Saturday Morning Cartoon: Shaun the Sheep in "Off the Baa!"

Shaun the Sheep in "Off the Baa!" (2007), directed by Christopher Sadler for Aardman Animations, Ltd.

Bully's Sketchbook: Benjamin Birdie

The scene: April's New York Comic Con, where Kevin Church, Benjamin Birdie, my pal John and the delightful Randi, and moi, a little stuffed bull, were all gathered to eat Indian food and talk shop. At some point in the proceedings my sketchbook was thrust into Birdie's talented hands, and over a plate of vindaloo here's what he sketched with a ballpoint:



Ben's the talented artist of The Rack, the comic strip about a comic store, and it's not the first time Mister B has drawn B the LSB: check out Lydia's t-shirt in this strip! I was as chuffed as cheese when I saw that, so I'm delighted to return the favor and wear my Miss Lydia shirt as shown above.

You also oughta check out Benjamin's brand-new blog, in which he discusses comics, television, artwork, Top Chef, and Grand Theft Auto IV. And hey, he's also reviewing comics for CBR; witness his right-thinking praise for Final Crisis here.

Me 'n' Ben Birdie: bestest pals!

Say the Wordle and you'll be free

The ever-delightful Lucy Anne made me a prezzie, and she didn't even have to step away from the keyboard to create it!:

Click on the images to see them full-size at the Wordle website

Welcome to Wordle: "a toy for generating 'word clouds' from text that you provide." Shown above is the text of my blog for the first half of the year, turned into a clever and colorful image of words. Who woulda guessed I mention the word "Wodehouse" so often? Speaking of Wodehouse, here's a cloud Lucy Anne created of the text to his book My Man Jeeves:


You can customize the color, orientation, and font of your word cloud. It's fun, easy, and very addictive. Here's a Wordle I made of the lyrics to the song "American Pie":


And for you Star Wars fanboys out there...and who isn't?...the text of the script for A New Hope:


You can also browse the Wordle creations of others. I was delighted by Poe's "The Raven", Romeo and Juliet, Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone", and the aptly monochromatic "The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash.

Wordle still needs a wee bit of debugging—when you're tweaking your image, it occasionally defaults back to the main screen before you finish, so make certain you save your text in a separate text document to avoid losing all your work.

C'mon, join in on the fun! Make your own and post 'em on your blog or in the comments! Me? I'm busy turnin' Monty Python sketches into Wordle pictures! Lemon curry?

Mission: Impossibullpen, The Prequel: Won't You Stan By Me

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby...imaginary? Well, larger than life, certainly, but as this response to an early letter to the Fantastic Four comic (printed in ish #4, to be precise), Lee and Kirby definitely existed...and weren't above poking fun at themselves from day one, cementing Marvel's reputation as hipper and more with-it than the Distinguished Competition. Stan's shameless and friendly hucksterism became a trademark of Mighty Marvel, but in this fan letter Jim Moony hits on a topic that shaped one aspect of the Marvel Universe...that, as we've been exploring over the past few posts at Comics Oughta Be Fun! (here, here, and here, to be precise), inside the Marvel Universe there is also another Marvel Comics, which creates and publishes the true adventures of our favorite superheroes. We've seen the Impossible Man, the X-Men, and Ultimate Spider-Man crash through the walls of their earth's Marvel office. But where did this ultra-meta concept begin?

As early...woudja believe it...as the second issue of the Marvel Age, Fantastic Four #2, which also introduced the shape-shifting alien Skrulls. Skrulls, in addition to being very easily hyp-mo-tized into turning into cows ("Moo!"), apparently have pretty bad vision, which means taking one to see Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D would be just wasted money, and that Reed Richards can fool them into believing that panels clipped from Marvel's pre-superhero monster issues of Tales to Astonish and Journey Into Mystery are actually photographs of Earth's mightiest warriors. There you have it: Marvel Comics existing in the newly-hatched Marvel Universe. Even more meta, the Marvel Monsters later became part of the Marvel Universe themselves, which means early Marvel Comics were printing comics about real life monsters. That Stan was one cool cat.


