Don't Worry. Beast Happy.

Don't worry, beast happy now...

In the wonderful world of stuff, as anyone knows, there's always unlicensed, second banana merch.
Knock-offs, rip-offs, clones, bootlegs, facsimiles, copycats, call 'em what ya will, if you can obtain it, the no-frills budget-brand version is out there.

Depending on which side of the bed you got out of in the morning, there's multiples ways to view them.
On toys in particular, some are unintentionally hilarious - names lost in translation, novel attempts to cash in another popular line. Others are creepy, say an unlicensed Ben 10 with three pupils & backwards arms by accident, or Harry Potter with a huge blob of toxic looking red goo for hair, apparently lead-painted by a blind chimpanzee during an epileptic seizure.

Some companies have gotten things right in the past however. I'm thinking Sungold or Imperial in the 1980s, creating decent figures to play alongside Mattel's Masters of the Universe line, rather than stealing Mattel's concepts word for word. As a result they've achieved a lasting collectable status.

Not so for a billion of the Transformers knock-offs floating about our planet.
I'll head into a cheap-o store occasionally, purely for a chuckle.
To read names like Super Deformation Robot, Super Change Android, World Soldier Peace Fighter, or just to check out the absurd paint jobs and character profiles on the generic 'Knights' or 'Pirates' lines. Etcetera, etcetera.

How's that? Whoever created Beast Worriers (there's no country or manufacturer printed) didn't even break a sweat creating an original back story. Just stole it right outta' the Transformers Beast Wars handbook. Right down to naming the Maximals and Predacons. Optimus Primal, Megatron, Rattrap, and even throwing the generic Dinobot title in there.
I didn't follow Beast Wars very religiously at all, so didn't know Optimus Primal was a giant bat and Megatron a crocodile.

A laugh and a shame. These don't seem like overly terrible toy designs, but no matter how good our mystery manufacturer made 'em, that is always going to be overshadowed by the fact they wouldn't rustle up their own story concept.

"Never make assumptions based on opposites, water burns as surely as fire cleanses" - Rihia2k.

You have the bite to bear arms...

I don't kill stuff.
Basically. Okay, confess, in recent times I've dealt a mosquito a blow 'r two. That's mostly the influence of my dastardly other half however. Yep, the old set-the-boyfriend-on-the-mozzy syndrome.

Personally I got no probl'm chilling in the company of a cockroach, to many people's disgust I'll even be happy to feed said cockroach some jelly bean if it behaves itself.

On the subject of my other half, her mother doesn't like caterpillars. Really doesn't like them. Guess everyone's got something. For me it's plastic buttons - let's not go down this road.
A lot of folks'll think an irrational dislike of caterpillars is whacky, myself included, but I reckon I'm gonna' change that tune now.

I've been bitten by a generous array of God's glorious designs - mosquitoes, mites, fleas, ants (mmm, formic acid anyone?), cats, dogs-a-plenty (still bear a nose scar), horses, rats (heel to eyelid and everywhere in between), thigh-bruising geese, over-inquisitive goats, I'm sure the list goes on...

Actual accountable caterpillar may vary. (took this shot way back )

 Bleuaaargh!

Just kidding, I think it's gorgeous. But what isn't gorgeous, and nobody told me this is possible when I'm living in poison-paradise, Australia, is getting it's bristles good and in ya.

Lungs and eyes = particularly nasty.

O.K. technically not a bite, but the subsequent burn and itch of getting these hairs in yer thigh (thru jeans mind ya) is no fun.

"Yes, sir. Certainly I'll spend a day, dressed as a ghostbuster, operating a moon buggy with an atari joystick, from a cage 5 storeys up, firing high pressure water everywhere. Oh, yer gonna' pay me for that too? Bonus!"

Heh heh, alright, if you knew me you'd know a decent percentage of my juvenile mind helps fill a day of operating a boom lift and water-blasting walls as - yay, I'm playing Terminator!
Thus, a day of scrub-cutting and line-trimming (in what I can only describe as Poison Ivy's backyard) quickly gets turned by my imagination into - yay, I'm playing Predator!
That said, I'm still a perfectly competent and responsible worker.

