Comic Shop Stop: Catching Up - Part Two

I used to do these every week - run down what new comics I'm excited enough about that I spent monies on them. But the less I bought the last few months, the less I could post, and I just fell outta the habit. So here's the second post in a series of posts catching up on some stuff I bought since the summer ended that I wanted to share. Here's a link to the first one. It's all rad and I recommend it 100-and-12 percent.

First up, some books I grabbed online:

FROM ONE PERCENT PRESS

SIMPLE ROUTINES #12 - JP Coovert first came to my attention as a CCS grad a couple years ago, and since then, I've been a fan of his work including his journal minicomic. He's a young, talented comics creator with an upbeat original voice and style and that shines through in his work.

THERE MUST BE MORE: THE SEARCH FOR BIGFOOT'S BOX - A great example of how fun JP makes his comics, this album-sized adventure features JP and two other oddball characters on a quest whose purpose you can figure out from the title of the book. This, I think, is JP's second album-sized book and his deceptively simple cartooning really benefits from the larger size.

TOO FAR - Anthology time! Joe Lambert edited (and contributed to) this collection of new comics by James Hindle, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Coovert, Jose-Luis Olivares, Dane Martin and Alex Kim. All killer, no filler. I missed SPX this year and when I found out this book debuted there, I worried I wouldn't be able to get my hands on a copy.

Luckily, all the above comics are available at the One Percent Press store. Click on any of the artists' names for more info on each.



Dustin Harbin decided to chronicle his life for a year in short, four-panel strips, and now you can get your hands on the thoughtful, densely illustrated results from Koyama Press for only six bones! It's a great value, Dustin's a great artist and letterer, the production's great, it's all just...GREAT. Go check out Dustin's blog and buy other great stuff from him in his store.



Before Netflix, Youtube, and instant-watch video services, if you were a suburban kid who wanted to see a movie, you had to work your way to a video store. And that's exactly what Brent Schoonover's 12-page minicomic is about - three friends scouring their small town's video shops for a copy of Peter Jackson's gore-classic, Dead Alive! They talk about girls, innocently fantasize pulling off a major crime and contemplate the future in a way that makes this short story comfortingly recognizable to any kid who grew up in a small town. The landscape format gives the story a widescreen feel and as a horror fan, a video fan, a comic fan, and a fan of stories about suburban kids on a quest, I was entertained like crazy. I just wish I had a whole series of these instead of the one.



A new Jeffrey Brown book where he draws comics about how outrageously awesome cats can be!!! The above picture shows how the rad cover has two die-cut panels. Even if you don't like cats, you'll be charmed by the smart comics. If you do like cats, WHY HAVE YOU NOT BOUGHT THIS BOOK ALREADY?! (click here to see Jeffrey talk about the cover process on his blog)



And that's it for the stuff I've bought online. Now for quick rundowns on the manga I recently purchased. With manga, I'm a finicky fan, only picking up more indie-minded titles with a focus on character. So please please please, if you haven't read manga for one reason or another, I promise you there's stuff out there for you, so give some stuff a try.



PEEPO CHOO VOL. 2 - On the surface, it's about sex, action, and an anime-obsessed fan accidentally uncovering corruption behind the comics industry. But beneath that, Peepo Choo explores the cultural differences between western and eastern cultures as mistaken by residents of each. Fast, fun, crazed, and only 3 volumes long, this is my kind of manga. Volume 3 is due out in December.



7 BILLION NEEDLES - A social outcast high school girl stumbles onto an alien invasion plot in this updated manga adaptation of Hal Clement's sci-fi story. Hikaru Takabe's version has tight art, an isolated mood, and a stirring, slow-burn pace. Fun fun fun (and only 4 volumes long).



SATURN APARTMENTS VOL. 2 - In the far future, Earth is abandoned and humans live in a structure circling the planet. It's there that a young boy works as a window washer, a dangerous job that killed his dad a few years prior, but that allows the young boy to rediscover his father through the job. This look at blue-collar workers in a sci-fi setting is a knock-out, but the low-key art is the real draw for me.

More soon, including some single issues I picked up at the actual store...

“A Breath of Mayhem”: the new Daughters of Anarchy (and tea…and pocky)

I sit here eating pocky.Actually, I'm not as I have run out of both berry pock and dark chocolate pocky (men’s pocky – bah, remind me to have that changed my town – “Pantyliner”) So have to fix the pocky issue. Oh, I am selling the last 64 lots of manga on Ebay (condition NEW to Like NEW books) by Sunday, which will fix the pocky problem, but not enough for the new Indy hand control motorcycle.

Motorcycle?

Oh yeah, we doubled my pain killers. And it seems to work cause the ‘Crazy Eyes’ Elizabeth Fucking McClung is back!

I decided after watching a trailer for the TV show ‘Son’s of Anarchy’ that a) I need to start a really cool motorcycle gang and b) definitely NEED my own town (“Some people just find they aren’t welcome here” – from the trailer). Okay, I know ‘Pantyliner’ isn’t the best town name, but it scares most men, and indicates things are going to be down and dirty: yeah a little bloody! I will probably change it once I find a better name (“Welcome to Carnivore”, “Second to last Hope”). So a NEW ride and of course I need the guns,because I'll have to shoot the road signs (I don’t know WHY people shoot road signs exactly, but I don’t make up the rules, as a road rebel, I gotta shoot up road signs) and ride with my bats and styling cows’ skull on the front of my bike!