By Fantastic Four #4, the reintroduction of Timely Comics's superheroic Sub-Mariner into the Marvel Universe, Stan 'n' Jack are showing old that old Timely Golden Age comics exist in the Marvel Universe. Nice to know Bowery flophouses have great reading material lyin' around!:


And in the next ish (#5), modern Marvel Comics are shown to exist in the Marvel Universe when Johnny's spotted reading issue #1 of The Incredible Hulk:


Dig the lovely subtlety in Kirby's panel when Johnny mocks Ben by comparing him, not to a summer's day, but to Doc Bruce Banner, pelted by gamma rays. I love Johnny's peeking-over expression, and the Thing's big mitts wrapped around a tiny delicate teacup:


Weep, oh ye fanboys and collectors, when Johnny then doesn't bag and board his Hulk #1, but flames on...burning up $32,000 in the snap of his fingers. Johnny, no!


Marvel Comics were therefore well-established as existing inside the Marvel Universe fairly early on, but it wasn't until FF #10 that their creators actually appeared on the same stage as the stars of the magazine. Right up front on the cover, in fact, a Lilliputian Lee and a Junior Jack herald their arrival on Earth-616:


Welcome to the Marvel Universe offices of Lee and Kirby, where creativity reins! Um, well, maybe not. The brilliant and bombastic mind of King Jack is reduced to creating a lame supervillain with a droopy mustache. Geez, Stan, give Jack a break! The guy created Granny Goodness, for geez sake...oh wait, point taken.


The next panel: one of the greatest captions in the history of the Fantastic Four:


But, I call no way to these next panels, with Jack shrinking away from Doctor Doom. The Jack I know woulda tackled old Doomsie head-on, going at him gung-ho and all-guns-blazing, and then he probably would have been incinerated for his trouble. Hmmm, come to think of it, the world is better off for Jack Kirby not trying to tackle Doctor Doom.


Doom threatens Stan and Jack into betraying the Fantastic Four by destroying the one thing Jack loves more than life itself: the ability to smoke cigars. But more important, in these next panels the concept is first set up that the creators of the FF comic book regularly meet with the FF themselves to transcribe their adventures into comic book form, a process that is still going on today: Earth-616 Mark Millar probably meets with Ben Grimm every week down at the Ear Inn to shoot the breeze and take notes. Make sure you pick up the tab, Mister Millar!


History tends to forget that in his first published appearance, Stan Lee betrays the Fantastic Four to their most villainous archenemy:


is it any wonder, therefore, that a few years later in Fantastic Four Annual #3, Stan 'n' Jack are persona non grata at the wedding of Reed and Sue? Reed may be a good guy, but he don't forget being knifed in the back, Lee and Kirby!:



Years later, the same scene is enacted, minus the late great Jack, in the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer movie, but Stan still ain't gettin' in. Reed Richards: brilliant inventor, and man who holds a grudge a long time:


Years later, in his "Back to the Basics" run of Fantastic Four, John Byrne paid homage to the idea of the FF's comic book writer and artist getting involved in the FF's adventures when he meets the Watcher in issue #262...


...and taken off-world (well, what better place for John Byrne...but I kids the John Byrne) to take part in the Trial of Reed Richards:


There's plenty of other examples of the meta-references of Marvel Comics inside the Marvel Universe, of course, most notably the fifth-week event miniseries of "Marvels Comics" which allowed us to look at what those Earth-616 comics really look like. I'm sure there will be more in the future. Your mileage may vary, as the kids today seem to say on the internet, but for me, it's one of the things that makes the Marvel Universe a heckuva lotta fun: that even in a universe of aliens, monsters, heroes and gods, there's still plenty of room for a floppy four-color comic book adventure to take you away from it all.

Mission: Impossibullpen III: Bendis Like Beckham

So, I can hear y'all saying to me: Sure, Bully! Those comics you've been showin' us the past couple of posts sure are fun, but those sorta stories—about the Marvel Bullpen that exists in the Marvel Universe—well, you're not gonna see the likes of those in the twenty-first century. Gone are the days that kinda fun could be had between the pages of a comic book! Never will Joe Quesada and his motley crew of modern-day Marvelites appear as characters in a Marvel Earth-616 comic!

Um...you were saying that to me, weren't you?

Well, it's a darn good thing you were, because you're kinda right. Flip open your copy of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #9 (you do have one, don't you? Don't you?) and you'll find just what the bull ordered, with the small exception that the story's not set on Earth-616 but rather the Marvel Ultimate Earth, Earth-1610. If you wanna quibble, it doesn't even take place on sixteen-ten, because the not-then-published Ultimate Fantastic Four series would later render it non-canonical—the horror! The horror of being removed from canon! To which I say, in my best Nero Wolfe impression, pfui. In the words of a very, very smart man with a very, very, very bushy beard, it may be an imaginary story...but aren't they all?

As Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #9 opens (with a bang!), high school student Ultimate Peter Parker has arrived at the Ultimate Baxter Building for a school science mentoring program with Ultimate Reed Richards, but instead is mistaken as the Ultimate FF's new Ultimate Intern. Ultimately. Our kookie quartet immediately puts poor Petey to work heading down to Ultimate Starbucks to fetch Ultimate lattes for Ultimate The Thing...okay, I'll quit that now:

All panels are from Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #9 (December 2001), script by Brian Michael Bendis, art by Jim Mahfood, coloring by Transparency Digital, lettering by Sharpefont

(Note: Jaunty Jim Mahfood, who provided the beautiful and energetic artwork for this issue, tends to work in large spreads across the entire page or even two, so many of the panels here were too large to reproduce in my slender blog column at full size. No worries, or fearful one! Just click on any image that's a little too small to read and by the sorcery of HTML (Hogwarts Topographic Magic 'Lumination), the image will inflate to readable size! Cool, huh? Make sure you put them back when you're done with 'em, please.)

Poor Peter Parker, already pushed, pummeled, and other P-words by the FF, grumbles as he heads to get Ben Grimm's java fix, and accidentally causes a space-time portal to be opened in the Baxter Building...and I think you all know how painful that can be!

SKRULLS! Pete's unleashed hundreds of fierce and furious Skrull warriors on an unsuspecting sixteen-ten Manhattan. Man, I hate when that happens!

Are you clickin' on those images to blow 'em up to Ultimate-size? I sure hope you are, because one of my favorite elements of Jim Mahfood's artwork is its sheer franticness: everything and the kitchen sink is going on in his panels, and just like an issue of Top Ten or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, you're rewarded if you peer closely and take a look at each character, as Mahfood has squeezed in quite a lot of jokes and silliness in every Skrull-infested panel. Why, I do believe he's even put my Mama in there...did you spot her?:


Of course, just like any time the Skrull invade, there's gonna be civilian casualties. Let's just be glad it's this guy:


But what the Sam Scratch (you're asking me) does this have to do with the offices of Marvel Comics, Bully? And that's a very good question. Luckily, all we have to do is turn the page and check in on Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, who's about to find out the hard way what happens when Skrulls attack! (Answer: walls get knocked down.)

With Peter Parker in hot pursuit of the strange stampeding shape-shifters, it's only a matter of time before his be-spandexed alter-Ultimate-ego makes an appearance on the scene so that we can all sing "Look out! Here comes the Spider-Man!" Editor Ralph Macchio (this one, not this one) makes an appearance here, yakkin' on the phone to writer Brian Michael Bendis. Man, I haven't seen so many in-jokes and so much chaotic detail since Evan Dorkin's Bill & Ted's Excellent Comic Book, one of my favorite fun titles of yesteryear.

Luckily, because the chaos gets too outta hand, Reed Richards and company show up, to fire up an electronic device that sends the Skrulls back to the homeworld at the same time Reed scolds Bendis for being too clever-clever:


And as quickly as the comic started, it's all over but the exposition. Take it away, Reed:


But just like any good monster invasion adventure, there's always a twist at the end, as we peek in on the office of former Marvel CEO Bill Jemas:


Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! A month of wordless comics? Why, that would be the most Ultimate evil plan ever! Surely it could never happen...


But if it ever did, my lips are sealed.

Mission: Impossibullpen II: Shoot or Be Shooter

Let's hop into your friendly neighborhood [take yer pick] Wayback Machine / TARDIS / Delorean / Guardian of Forever, set the controls for January 1984, and make certain to stop by your local drugstore, 7-11 or comic book shop to pick up that month's Marvel Comics, because we shall never see the likes of them again. Books cover-dated January 1984 were published during Marvel's first and only Assistant Editor's Month, a mostly-line-wide stunt that suggested while the main Marvel editors were out of town at 1983's San Diego Comic-Con, the inmates were in charge of the asylum Marvel. Beware: it's Assistant Editors' Month declared most of the covers of that month's comics, many of which featured humorous, parody and outrageous stories that ranged from the Avengers appearing on Late Night with David Letterman, John Byrne appearing as an observer at the galactic trial of Reed Richards, Aunt May and Franklin Richards fighting Galactus, Snowbird fighting Kolomaq in a blinding snowstorm, a team of kid Avengers, and Bernie America facing off against the menace of MOSKULL.