One supposed solution to Caterpillar-quills all up in your shizzle, is to get adhesive tape and gently stick-and-peel it over the affected area to remove the fine hairs. Serious, how many Rangers are skipping thru the wilderness with back-packs full of adhesive tape?

I think they'll have to rewrite Predator just for me now...

Poncho - "You're hit! You're bleeding, man!"
Blain Cooper - "I ain't got time to bleed"
Poncho - "Oh, okay. Have you got time to duck?"
(EXPLOSION)
Blain - "..."
Poncho - "Oh, I also saw a caterpillar having a spasm on your trousers. Have you got time to see if it's gone, gently apply and remove adhesive tape, administer a little hydrocortisone, and resist the urge to scratch as it only spreads the hairs around?"
Blain - "It's Nam all over again!"
 
There's little more important to me right now than photoshopping a caterpillar to Jesse Ventura's face, but alas, my photoshop 'puter is outta commish.

You'll get by.

"Chances are, if you're not cheating at the game of life, I'll never see you on the cover of a magazine" - Rihia2k.

To Kilowoggingbird...

... er, it's not as racist as it sounds...

Who knows when a lifelong addiction to little manly man toys will rear it's articulated head?
On the hunt for asparagus, reaching over some old woman's head for the last two packets of tapioca flour, in the "do I, or do I not, want potato chips?" aisle.

As every child knows - gotta' get yer daily dose o' greens... especial if they're on clearance.

They made a Green Lantern movie. Oh, you knew that already? Fine, so anybody care to tell me why writers felt the need to make Hal Jordan another irresponsible comic-to-film cocky hot-head? Should we just blame  Ryan Reynold's Deadpool alone? Or does Downey Jr.'s Iron Man and Rogen's Green Hornet have somethin' doin' there?

C'mawn, Mr. Jordan was a total stick in the mud.

Welp. I sure wasn't going outta' my way for any Oa lantern by-products. So I shan't mention the bit where I stood in the aisle and literally flipped a coin to decide what alien I didn't need, but was taking home with the groceries anyway.

Heads and heads again - Kilowog... sweet. Pretty happy to see there was even a Stel in there at all.

My first true encounter with the Green Lantern of Earth, Mr. H. Jordan, was within the pages of a terribly penned JLA Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. As a kid I just couldn't get my head round the idea 'You can do anything cos' o' yer magic ring... absolutely anything! Um, except yellow'.
"That's a bit dicky!", I remember thinking, associating it with schoolyard games of tag involving colour. Or maybe Twister.
Obviously at that point I wasn't benefited with an awareness of the fear emotion as it relates to a colour in the DC universe... bla bla.

Aw, look like! Comes with a plastic pile of power-shot, which can be held any number of four ways (makes for a pretty cool club). This piece of jagged translucent junk arrives in lieu of knees, mind you.
There's somethin'. Scour the net for comments on GL movie figures - you'll be escaping the screen with a deluge of backwash comments regarding the whole poseability thing. You cannot win DC.

Look, folks, these figs have decidedly cool sculpts when compared with basically any 4" figure from a  movie in the last decade.
Ah, and that bitching about poseability? DC, you cannot win. I hear endlessly how Marvel, amongst others, have figures with too much articulation, about how they're dropping like rag doll flies after a play or two. Senór Kilowog Girder Limbs here? He'll do fine.

Oh, and for anybody unfamiliar with Kilowog... before you start dissing him on his porcine jawline just let me fill you in, he has genius level intellect. Sort of like a three-toed MacGyver. Of course, like every genius, that's gonna' come with sacrifices. Say, the knee-bending requirements to perform a squat thrust. Drill Sarge indeed...

Admittedly the GL film did a coupla' things for me.
1) got me all thinking on what Lantern knowledge I might possess from everything I've ever read.
2) had me marvelling at Sarsgaad's beautiful and prominent prosthetic head.

I distinctly recall owning an issue of Green Lantern: Mosaic, # 9, if I ain't wrong. Featurin' Tendon Ripper and John Stewart. Had some love for The Justice Society too, which gave me Earth's Alan Scott. My favourite human Lantern.

Really, I just want to say, "Why'd jou wait so long DC?"