I went boxing yesterday and did 80 push ups and 100 sit ups, 40 of them vertical (my legs up in the chair, my body on the ground, face to come up to knees and back down). Then I did heavy bag. I got Linda to time my 1 minute ‘mad minute’ rounds. After a few warm ups, I timed 197 punches in 60 seconds (yeah the last 3 bug me a bit). Then as I kept doing the rounds, I felt myself slowing down. I asked Linda to time me again. “141” I counted when she went ‘Stop….....oh wait, that was only 50 seconds, you have 10 more.” Oh, too late. I was kickin it. Then Linda said, “We better go home a bit early.” Everyone was still hitting the bags, all 24 boxers. And that’s when I passed out. When I came to….we were in an empty room. That was a very twilight zone trick.

I was getting in shape for my days of Mayhem and loan sharking (I'll carry a calulator for the hard stuff). Sort of like this cheerful video from Gunslinger Girls.
So, I read The Good Witch of the West, where it starts with girl and boy friend (Firiel and Rune) and Firiel goes to ball, gets mocked and then her ‘heirloom’ from her dead mother shows her to be a contender from the throne. Pretty standard girls fru-fru story right? Well, not exactly as she gets thrown in the deep end, saves Rune (post torture) and ends up going to a Girl’s Academy for Nobles which is full of assassins and has both ballet and fencing classes (you know, for deportment and a good backhand slash to the throat). I think because women are in power they are called ‘witches’ – at the academy there is a very good class on ‘seduction techniques’ in the book. There is some ‘wink wink’ to girls liking yaoi (which naive Firiel seems to miss) along with LOTS of girl/girl yuri including some kissing with the fencing instructor (WITH Firiel….which she seems a bit clueless about). Plus Rune is trying to convince her that she may treat him like a harmless brother but he isn’t (he grabs her breast, makes out with her and tells he has MORE experience…..so she better watch out!). Firiel instead of a shriek is thinking, “More experience? But we grew up together, where did he get MORE experience?” and then remembers the NEW yaoi story by the daughter of the noble she is staying with ‘The Red Haired Knight and the Black Haired lad” and goes, “Ohhhh! OH! No, Rune, sometimes you should really say “no.”

So, lots of fun at the academy (she gets thrown out - So on to court!). And what is a 'wild girl' without lots of cross dressing, Rune as Runette, and Firiel as a boy – the luggage for these two must be huge! It is fun (oh, and I am selling the manga series in ebay by Sunday – but if you get the books, I will send you the anime series on Disc – it is similar but different – so let me know!).

Anyway, somehow Yuri action (like the sword instructor made Firiel’s ‘Knight’), gender bending, intrigue, saving the kingdom, and of course a dash of yaoi is like sherbet for me, it just cleanses the pallet. I awoke this morning…er afternoon and thought, “Why Elizabeth, why don’t we try to start the apocalypse today!”
That’s me in a good mood. Gosh, I've missed the "What are we going to do today Elizabeth?" Why try to destroy the world, of course! days, haven't you?

I also thought about becoming a ‘Grim Reaper’, so I could lurk outside of late night clubs in my wheelchair with a scythe going, “Yeah, drink AND drive, that sounds like a smart idea to ME!” Then laugh in low creepy tone.

Or convincing everyone to wear ‘fox spirit’ masks on full moons and start taking school in the middle of the night!Why not? Linda told me that our dictator (Campbell) for BC stepped down two days ago (wow, fired the government, in debt, nothing working, the solution – leave it for the next poor shmuck!), so this is Anarchy town now (with still some very good high teas!).

But then, after reading about a nation of women in charge, and seeing that trailer, I am totally into creating a town of biker gals, or gals who like to fight, or scrap and of course drink tea and chocolate, maybe a bit of bread baking before going out on a ‘Thunder Ride’ So quick, hop aboard and lets go find this town!Though the idea of an entire town having a period on schedule could be scary. I’m talking about those days right before if we happen to run out of chocolate or batteries for vibrators.

See, people think women aren’t scary, and it is that fact that makes us scary. We are 51-52% of the planet and we could PK, or ‘Team Kill’ anytime we feel like it. Just be thankful that we like gardening and knitting more than provoking. Because otherwise we would be THIS little Red Riding Hood (I have those boots, but I love the rose imprint thigh highs).She, she punked those wolves and owns them. And what is she taking to grandma? Hard liquor and hand grenades (click on the picture to see for yourself) – yeah, pink lolita with guns to match (I do like the goth cross on her .44 holster, gotta find one of those for me). Yeah, Oh dear..."I'm just a girl!"
So, if you don’t want to hear of my Breathe of Mayhem spreading far and wide, um, send pocky. Yeah, but keep me on these painkillers, they rock!

I’m outta here, I’ve got a scythe and I’m off to do some loan sharking and warn people against the perils of jaywalking.

Two manga reviews: one a mirror and one a friend to me

Bye Bye to Halloween, though there is still Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night left on the 4th.

I used up too much energy lately which has reduced me, constant shaking and yesterday carried to bed. It just is one of those things.It is frustrating to lose time, to lose energy to an invisible condition which seems to have no rules that bind it. But that is just how it is.

I have read some manga lately like Cross Game, which comes in a huge 540+ page starting volume 1, with the second volume to come out the start of January at 300+ pages. The author Mitsuru Adachi is famous for making manga interesting to both males and females, and multi-layered plots. In Cross Game, Adachi’s sports romance holds more than a sports story but about growing up, melancholy, lost love, and what is being true to love of sport.It also examines the way coaches can abuse the power they have over the young players they have entrusted to them. When one coach who cares about his winning career burns out two baseball pitches, one a girl borrowed from the girls team just in order to give his star player enough practice, it is all too recognizable.