One comic released during Assistant Editors' Month, although not stamped or branded as such, is Uncanny X-Men Annual #7, which pitted our jolly gene-twisted guys against the menace that is...can ya believe it: The Impossible Man! What, him again? But that trick never works! This time fer shure!

It's a lovely brilliant sunny day in Salem Center, and instead of being off sulking somewhere about their unintelligible history, the X-Men are out, as they often were, playing baseball. (Ah, those were the days.) Batting cleanup is the Kossack Kid, Peter Rasputin, who smacks the ol' horsehide so far it takes off into orbit. Or...does it?

All panels from Uncanny X-Men Annual #7 (1984), written by Chris Claremont, art by Michael Golden and Bret Blevins and a whole lotta inkers, coloring by Glynis Wein, lettering by Tom Orzechowski, Michael Higgins, and Rick Parker

You can say goodbye to a fun afternoon picnic at Xavier's School for Genetically Overactive Youngsters...just like he did with Peter Parker's wedding reception, Galactus is crashing the party!


Whoa, looks like eating that last planet has made Galactus a little green, huh? That's because (unknown for the moment to the X-Men), the artist formerly known as Galen is actually the green 'n' purple Impossible Man. Claremont forgets in this story and in a later New Mutants annual that Impy can actually change color, but no worries about that now. Masquerading as the Devourer of Worlds, Impy steals the X-Mansion, leaving behind nothing but the X-Men's basement and Wolverine's Thingmaker set.

Pursued around the globe by the X-Men, the Impossible Man is stealing some of the greatest and most unique treasure of the Marvel Universe: Nick Fury's eye-patch (ick, he really needs to wash behind that thing more), Zabu the sabretooth tiger, Dr. Strange's sigil window, the Hellfire Club's Black Queen outfit (va-va-voom!), the Fantasticar, and...as we see towards the end of the book, even a few trinkets from places very definitely not the Marvel Universe:


As it eventually turns out, there's no malice to the Impossible Man's heists: he's just "borrowing" each item for a galactic scavenger hunt. And what could be more of a prize than capturing the one, the only, Stan Lee? trouble is, as Impy finds, Marvel's offices are no longer where they were last time he (and we) saw 'em:


Which means that across town, at Marvel's new 1980s offices, Mark Gruenwald and Eliot R. Brown come face-to-face with Zabu the sabertooth and a purple-'n'-green miniature Ghost Rider:


Writer/editor Larry Hama and artist Michael Golden, relaxin' in the reddest room in the history of architecture, are visited by the impossible Man in his search for Stan before Colossus and Wolverine catch up with him. Check out the dig at Stan's hairpiece...ouch!


And if it's the eighties...who else do expect to guest-star during a visit to the Marvel Bullpen but eight-foot-three EIC Jim Shooter (accompanied by Marvel's then-VP Publishing Michael Hobson). Ah, those were the days...


Finally apprehending the Impossible Man in the middle of the Marvel offices, Wolverine thinks it's a good idea to let Impy take Stan (Obviously he foresaw the creation of Stripperella)...


...while Storm, even in her mid-eighties Mohawk punk look, is the empathic and considerate X-Man:


... Chris Claremont and Paul Smith try to duck the blame while Louise Simonson plays peacemaker...


...and as the X-Men take Impy away, Kitty Pryde, the Hermione Grainger of her time, apologizes on behalf of everybody for the chaos, the confusion, and very possibly, the entire story:


...leaving the 1980s Bullpen to clean up, contact the insurance company, and very probably write a comic book about the entire experience.



That ain't the end, of course. There's some typical mid-eighties Claremont obsession with Impy taking on the appearance of Tom Selleck (pictured) accompanied by Kitty Pryde and Illyana Rasputin in their bathing suits (luckily, not pictured):


And then assistant X-Editor Eliot Brown shows up again to apologize for the whole shebang...


...give us the title of the story...


...show us just how many cooks it takes to make an x-broth...


...and blow the whole ferschluggin' thing up:


Whew. Well, there you go: Marvel superheroes visit the 1980s Marvel Comics offices. And yeah, it's pretty silly, but it's also a lot of fun, something that's sadly missing from most of today's comics. Why, Joe Quesada would never let Marvel superheroes rain such chaos down upon his modern-day Marvel offices, now, you can bet on that!

Or...can you?

(That's a hint to tune in tomorrow for more twenty-first century Bullpen excitement than you can shake a pen of bulls at, folks!)