Yep, fair t' say my scanner's in another country so that's one crap photo from the shelf, but look! Is that basically a fracking snake with an Oa power ring?? There's an absurd wealth of extra-terrestrials signed up to The Corps. Leaves me wondering why they didn't exploit this fact earlier. Kenner Super Power's Jordan was yer only real option as an 80's tyke. I wanna' fracking snake with a ring on, how hard is that to make?
Come on, Kenner. Just let a glob of melted goo spill outside of the mold, put a green splat onnit and name it Xk'lth from the planet F'rrdh. I very well might've asked my mother to buy it.

One last thing to think for.
Are there any villians to this GL movie toyline at all? Technically, Sinestro hasn't rebelled at this point, and I see no one tripping over Hector Hammond toys in the coffee aisle. Feel like a hunt and you miiight find a Fallen Guardian, but I reckon that's it.

Villains? Eh?

Feh, procure yerself a handful of moderately obscure action-figures and you've got your pissant space pirate gang right there!!

Overall I'm happy about the idea of Lantern figures making a decent scramble towards kid's toy-boxes across the globe. Alien GLs at that, not just four-limbed two-eyed humans anymore. It bodes well for imagination and while something might look like a sushi-roll or a clothes peg, spruce it up in some green tights, tack a ring on it. Hey presto - hero!

Oh, basic assortment GL figures also come with a ring, and who cares if it don't light up? Imagination is key where a Lantern comes into it, no? Need I mention the ring didn't fit me? My girlfriend wears it just fine though, and as she recites the oath straight off the packet, I'm checking my head size and giggling all creepy-like.
The ring chose her, that's fine, fine. Not jealous... (telekinetic head dance)
IT'S FINE!

"Televisions don't work when nobody is watching them.'' - Rihia2k.

We Don't Want The Youngblood...

But... we'll take it if it's on offer.

Normally I'm not trudging thru a junk market outta' necessity. Normally motive alpha would be combing the paru plastic beaches for toyish treasure. Normally I don't 'work' there.
Normally.

However, I was at said junk market today, obscenely early, last night's stir-fry on my breath... gimme coffee or gimme death. I swear I tried to turn my head, but if an action-figure is going to the bin I feel obliged, as if it's my absurd duty, to liberate it. One man's trash... yada yada...

There were two, but who wants a double shafting?

Really I'm cramped for space, but hey! Is there an intact action-figure in amongst all that shitey cardboard and plastic? Gimme that!

...whatever...he ain't so young...

Rob Liefeld's Youngblood, aw shucks, what a fad/phase that was. I think Image - I think Savage Drag, I think Savage Dragon action figs -I think TMNT crossovers...

I know, I know. Cats born in 1990 (that're 20 somethin' now) they'd be like "Ooh, Youngblood. I remember that..." whereas I'm more, "Oh, Youngblood...I remember that...".
When it comes to this '90s non-retro junk. Ah. Okay, lay down cardback.

...gee, Spawn, din't see that coming!...

Looking at this line up from '95, can't help thinking I dig basically every other character over Shaft. Honest - Shaft = last pick.
Badrock, Crypt, and Troll in particular have appeal.

Truth be told if Shaft was your favourite Image comics character, you were probably that dude what always played Ryu in Fighter, always went Haohmaru in Shodown, always chose Zero in Kombat. Worse, you got away with it because you always won.

... in case you intended to take an eye out...

 Aww, c'mon. Killrazor? Shi? Stryker? Grunge? Anyone but Shaft... he's just so... generic...

Some o' my bros were fairly gaga in the '90s for Image comics. "Grifter is sooo cool" - gambit rip-off with a military bent, anyone? He smokes, has an overcoat, and cool hair that defies the law of physics. I was, true blue, an X-man geek all over. Sticking to my safe super-powered soap operas from Marvel. Style over substance wi' that Image jazz, I'm tellin'ya! (plus a gazillion ads at the back of every issue)

Profile. If anyone gave a cracked cue-ball's tit...

Look, sometimes you can base your success as a character on whether or not Isaac Hayes has a song about you, but I got trouble recalling the lyrics 'carrot-top' or 'baby-blues' anywhere in Hayes' version of Shaft. I don't think 'Ivy-league jock' was in there either...

-"Who's the man who's got biceps bigger than his entire head?"

-"Shaft."

-"Damn, right!"