The boy Ko, whose father has a sporting good shop lives near a family of four girls who run a batting cage entertainment facility. He hits balls there every day since the age of three as he and Wakaba, the second oldest daughter hang together. He sells the kids on creating a baseball team to increase sales for his father but doesn’t play. And Aoba, this third oldest daughter and his age doesn’t like him, envies the time and attention her sister gives him. And she has vowed she will never marry anyone unless they throw a 100 mph pitch (she is in 6th grade!).

Through an accident, Wakaba, the most popular and beautiful girl in the neighborhood can’t play with Ko anymore. And over years, the male enemies of Ko become friends of him, united by the memories of Wakaba loving the game. Ko will play with them but never on the official team. While Aoba seems to need to prove something, driving herself farther and farther into pitching as she is the pitcher of the boys junior high team.

When high school starts, two coaches and two teams occur as the principal recruits players and a coach to win and go the championship, and all others are shunted to a small half field as the ‘Farm Team’ – where any player who is injured or deemed unfit is sent. The coach of the varsity and the farm team have very different philosophies. Ko has been practicing pitching with the neighborhood lads and when the coach pulls Aoba from her team and uses her as fodder for his varsity hitters until she collapses, it sets something off in Ko (though they both protest how much Aoba and Ko dislike each other – protest too much). Can these two families, united in baseball do anything to drive out this new coach?

This manga is good value but also asks questions about choices, because results, intended or otherwise occur. Has Ko been preparing to stand up for Wakaba and Aoba, or just playing baseball? And if he does step up will it matter?

This manga has been not just a good read but a mirror to me, to reflect some questions I have faced recently both awake and asleep,the questions which ask, “What if you could have done this differently or that?” My dreams are often nightmares, or people from my past, family or friends acting as they do and did and I realize how different I am, how different this disease has made me as I drag myself with my arms in my dreams down the steps of the school while a teach orders me to ‘hurry’ as if as hard as I struggle, dragging myself, I have already failed to meet some class, test, course, event, expectation I don't even remember.

Winter is here and already several people have died, positions in various facilities are opening up. This is death’s hunting ground and I told Linda I can’t die in winter. And I won’t die in summer, because ‘I’m not suffering the pain of surviving all those heat days just to die on one of them.”

She laughed and said, “So, that leaves about two weeks in the spring.”

Me: No, I’m going to Sakura-con.

When people die, when people I know die the question comes again, “What if this had never happened to me?” And I realize, as bad as it has been for Linda, myself and others, I would have taken the ticket anyway. Of course, I never would have known what it meant, but that is part of the education and reason I would have chosen this if I had a choice. I went to university to learn things that were new, were unknown to me and to try and put them in ways that were useful to others. And to me, whether or not I could have done a better job, I did just that, made a job of trying to create a compact yet accessible text about a complicated and socially avoided topic. I tried to narrate original experiences, and some might have been TOO close, where I could not look objectively at what was occurring, but then, when you live in the pit, you tend not to write about the mountain tops.

Whatever happens, I still have choices to make, and I want to blog at least 15 times this month. But I want be at peace with where I am, that no, I haven’t had a great experience of the medical community, but then, that is not unique, but as I learned, common. It is what I have learned that is important, and what Linda has learned, who wants to do a masters in some aspect of disability and business or rights. Because once the eyes are opened you can either go back to eating flowers and calling them cake or realize that something is seriously wrong, and let the knowledge change you.

I read the romance Seven Days: Monday-Thursday (book 2 of Friday to Sunday to come). It has a boy, Seryou, who was hurt in love by a woman named Shino and so every Monday whom ever asks him first he ‘dates’ for a week before saying that ‘what he hoped wasn’t there’ – he is searching for the feeling of love.
Meanwhile Shino (a male in the grade above) who is also in the archery club has great looks but an unusual temperament, saying what he thinks but also full of fantasy and imagination. So girls want to date him based on looks and then dump him as he doesn’t live up to what they dream. Shino orders pizza and waits for it to arrive at lunch, when Seryou is dropped off late to school this Monday. Shino asks if the rumor of him dating the first person to ask is true. And Seryou says it is. They talk about how others project onto them all sorts of expectations and if love or even a relationship can occur with all of that? Then Shino asks, “So would you go out with me?” But before Seryou can answer the pizza comes. When school ends Seryou is waiting for Shino, with an umbrella, asking to walk him home. Shino reminds him that they should both be at archery practice. And it goes on, with Shino never quite sure if Seryou is joking or if they really are dating. And how far is Seryou going to take this joke (he asks a girl who went out for a week and finds out that Seryou never likes touching or allows kissing, a whew). Except that when asked who the girlfriend of the week is, Shino says, “I am” to a “Ewww” and “What a waste!” from the girls. And Seryou pays for the food and drink, and they find they get on well. Shino, by Wednesday wants to know what happens after being dumped because it would be a shame if they couldn’t be friends. A delicate story of romance where each participant thinks the other is joking…maybe, and thus pushes things further, the way that happens when it isn’t ‘serious’, right until it becomes serious. Though in the new small size from DMP, I recommend this non-explicit light romance, where boys act like lonely guys who are perhaps a bit too sensitive, too many walls but wanting to be cared about. The author takes 200 pages to develop just the first half of the week and the time spent with each other at lunch, at archery, and after school.

