Free whoops for all! 

So cultural appropriation is only damaging when white Americans are appropriating someone elses culture. Got ya.

Truth is its not real. When I eat tacos it's purely for the shallow reason that they taste fucking delicious.

No, it's just another way for people to say the white man likes to steal everything.

this short is only loosely related to this topic (as is my style, for better or worse), but I once created a comic at home when I was in first grade.

It was called Meteor Man. The quick, plot-less origin was a businessman walking down the street with his briefcase in a metro area (the briefcase made him more 'businessy'), when suddenly, for no real reason, a meteor suddenly floats down and strikes him. In retrospect, it was rather small. About twice the size of Mr. Business (I never named the guy's real name other than the alias of Meteor Man). I drew the entire ten or so page comic on pink paper that was half the size of your typical sheet of paper. I stapled it. He fought a clowny, wild green-haired bastard that I named Oregon for some reason. He looked nothing like The Joker... he was just a crazy asshole that had Twiztid-like green hair and a maniacal expression. Their beef was that Oregon threw Meteor Man off a building before Meteor Man knew how much shit he could fuck up with his newfound Meteorlogical powers...... building-tossing was my thing, because that's how MM got revenge on Oregon: threw his crazy limey ass off a building. Eye for an eye, I dunno. I was a strange kid.

Anyway... about two years later, this happened : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meteor_Man_(film)

They made a Meteor Man movie. The origin plot was very similar: Man gets struck by a meteorite walking down the street and gains powers.

My group of friends in first grade used to enjoy reading my stories. Everything from "Super Brett & His Friends" (these included Metal Edward, Bat Sonny and Super Jerome, respectively) to "Dead Eggs" (anthropomorphic, undead shelled eggs with arms and legs that like to stab kids through the floor of their upstairs bedrooms)... moving right along... ahem.... so once my friends were alerted to the existence of the new "Meteor Man" film, they flipped out in my defense. 

One friend, a red-haired country-boy not unlike Gummo, began the conspiracy on a racist note.

"They stole your idea!" He crowed. "And they changed 'em to niggers! Niggers, man!! What's next?!"

The conspiracy was traced by my friends back to me recycling the pink comic in the recycling bins (remember the early 90's? Recycling, rain forests, flannel shirts and pandas?) They yelled at me for ever throwing out my work of art, especially into the foreign void of the new recycling receptacles. The goods were shipped, intact, to someplace where some soul discovered the genius idea of Meteor Man, and re-tooled it. He gave it to The Industry, and in the vein of "Freddy Got Fingered", thought it was great and gave the guy a million bucks. Of course, the Evil Libtards gave it a hip, culturally relevant African-American twist, as they do. Bastards.

Anyway... although the whole "stealing my comic" thing most definitely isn't what really happened....

.... what if it was??

, Old Mr. Dangerous.

scruffy said
in seventh grade, my boy and me published a semi-daily comic strip.  probably got up to about, maybe a couple dozen of em before the school librarian caught on to us using the copier. 

it was pretty much the same shit as itchy and scratchy, only instead of cat and dog, it was bird and snake.  cant remember the title, it was named after the bird.  cant remember any other characters names, either [other than ourselves, when we made cameos]. 

all i really remember about it, is that the bird was always blasting everybody in the face with a slingshot. 

 

the co-creator, incidentally, was black.  still is, as of last i heard from him. 

and neither of us ever accused the other of cultural appropriation.   

my red-haired, Gummo-like friend would disagree.

"The niggers, man! AGAIN!! Jiminy Jillickers!"

.... also, there was a Simpsons comic many years back, where at the end, you had a black and white picture of Scratchy chasing Itchy, yet each had no drawn-in hands or forearms. Your job was to draw in their implements of destruction, and mail your creations in to Bongo Comics, for a contest. So I drew in them exchanging grenades and knives, Chinese stars, the works. Apparently, I or my mom mailed it in. I COMPLETELY forgot about it. This was in the 1st grade area again, apparently the peak of my creative undertakings.... the last days around 6th grade graduation, this black chick in my class who used to do some adolescent-style sexual undertakings with me, brought up a Simpsons comic to our teacher and myself. There were a few pages of small cels worth of contributions to the Itchy & Scratchy contest from yesteryear. It had the name of the kid who drew the arms and hands, and their location. She giggled and showed me mine. I literally was the only one who didn't color in the picture; straight black and white. Not very good artistry compared to the rest, but still, it was insane that she had that. My teacher told me she was proud of me for contributing to that contest. Weird shit. I'd like to see if I could find out which one that was and if it is possible to order a copy or three of that issue.

scruffy said
continuing on this fifteen-seconds-of-fame theme... 

this knockoff of wizard magazine called hero illustrated used a batman redesign i drew for some contest.  i didnt win, though.  one of my teachers kids came up to me at lunch with a copy, and had me autograph it.  weird shit, but true. 

 

on the there-was-this-contest-i-entered-once theme... 

i entered the 'how to draw comics the marvel way' contest [that mark bagley supposedly won]. 

i had no chance.  no fuckin chance.  pages were godawfully bad bad bad.  i still have copies, and boy do they suck. 

i dont think i have drawn other peoples characters, except by commission, since.   

before my brain forgets... my wife is a talented artist and photgrapher... Yelp! used her photo for "Best Hole in the Wall Restaurants in Colorado" or something similar... never asked her, but she's cool with it. It's for Elaine's Place in Fort Morgan, CO. 

This topic is jogging my brain in all kinds of repressed and forgotten realms. I like it.

scruffy said
'this topic', as in, the politics topic?  or the off-topic non-politics topic? 

if it is the latter to which you refer, i agree.   

the latter.

People should interrupt ANY and ALL political convos with this kind of reminissin' reflection.

Because in the end, politics don't make no sense. None of it does. 

I'm getting deeper than E, now.

scruffy said

Old Mr Dangerous said
People should interrupt ANY and ALL political convos with this kind of reminissin' reflection.

somebody in history said 
'remember when' is the lowest form of conversation. 

dunno who said that first, but its pretty quotable. 

nonetheless, still makes for better yack than the quasi-political gripefest. 

Because in the end, politics don't make no sense. None of it does. 

also quotable. 

and i will make sure to properly attribute, when i quote you.   

in my view, the lowest form of conversation is whenever any human being neglects from telling what they really feel at any moment before their inevitable demise. I'm gonna miss people, despite being an anti-social kind of guy. But I feel that any time we refrain from saying how we feel is a wasted opportunity. 

To exist is to freely swim in insanity. Let's all not drown.