest president in our history and ruled iran by now.
Those WebTV keyboards are unforgiving. Anyway…not that I condone assassination or even assassination fantasies, but a left-leaning political Hulk *could* be sort of amusing: “Arrr!! The madder Hulk gets, the *greener* Hulk gets!!!”
Pablo E. writes:
Re-reading my old Howard comics, something struck me. Strangely, I had not noticed this before, but is that Nevada with her ostrich on page 16 in HTD #15 (the issue about Zen and comic-book writing)?
*Nevada* was inspired by all the requests I received over a couple of decades to “Bring back the showgirl and the ostrich!” The character Raphael Di Vesuvio in *Nevada* was a somewhat different take on the concept of the “Killer Lampshade.”
Nat Gertler of About Comics writes:
Just in case no one else pointed this out: Buffy The Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon briefly gave some of your work its props in an interview.
Neat. Thanks, Nat.
Finally, a fan named **Frank** writes:
I just wanted to say I think you wrote the best Shanna story that was in Hulk magazine # 9. I wish you wrote the new Shanna comic with art by Frank Cho. Frank Cho draws a great heroine but he seems to be missing some points of the Jungle Girl genre. Do you plan any new Jungle Girls stories?
The subject doesn’t come up much, but *Shanna the She-Devil* was among my very first writing assignments at Marvel, and the character remains one of my favorites. I can’t help it. She will always remind me of that blonde chick who, in 1956, slipped into my house via television and corrupted my little nine-year-old mind forever:
I received a very important piece of mail today, and I can’t really tell you about it — except to say that it’s confirmation of the personal news I received a few weeks ago. I have reason to be very happy.
At the same time, the universe is sending me signs.
I can allow myself a soupçon of joy, but the cosmos draws a line at complacency.
I live in an apartment complex with assigned parking. For the last few weeks, the space next to mine has been occupied by a vehicle that is the same make, model, and color as the car owned by my most recent ex, the one who used to share this apartment with me.
Like the *Omega* situation, the ghost car (that’s how I think of it; it doesn’t even have a rear license plate) is an indication that the time has come to move on — emotionally, creatively, residentially.
Okay, universe, old pal. I can take a hint.
John Dvorak in *PC Magazine* on radio frequency identification devices.
It struck me that in contemporary America it’s become very difficult to tell the Christians from the lions.
Driving around Las Vegas in the summer in a car without air conditioning is not pleasant.
Too irritated to write about much of anything else today.
Something less bitchy t0morrow, I hope.
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