For me, the book says that it is better to take risks, even risks that maybe society or some people don’t like, than close the self off to feeling at all. Being open to hurt means that hurt will occur, but so can hope, and joy. Sometime recently someone said to me, “Look a rainbow” and there was one. I had not chased everyone away who could reach my heart. Blogging, comments, being public in what happens to me has a lot of painful experiences with it, still lots of negative comments, and the blogs about the most sensitive or painful subjects always get a ‘funny’ click right away. Someone watching me struggle to write about pain or dementia and marking it as funny is like an invisible arrow hitting the chest. But then, without risk, there would be uplift; if I shut myself off due to emotional hurt, believing that people can only be cruel then I miss the times where they surpass their own expectations into magnificence.

I am lonely because the more I try, the more mistakes I make, the more I seem to live a life solitary in experience. But Seryou risked a relationship every week, trying as hard as possible, to see if there could be more. That is what I get from manga, that collection of friends and experiences, fictional or otherwise to imbue me with the courage to keep trying.

I don’t know what is ahead. I expect that the future will hold emotional and physical loss and sorrow. But I got a package of a little trick or treat bag, as someone thought about me, and knew that I wouldn’t be able to go out – but also somehow knew that I would want to. I got a package that showed me pictures and a letter, of a place and a time unimagined, and jam from places far away.So while I expect that this will be a stormy time ahead, that there will be parts and pockets of joy.

Pain is thy name: Kick-Ass, EFM as Superhero, & the sixth painkiller (and surprise good news)

News of the Year: I have a possible GP.So far he has passed five of the six tests already. He was recommended by the Hospice and Palliative Society for me, and while he is NOT taking patients, that recommendation got an initial meet and greet. I didn’t want to blog about it because the number of GP’s who have turned me down have been around 30, and another 10 or so specialist, so while I was nervous enough not to sleep, I wasn’t going to announce it as good news. Except:

1) Met with me, and didn’t immediately say that this was too complex, too thick a file. He did say he did mostly cancer patients and had not had experience with my condition….but he would take me.

Actually seems to listen to me and believe what I say, instead of immediately putting me in the ‘hysterical female’ grouping (come closer, I can be a LOT more hysterical!)
2) He met with me a second time, for 45 minutes and gets that doing a meeting like that puts me out for a day, also after disclosure of orientation (Him: 'so, who do you have sex with? Me: Her! (as often as possible, honest!) Him: So, not a lot of need for a pap smears for HPV then) and that dread initial diagnosis of ‘conversion disorder’ he didn’t drop me due to ‘religious belief’ or ‘not a good fit’ Oh, no, I am starting to feel...what is this feeling again? I think it is called, Hope.
3) Linda described to him about the pain of this week including moaning in sleep and he PRESCRIPED A PAINKILLER! Wha? Prescribe something for a problem? Does this doctor know how to be a GP in Victoria?

Seriously, he specifically prescribed a Fentanyl patch (lowest dose) which has the advantages of: releases for 3 days, can be applied even if I am in too much pain/autonomic failure to swallow or understand what is going on around me. He said “If you don’t notice any effect, we will increase the dosage”: after so, so many doctors have refused to help with pain due to having to use the ‘triplicate’ form, which means one goes to government. So, after going to the US hospital, their evaluation was ‘pain control was the number one priority’, and that was over two years ago. And now, I am PAST the huge 'three page form' wall and moving toward real pain control.

Fentanyl is 100 times more powerful a painkiller than morphine. Before you freak, that is dependant on the person, like for me, it might only be 95 times more powerful than morphine. Yeah, that was the joke.

But, Fentanyl was recommended to me because it has the patch AND can be prescribed in very small dosages, then raised as needed. I am now taking six different pain killers daily (good thing I have those six fingers on one hand, to count them!), and this Fentanyl is the third opiate/synthetic opiate. But if it actually makes the pain go away, that will so improve my quality of life. And with the better quality of life, I will be able to smile and joke (when you are clenching your jaw in pain, the funny goes away), my loving and caring spirit will emerge again to woo children and wildlife with its pure innocence.Or something like that.

So the doctor has seen me twice and is already working to improve my quality of life. Crazy! Is this doctor REALLY living in Victoria?

4) Plus he is talking about calling the Neurologist and seeing what type of mediciations, like IVIG or others which he can administer to stabilize my condition (I know, after over 100 tests from over a dozen doctors and none working to do that at all, I am in shock). It took over a year of constant trying to get synthroid and now, we have Fentanyl.

5) My concern is that some specialist have not told the truth in their letters (in person they say, ‘There is no treatment to offer you’, while the letter says, ‘Client was offered treatment and declined’ – odd that even specialists can do revisionist history if actions makes THEM look bad). I am worried that combined with what they might say on the phone will make it so the next time I see him there is the ‘I don’t think I am the best doctor for your needs’ (regardless that the neurologists haven’t seen me in over 2 years and as I said to him, “It is REALLY hard to be B-12, and Vitamin D deficient by ‘conversion disorder’)

He uses the UN standard, NOT the ‘minimum Canadian standard’ – Canada has, due to socialized medicine, some of the lowest ‘minimum standards’ in the world.
For example, when the UN goes to Sub-Saharan African countries they use a standard of Red Blood Cell count to declare someone ‘anemic’ and treat them. While the same person, in Canada, they are not low enough to be considered anemic,. Plus, even if they are the bottom or below a 'health standard' like being anemic, as Cool Aide demonstrated, many homeless people show up as anemic but are not treated at all.