...not a crotch shot, I promise...

 Truly? Took me two seconds to notice Shaft's bow might just be set permanent in his right fist there. Interesting, and upon opening...

Never bring a tracksuit to a knife fight, son.

Da. The bow is sculpted in. Unremovable. They were saving on molds that day, huh?

How absolutely Mcfarlane!

Shaft sure has an unhealthy addiction to that long range weapon there. Also, I can't help thinking, if you weren't me (which yore not) you'd find it a reg'lar pain in the ass to get Shaft on his feet. (I have a patient knack for plastic bipedal balance)

Seriously. Why did comic artists in the '90s feel the need to depict heroes with total geisha feet and ankles smaller than their penises?

"Yes. I get to be leader! Again!"

I think it's inevitable we take the time to consider Shaftie's head-gear.

If I missed any obvious choices, seriously tell me!

Shatterstar had all that logical kempo padding. Gambit and Havok, original at least with the lycra. Firestorm had the fact his head was on fire as a visually distracting focal point.

So how does Shaft 'xpect to get away with it, without being noticed?

Eh, duzn't matter. If nothing else Shaft has some alright articulation. I'll never pretend to know what he's carrying in all those strap-pockets (serious course of antibiotics?), or why he don't carry a quiver when he's a frakkin' bow-man, but articulation is ball joint in the right arm, and his knees give him the perfect height for sitting on my girlfriend's temari when she's not around...

If gangstas had bows.

"He's a complicated man, but no one understands him like his ballista."
Aww yeah, he has a projectile all-shooty-trident which is a sweet bonus. Take that Commander Adama! Just don't see how he can pick his nose, let alone make a sandwich now. What with the perma-fix bow an' all. Certainly no reaching for overhead lockers with them shoulder pads either. I won't bother with a back shot. Suffice to say he has buttocks tighter than a klingon's forehead to match a facial expression like he's just stepped on a fetus. Crap, now I feel all sorry for 'im, which I blame purely on readin' Catcher in the Rye prior to this post.

Nya-well you should prob'ly just congratulate me on not breaking into Eels considering all The Boosh I've been watching...

"Look, pour your glass to halfway and be a realist about it whydon'cha?" - Rihia2k

"Bouncy bouncy...oh, such a good time."

I'll be fair - an' say its got good hands-on playability.
Well, shafted myself enough for one day...
Screw it, I've got sweet muscat to drink and bloody Conan comics to read...

Age Against The Machine (3)...

Act 2. Scene 2. In which Rihia2k realizes he's gone crazier than all of Mervyn Peake's characters put together.

Right that's it. Why did I ever broach the subject of mythology with myself on this here bloggle? I'm sure it would have gone a lot smoother if I had Joseph Campbell to talk to (bless him).
If JC were here we could have a conversation about, I dunno, Street fighter II, even, and he could make it look deep.
As it is mythology is all around me and I can't not see it now - Driving past Archeron Street. Having used Pegasus bus services. Watching Japanese series, Rin: Daughters of Mnemosine, 'Mnemosine' being a Greek Titan. Heck, even drying my hands I was using an 'Apollo' hand dryer.
By all appearances, have the gods deigned to drive me mad... MAAAAWAAD... AD.

Right, well that clears that up, now I gotta' go scooting over the other side o' Brisbane and back in the van, so I better stop thinking.

And in other horse semen drinking news; http://www.stuff.co.nz/marlborough-express/news/6564102/Don-t-ask-what-hes-drinking

"This is the voice of Asteron. I am an authorized representative of the Intergalactic Mission and I have a message for the planet Earth. We are beginning to enter the period of Aquarius and there are many corrections which have to be made by Earth people. All your weapons of evil must be destroyed. You have only a short time to live to learn to live together in peace. You must live in peace or leave the galaxy."
Kenyatta - The Devil's Stocking.

"If getting it together is so important, is it mandatory we fall apart first?" - Rihia2k.

Age Against The Machine (2)...

Age Against The Machine...
Act 2. Scene 1. (in which Rihia2k recants on all rambling he let fly in his second to last post here.)
Our scene begins with Rihia2k admitting he was 'generally anti', and way too tired, to be allowed to type random thoughtless brain leaks onto this blog. He had also recently been to a mall... and he hates those things. He will also now stop writing in a third person narrative. Yes, yes I will.