B-12, which I have been low in, has never really concerned doctors, I have never been ordered to supplement OR get a shot immediately until NOW. In Japan, the lowest amount of acceptable B-12 (which causes nerve damage, sleep problems, and nerve pain), has been raised from 200 /pg/ml to 550 pg ml in 1988 while in the US 350 pg/ml is the ‘lowest acceptable’ level as even those at 500 pg/ml have been found to be ‘deficient’. Long term deficiency results in permanent destruction of the nerve stem in the spinal column. In Canada, you are not deficient until you are under 150 pg/ml. My father was at 39 pg/ml before he was treated, and I was in the low 80’s. I have been frequently been at 139-155 without recommendation for treatment (like over a year in that range with doctors not concerned in Victoria).

My doctor said that I was to take B-12 either sublingually daily (maybe more than once a day) or shots until I am at a MINIMUM of 250 pg/ml. Also, he said Vitamin D involves nerve pain and use and I am deficient in that and increased the prescription subliment by 50-100%. I am totally stunned.

I think this is called, ‘proactive doctoring’ but I’m not sure as I've not seen it in this city.

6) The GP said he liked me and that I was a ‘character’ or had ‘character’ or ‘would make him lose hair’, I one or more of those three.Plus he does HOUSE CALLS and understands that Linda will need to come in for me if I am too ill. Wow. Wow.

I dragged myself up to boxing yesterday and did my exercise, I was too sick to go the week before so I did a double effort to sweat: my sit-ups, push ups, and then worked the whole time on the heavy bag, doing speed jabs,
speed hooks and then combinations, where you use speed and accuracy. I did 4 punch combos, 5 punch combos (15 then a two second break, then back again, then two seconds off, then 15 more, for three minutes), four of my eight punch combos, then two of the 11 or 12 punch combos, doing each three times, and finishing with a 16 punch combination.

I felt exhausted but was sweating and endorphins made me smile.
All is great until the endorphins run out sometime around 4:00 am, the pain hit! I had put on the patch at 11:00 pm, but it takes 12 hours to be absorbed and right now, it isn’t doing much. So some bed time for me and the plushies.If I survive the next day or two, I will be able to see out of both eyes again, I am sure.

Last night, I watched ‘Kick-Ass’, a film based on the comic by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven. There is an excellent documentary in the special features about creating and inking a comic showing these two. The film was picked up by Linda and had the highest IMDB rating I had seen. It was amazing! The idea is about a guy named Dave, 16, whose only talent seems to be his invisibility to girls, and his crush on Katie, the girl with the locker just down from him. As he goes to hang in his local comic store, Atomic Comics, he asks his two friends, “Why is it that no one is a superheo? I mean, why do people just do nothing?” So while buying online he adds a green spandex suit to his basket. Thankfully in New York, you can hang around in a green suit with two baton’s in a holder on your back and not have anyone notice you. He did ‘patrol’, he did a lot of posing in front of his mirror but nothing really happened. That is until the two guys who mugged him were stealing a car, and he stood up to them.

They totally whooped on Dave, then as he staggered away, he was hit by a car and ended up in hospital. In the ambulance he begged the EMT not to mention his costume (cut away) to anyone. He slowly recovers (his statement that now many of his bones have titanium rod and plate reinforcements was “Cool, just like Wolverine!”). Dave also has neuropathy damage and he can’t feel pain that much. Or as he puts it, “My super power is a greater tolerance for being beaten”
Once Dave makes it out of the hospital, the good news is that Katie now is totally talking to him, and wants to be friends. This sudden break through of ‘cool’ is dashed when his friends tells him, “Oh yeah, um, well everyone knows about how you were found naked after some guys had their way with you, so um, the whole school thinks you’re gay.” And Katie gushes, “I’ve always dreamt about having one of ‘you’ to talk to……not that I think all of ‘you’ are the same or anything.” A choice of hanging with Katie as her new gay BFF or telling her the truth has him soon getting loans of Queer as Folk and doing ‘sleepover pedicures’.

Meanwhile, looking for a lost kitten, he falls on some guys after another guy. And decides to defend the guy beaten on the ground against these three full adults. He yells at a kid his age to call 911. The Kid runs to find the largest group his age and shouts about a fight instead, and everyone goes to video it. His ‘stand’ ends up on Youtube and goes viral. Suddenly, ‘Kick-Ass’ (his name for his superhero) is a real deal superhero.

Enter Nicolas Cage as a rather psychotic father, and his even more psychotic daughter Mindy (maybe the whole, ‘never going to school and only training to kill people’ doesn’t help). We meet them as Nicholas Cage is teaching 11 year old Mindy how to ‘take a bullet’ by shooting her. It was pretty much love at first sight for me. They are ‘Big Daddy’ and “Hit Girl” (she has purple hair and an outfit to match including a plaid school skirt and purple coloured knife holder).
She is also a totally lethal machine, who flips, shoots, knifes, and garrotes bad guys. “Kick Ass” scrambling away in green is like Amateur Hour on the Gong Show compared to her. Though sometimes, particularly with Hit Girl, they remind you that she IS 10 or so (he is only 16),reminded to you when a bad guy actually hits her and knocks her almost out, being all of 58 lbs and all.
You will have to rent or see the film for the rest.

The author, Mark, a Scot from a small coastal town had at 15 with his friend listed ‘Be a super-hero’ as a career choice and done weights and ‘patrolled’ his town. As he said, “It was a small village, and if we were LUCKY there were TWO town drunks!” But his comic, based on a lot of his experiences and fantasies, hit a cord and went right away to number one, selling out three printings. One of his instructions, besides the plotting was for his artist to have NO BLACK.

In Comics, from 1930’s onward everything was in white, with characters drawn on. However, in the late 1980s’ Frank Miller revolutionized ‘Graphic Novels’ by reversing it and having a dark black background in Dark Knight with everything drawn on THAT. Soon every one would follow. Now, Mark Millar wanted to do an entire comic with NO BLACK. What that did was a) make his comic look very different to other comics and b) make his other colours stand out. Even his publisher didn’t notice what it was as they told him after three issues, “Your colours are amazing, and your comic looks so DIFFERENT.”

Mark Millar metions in passing that he had ‘worked with Steve on a Wolverine type story.’ That got me into late night research as what story could it be? It turned out to be this year’s eight Eisner award nominations Old Man Logan, which I had on my wishlist until I found one on sale on ebay. Now the book, just released, “Kick-Ass” is on the top of my wish list! So, this is good year for Mark, a movie BEFORE the comic release run was finished AND Eisner Nominations for his last project.

So, go, go the red haze of pain: and if the ability to absorb pain can be a ‘power’ for a superhero, that seems like I totally up for the job then doesn’t it? Go EFM and her flying wheelchair of justice!

Other surprise good news that I won a review writing competition, and won two signed yaoi manga and a package. Woot! See, it totally pays off, spend all money on manga, and eventually get some free! Yeah, total sense - happy yaoi Halloween!
Also, I am having another/final ebay sale for the next two weeks of rare and out of print manga, or complete manga runs, including new ones. This is to a) raise some money for medicine/pain killers and b) put some savings away so I can raise money so that Linda and I can both go to Sakura-Con if I am here in the Spring. I recommend, Jyo-oh-Sei, which took 10 years to write, each book is 400+ pages and was so popular they made an anime (also a hit) out of it. It has two twins who are, without warning sent from the elite satellite station to the ‘Beast Planet’ – an unofficial planet where people are sent to die, since the death penalty is illegal. Only, people have lived, in this the EXTREME world where plants at the top of the species, and now these two brothers have to learn to as well, or die. Goong 1-9 is about, ‘What if Korean still had a monarchy’ and the story is loosely based on the UK (if Charles and Diana were teens), a girl is wed into this family, not fitting in, a marriage of political arrangement – modern but using historical Korean terms and monarchy tradition. While Les Bijoux is a great gender bender of a two spirited son, who has vowed revenge on the ruler who killed his parents. As a male, he works toward that end, however the ruler keeps seeing them when they are a woman, and falls helpless in love, and she is starting to feel something back. What to do when the other half of yourself is trying to plot revenge against your lover? Tough one! Another 50+ listing to go.

There is also a new post over at the postcard project, please check it out (comments here and there ALWAYS appreciated) – thanks for all the comments on my last post, it really made me feel better about opening up on my conditions that are most likely to exclude me futher from people.

How to love 1,000 people? How to live palliatively.

I am supposed to say “I hope you had a nice long weekend” because it is polite. The truth is I REALLY hope and hoped that you had the best weekend you can remember.

I am not sure who reads this blog but this weekend Linda, Cheryl and I, did postcards and for all of Monday, I sat and wrote postcards, and I had matched postcards, for hours. Since I don’t have a memory longer than 40 hours or so, all I need to do is look at about 500 postcards then try to find the right postcard for the person. We did 80 post cards. I wish it was more. I have about 36 pages of 30 postal stickers, all with a name and an address: Yes, that is over 1,000 names.

1,000.

I wrote those postcards the way someone living in solitary writes: dreaming of you, your life, imagining what is, what could be, and hoping that your life has a small edge left for me, if even to observe. They are sent now. No picture of the postcards lest it spoil the surprise.

I live in a beige room. I sit in the same wheelchair spot.

Today I saw photos of me having a drink: last Thursday or Friday. But I hadn’t remembered going out. I don’t remember. I have no memory of it at all. I just remember sitting in this room. Do you understand what that means? No matter how often I go out, I’m always here. The same wheelchair spot.

I hold back writing in the blog so much: because it isn’t all my story or is just something I don’t want to burden you with. So, a lot of what happens I don’t write, sometimes because I am simply too sick. I am sick a lot now, I have degenerated conditions that have no solution, no medicine, no machine, just sick and if I get sicker, go to hospital for morphine or get better until tomorrow. I don’t write and publicly thank the individuals who sends me things off the gift list. I want to. I don’t do that because I don’t want to hurt the people who are having hard times, or no income or who just made a different choice. But please don’t think it didn’t and doesn’t make a difference.

I was up until late last night, but I couldn’t sleep but a few hours. My brain tumbled on the fast spin cycle through real and horrific knowledge, things I am helpless in regards to, and some things I don’t want to know but know anyway. And in the midst of that, midday, I read the manga Dengkei Daisy 1, and Crown of Love 3. And even though I was having a hard time of it physically, I got that warm feeling from a good read, a REALLY good read: that post orgasm type of mental peace. Those minutes I felt those flickers was the best feeling I have in my memory. If you want to know what difference your gift made, it made the one good warm feeling I had, and the one I will have to hold onto for the night and day to come.
I think that is what they refer to in palliative stage as ‘taking the good moments when they come’.

So if you have a relative or friend who is sick, or recovering, or homebound, or has had an accident and a voice inside whispers to call, visit, or tells you to send them something, or buy them something off their wish list… listen to that voice inside. No one else is going to do it. And find me the person that doesn’t regret NOT reaching out, because they were afraid; worried; trained to be polite and not bother a person; other reason here, and I will show you a sociopath, or someone who I hope will learn what children know. When you care about someone else, that feeling flows over and MUST be expressed, and so you draw a picture or write, or get a gift.