So anyway, in apology, I'm far too much of a lazy sod to have stuck to any rule of seriously writing about modern mythology in pop culture. I mean, I obviously wasn't going to cover Chinese mythology being very much alive and unchanged on current Chinese TV shows. Wasn't going to cover the Maori adaption of Troilus and Cressida set in New Zealand.
Heck, I was copping out with comic books = mythology in just the western world.
From that, it was all just an excuse to whine about the way Thor is little more than a cardboard bo-hunk with a hammer these days.

But heeey, mythology was always about the endless remodeling and whispered fragments that expand a legend throughout time, right? I gotta' stop being a fuddy-duddy and hand it over to the kids.

In addition I indulged in a gripe, comparing comics to myths - regarding the believability factor. Both the funny books & mythology are a-bloom with symbolism and rich meaningful metaphor. Still, there's a difference, no-one will actively avoid the wrath of Hal Jordan in their daily lives as much as the persuasions of Astaroth.
ie. - The Fantastic Four will remind us the virtues of chumminess and our inner-heroes.
The story between Daphne and Apollo will ever refresh the simple wonder and splendor of dawn, in addition stirring up tales of unrequited desire.

Man, anyone would think I hated comics. Honestly though, maybe you can speak Ferengi, or list all the Dr. Whos, you just can't count the hair follicles on a season's chin (Old Man Winter I'm looking at you.)

Essentially, does it matter whether your devil is a seven foot man in a rubber suit? Non-entity? Any and all of the seven deadly sins? Or a creative combination thereof, affecting the human heart?
Right, that's enough being clever from me, let Jason Aaron and Tang Eng Huat do the rest...

From Marvel's Ghost Rider, #31. The Last Stand

In fact, the Ghost Rider, Last Stand story arc is a good example of the comic book as modern vessel for preexisting myth. I was delighted to find (however brief) a reference to Jizo Bosatsu, and the fleshing out of multiple Spirits of Vengeance / Ghost Riders the world over. China, The Middle East, Tibet, Japan, Russia, The Congo, India.

Refreshing.

So if that story worked as modern vessel for old myth, could Alan Moore and Jacen Burrow's Neonomicon be the other way around? Good old comics to tell the still fresh Lovecraft mythos?

NEONOMICON - the name says it all really.

Leng. Leng. We're all on Leng. - Dr. Seuss' Necronimonicon, anyone?

Although it needn't be so fantastically supernatural. Don't have to look far past Kick-Ass, Defendor or Scott Pilgrim trend movies to notice that. Still fantasies, yes, but it isn't hard to see the appeal to modern audiences when one considers how these films're staged.

Where? Who? When?

Here. Us. Now.

"To 'not do anything' is much more relaxing & fun than 'to do nothing'" - Rihia2k.

Home is where the art is...

L'ASTRE DE LA NUIT

Bel Astre de la nuit charmante
Aimable et clairvoyant,
Que je t'aime, que je t'adore,
Quand tu disparais avant l'aurore.

Rival timide de la lune modeste

Encore plus beau et plus céleste!!!!

Brillant avec éclat dans l'air

Parmi la douce atmosphère.

Continue, oh! bel Astre luisant!!

De guider mes pas errants,

Et de soirée en soirée

D'éclairer mes promenades égarées.

-- Par ANNA COX, âgée de douze ans et demi

Never knew Anne was twelve when she wrote that.

I learned to recite that a long time ago in the chilly city that I spend this morning. And while it's not Chi City, never been to Lake Michigan, am not Kanye West, it's strange to have that come on in the car, as I roll streets my teenage feet skipped and plodded back and forth and upside down. Past buildings climbed, unaccompanied but not alone, in the moonlight. Beyond familiar. Rich tapestries of my ghost actions on every corner, memory layers super-imposed over every street and alley. Listening to the wind I kissed in play on so many nocturnal adventures. Miss being lost yet free. And yeah, I still miss that cat.

Now. A clear destination back across the sea on a Sunday. (to the real world?)

But, hey.

All the world's a stage.

 "Everyone's an egg sometimes, just don't get caught with yourself on your own face" - Rihia2k.