Desmond Morris, who wrote The Human Animal, says we are hard-wired so that we can’t care about more than the size of a small village, about 200 people. I say Desmond Morris has a theory, and it is flawed.

I know over 1,000 people. I know what you like, what you don’t, if you are funny, if you are shy, if you are gregarious and I care, and I’m working on loving the lot of you, if you will allow me by letting me in.

If you want to know what difference an Amazon Gift certificate makes to me, or to so many others, it is this: choice. I don’t have a choice how much oxygen is in my blood, and I am usually a little purple/blue this time of night, my feet are black. I don’t have a choice if my heart has lots of erratics or even stops beating for seconds at a time (that one is like a Bear sitting on you to fart! Even when it finishes, it still HURTS). I don’t have a choice how much hurts, or how bad, or if one leg is gigantic, or if I have progressed on Congestive Heart Failure, or taking a breath is like swimming toward the light, every six to 10 seconds. I can’t control when my blood pressure spikes or drops or my heart barely pushes blood, or the seizures, the malfunctions of the kidney, liver, lungs, the bleeds into the brain, the breakdown of skin though I sure try. But I can go through the great catalogue that is Amazon, and see if there is a romance for Linda, or a volume of a missing shojo manga we all like, or some PJ’s, or a nightlight, or something to make Linda smile, which makes me smile, or vice versa.

That’s what I think about when I write postcards, and cards and when I order stuff and send stuff out and every time I receive a gift certificate, or a wish list item, or a card, or letter, or gift.

Are you lonely?
I am. Aren’t you?

'Gramps the Squirrel', manga sale plus cool charities for adults and non-dying chronic children.

Thanks to Linda drop-kicking my butt out of the house today I got to see some squirrels. Most of them were skittish but there was one older squirrel I called Gramps who not only ate as slow as a peanut could be eaten but crawled up and sat on my lap. And sat, and ate, and left crumbs, and ate and then after I petted the squirrel for a bit and he had some more peanuts. He left. I don’t know what his issue was but I have never seen a squirrel try to ‘gum down’ a peanut.
Also, I am not sure how bad the inbreeding has gotten as many of the squirrels are not that bright, but they are greedy, as this squirrel tries to carry 1/3 his body size in peanuts away.
I wanted to blog for a few days to tell you that I am having my ‘need to get money for emergency meds’ ebay sale, which is a lot of the sets I have talked about. It all sells on Sat/Sun. There are about 70 sets, which I hope will help out. A heat wave made it so I could not do much but help with the listings, but I have been going round the livejournals advertising. I would recommend Vampire Dairy, as it is complete, has the best condition I have seen and is 15 volumes of total fun. There is everything from under 13 year old reading ‘Miracle Girls’ to the 2010 Eisner Award Nominations of Distant Neighborhood and Pluto (the master retelling of Astro Boy). Brand new completed sets include Kimi Kiss 1-5 and recommendations include the cute Pearl Pink, the supernatural investigative reporter in Loan, and The Missing Girl (a mountaineer goes to Tokyo to find the daughter of the man who died climbing Everest, and takes his mountain skills into the Tokyo seedy underground), the amazing series Click (a love triangle of three in love with one person but one hetero, one lesbian, one gay – read it to find out – writer of Boy Princess – yes, gender bending may occur). Rare Yaoi, Tenshi ja Nai, and well about 50 more. I recommend clicking HERE to see them and the starting bid (About $3 a volume or so). For further pictures and descriptions please go HERE to the my livejournal account description with pictures. I do recommend the unknown country which is a princess from a small country where she makes and sells baked goods to visitors (imagine a country the size of disneyland) engaged to a giant rich kingdom – can true love overcome the vast differences in status? The first book is already out of print. As is the Name of the Flower I wrote about earlier. Odd how most everything I review ends up going cult and super-expensive (I either have great taste, or odd and kinky taste the same as people who have lots of money). Take a look, I can try to recommend some manga you, your partner or family would like. This one is likely the last ‘big’ sale – as bye-bye to all my favorites.

I had a couple grand mals today, and am hammered but I have tried for 3 days to put up this blog. I continue to try. Also, I have been reading 501 charity reports, which make for dry reading. I would like to recommend two charities above others for those involved in disability and illness.

Everyone knows about the ‘Wish Foundation’ who has ‘made over 197,000’ kids dreams come true. What most people do NOT know about the ‘Make a Wish Foundation’ is of the just under $35 million in expenses, how much was spent on ‘wishes’ - $232,694 out of $35 million. Of the various organizations who rate charities, like ‘Best Independent Charity’ or ‘Charity Navigator’, Make a wish does not get 5 stars or 4 stars. Charity Navigator has a rating out of 70 at the top (and of the top 10 charities, six are food banks!), and Dream Factory rates about 67 and Dream Foundation rates at 64-65. ‘Make a Wish’ is about 50.

Why Does it matter?

Okay, here is a really quick guide to WAY too much reading. In none profit charities, particularly those for disabilities/illness, the important ratings are ‘how many people are being employed’, ‘how much of the money is going to the program’, ‘how big are the salaries’ and ‘what is the privacy agreement.’

So ‘Doctor’s without Borders’ takes in about $149 million of which all but a million are spent on programs, no one is employed and the director takes a minimal salary. That is a GOOD charity. On the opposite there is ‘Handicapped Village’ (I shit you not) who recently changed their name to ‘Village Northwest Unlimited’. The BBB (who gets the tax info on charities) notes that ‘Village’ employs 360 people PLUS a CEO who makes $122K+ (that is actually low for charity CEO’s). The problem is that this ‘village’ in Iowa boasts that in the last 35 years it has helped a grand total of….180 people with disabilities (varying). 360 people employed annually for helping 180 people over 35 years….that is one not so great charity.

Now, just going to a single cancer site will get you 31 sites for charities that supply ‘wishes’ for children who are dying or have a life threatening illness. There is only ONE charity that grants ‘wishes’ to children, who are NOT dying, who have chronic/terminal/degenerative or other illnesses. And that is Dream Factory. It is the second largest wish granting organization in the US, but gets 1/20th the income that ‘Make a Wish Foundation’ Does: Dream Factory gets $2,435,275 of which $2,266,825 goes into the program.

What are the differences?

First, Make a Wish Foundation USA has over 65 chapters, all having a paid manager (then there are the ‘Make a wish’ Overseas organizations. So paid staff is 94. And the Chief Executive, David Williams Makes 336,000+ a year. Amount into wishes: $232,000 – BBB report.

Dream Foundation has 1 branch, it has 4 employees, and Anne Bunger the CEO makes $72,000. BBB report In fact they overspent by $200,000+ last year and dipped into their savings.

Privacy: “Make a wish”, clearly tells you (and you can find out in detail on Charity Naviagtor), that they use your private information to trade, ‘rent’ (aka sell to other charitable organizations) for fundraising. So your name and information on a list is part of your donation, because that data will be sent, traded (10,000 contributors from them for 10,000 contributors from another charity), and sold to fundraise for ‘Make a Wish’. ‘Dream Factory’ on the other hand: “The Dream Factory will not sell, rent, or lease your personal information to other organizations. We assure you that the identity of all our donors will be kept confidential.” – they just don’t do that.

So, if you want to help kids who are ill get a wish, kids who have chronic conditions, then I recommend Dream Factory.

Due to visiting Gramps and the squirrels today, some of the ODD charities from previous research came to mind. Which is that in 1999, due to pressure, Make a Wish Foundation no longer funded hunting for children (nor would it buy them guns, those darn unchristian, anti-constitution charities!). This immediately created two foundations, Hunt of a Lifetime, which provides a hunt for children with less than year to live and the odd Christian charity, Catch a Dream which does the same bringing dying children, guns, and headshots together in the Master Weaver's plan of the Lord's Beauty (if you think I am being sarcastic, I am quoting the website). If you go to Catch a Dream, I recommend taking some sort of mind altering substance first because it sounds like fishing, right? Wrong. In fact, if you go to ‘What we are about’ page you get a nifty song played for you about the joys of tweens killing: “ever see a white tail (deer) running in the wild../Lord, it make you grin,…/‘ever seen a child’s smile/(when it) takes a white tail in the wild’/Ever seen its (the child’s) eye have that gleam?’..

Plus the motto: “....these children need to know that hope does, indeed, exist.”

They have provided hunting for children in over 40 states with their hunting sponsored ‘teams’, from moose, wild turkey and I guess you could apply for bear, or now even wild wolves. Beyond that, the co-sponsor, Durey, offers ‘best kills’ videos of each ‘season’ from the ‘Catch a Dream’ requests being fulfilled. It just got a little too odd for me. I mean, regardless of how one feels about the death penalty, should there be a charity to help dying children push the switch to execute criminals, then? Or maybe, there just is stuff that dying children shouldn’t be doing since, if you come from a hunting family, and you want to emulate your Dad or Mom, they will have guns and no one will stop you getting a license and hunting with them. I guess I can’t see the need to commercialize it into a TV season and DVD sets much less pay to ENSURE the kill (that isn’t hunting then is it?).

Let’s get away from that to the first, the largest and one of the VERY few organizations to ‘fulfill dreams’ for ADULTS who are terminally ill (including hospice admittance): Dream Foundation. Because dying sucks at any age, and if you are 19 or 23, or 30 or 50 you might have wishes too. ‘Because adults have dreams too.’ Serving all 50 states out of one office, founded in 1994, while Make a Wish is almost at 200,000 the Dream Foundation is trying to reach 10,000 fulfilled dreams. The Dream Foundation works with 19 year olds to 70+ year olds, they realize that at the end of a long term illness, medical costs make it very difficult for even relatives to come and visit at the end, or children to go out with a sick parent. “Dream Foundation operates on a small cash budget and relies heavily on non-cash contributions. 75% of dreams granted benefit in some way from in-kind, non-cash donations, including frequent flier miles, hotel rooms, restaurant meals, etc.”

The most common ‘dream’ is to see someone. To not be alone. And so under ‘ways to help’ donating airline miles and other point schemes make a difference, along with non-running vehicles (which you can then tax deduct!). I know the difference because someone donated a bunch of loyalty points to Linda from a pharmacy, and with those she was able to get almost two months worth of the over the counter medicines I have to take. It made a really big difference for us. I was the recipient of a hotel room in the same way. Without it, a trip wouldn’t have happened. I don’t know how to repay that quality of life improvement than to be grateful and try to pass it on.

I just thought that you would like to know about two charity programs where you could make a difference and not have it cost you anything at all. Like we say in macabre humor, if only ambulances had frequent flier miles.

Oh, and last weekend, 36 postcards, I am slowly making my way though the list, as fast as I can, okay.