Separated at Birth: Whoops! Sorry, bub.

L: Uncanny X-Men #177 (January 1984), art by John Romita, Jr.
R: The Pulse #9 (July 2005), art by Mike Mayhew and Andy Troy
(Click picture to Piotr Rasputin-size)

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Making Fiends

"Making Fiends," webtoon episode 1, by Amy Winfrey


Now playing on TV on Nickelodeon!

Halloween Bonus Feature: Trick or treat! Smell my feet! Give me something good to eat!

Happy Halloween, everybody! Boo-ly here, hoping you’re having a wonderful fright!

Here at Casa de Bull we’re simply mad about Halloween! This year, Shelly the Otter, me, and my kid sister Marshall all decided to dress up as cats! But don’t laugh at our Halloween costumes…you might hurt our felines!



Another popular costume choice in our house this year is a vampire! Here’s some of my pals dressed up in their Dracula-best—from left to right, vampire pig, vampire carrot, and vampire toast. Fangs for dressing up, guys!



But by far the most exciting part of the night is getting to head out to trick or treat. C’mon, open the door and let meow-t!



Knock knock knock! Trick or treat! Preferably treat!



Fun size Snickers bars for everyone! Thank you, pretty lady!



So, from our haunted mansion to yours, we all wish you a Happy Halloween! And remember, if you got any leftover candy you’re not using, send it our way!

A Wodehouse a Week Special: "What Ho, Gods of the Abyss" from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier

Happy Halloween! On this night that's kooky, spooky, and altogether ooky, let's while away the time after gathering candy and before our visit to the stomach ward of the local hospital by checking in on our old Halloweeny pal, Mister P. G. Wodehouse. It's been one year to the day since old man Jenkins died in that strange house on the hill under mysterious circumstances I reviewed P. H. cannon's pastiche novel Scream for Jeeves, a loving if not always successful mash-up of Wodehouse and H. P. Lovecraft. Coincidentally—or not, you make the call!—virtually one year ago today Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's much-delayed, eagerly-anticipated The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier was finally released, and I ran home excitedly with it, crawled into my big armchair, strapped on my 3D glasses, and eagerly devoured it (note: not literally).

My take on LoEG: BD? (Sorry, not callin' it LXG, no how, no way!) Well, I liked it, liked it a lot, enough to name it #20 on my Fun Fifty of 2007. I liked Moore's take on James Bond (probably a version closer to a real-life 007 than any movie version), its clever reimagining of my favorite map in the world...



...and the thrill-ride that takes Mina Harker and Allan Quatermain from grey and dreary Post-Orwell Britain to a literally eye-popping fantasyland beyond the realm of imagination. Like the earlier LoEG volumes, it rewards re-reading for its variety of prose, denseness of ideas, and the whirlwind parade of guest stars from literature, film, comics and popular culture. As always, you can't tell the players without a scorecard, so Jess Nevins's annotations for Black Dossier are, as always, especially useful—altho' much of the fun is in figuring out references on your own. The thrill and delight in recognizing one of them gives a "Where's Waldo?" feel to the book but doesn't overwhelm the plot. (I myself was delighted to see the comic The Winged Avenger on a newsstand in the book)

The reason I most enjoyed Black Dossier, however, is that Moore and O'Neill weren't content to just produce another comic book sequel—Black Dossier truly goes one step beyond the originals by presenting us with a history of the League's world in titular secret documents: a lost Shakespeare play (on yellowing paper illustrated with period woodcuts), a pastiche of 1950s British picture-comics telling the life history of League member Orlando (from the Virginia Woolf novel), picture postcards between the original cast members, a not-suitable-for-little-stuffed-bulls Tijuana Diary, an excerpt from a Kerouac-styled Beat novel of the League's universe (that one's sadly pretty unreadable). Each of these pieces, and the many more that accompany them, are presented in a specific visual design style that emulates the originals that they're parodying or referencing, giving us the feeling that we're not looking at a hardcover graphic novel, but actually a scrapbook—the true Black Dossier. The original two LoEG books may have celebrated the great characters of literature and pop culture, but Black Dossier goes one step further and celebrates the medium and the art of storytelling, publishing, and visual entertainment as much as it does its protagonists. Moore would have even gone one further and added the element of sound to the mix if the book had contained the original planned flexi-disc.

But what's this got to do with A Wodehouse a Week, you muse? One of Moore's segments is the four-page Wodehouse pastiche "What Ho, Gods of the Abyss," written by "The Rt. Hon. Bertram Wooster." Like Scream for Jeeves, it's a blending of the light-hearted comedy of P. G. Wodehouse and the chilling dread of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu (or, as Bertie mishears them "Cool Lulu") horrors, set at Aunt Dahlia's familiar old manse Brinkley Court.

Moore has the general narration style and character voices of Wodehouse down pretty pat, right to the traditional Bertie story-opening:

Friendship can be a rather sticky wicket now and then, as when one's anxious to assure one's chums that one does not regard them as a hideous embarrassment, when one actually does. Old hands amongst you will have no doubt guessed ahead that the source of my discomfort was that same Augustus, he of the Fink-Nottles, whom I've previously lamented in these pages.

He even throws in running Bertie jokes and references:

'...That man has been a font of knowledge when it comes to folk traditions from rural America, which I believe that I may write a piece on for Milady's Boudoir.'

This was a weekly periodical, intended for the sensitively reared. Of which my Aunt was proprietor. I looked her in the eye and said 'Tish-tosh,' which I am not afraid to state that I had intended as a cut.

Trouble is, Moore has the style down, but not the patterns. Take a quick peek at this first two-page spread—don't pay attention to the words itself, but look at the length of the paragraphs:



...and now grab a gander at a randomly chosen couple pages from a real book by The Master himself:



Moore's prose is dense, with long, deep, descriptive paragraphs and virtually no dialogue; Wodehouse's is short, sharp, and peppy, featuring short paragraphs and fast-alternating lines of dialogue. I've said before that Wodehouse's books sometimes read like plays (he himself commented that he was writing musical theatre without the music) because the back-and-forth conversation frequently monopolizes the page for so many lines that it becomes a dialogue. I'm not familiar with Lovecraft's literary style—is Moore specifically copying the pacing and paragraph construction of Lovecraft here? If so, that's very clever, but as a Wodehouse pastiche, it rings oddly because you never see a true Wodehouse book that's mostly narration and very little dialogue.

The League shows up in the middle of the Jeevesian do to put things right:

They were a dashing crew, I must say, even if they did appear to have a girl in charge of them, a pretty little thing called Min, with steely eels and a thick muffler around her neck despite it being then the stifling height of summer. With her was a wiry gentleman around her age, whom she called Allan, and another person, called Orlando Something, who despite his deep voice and deportment looked to me the very spit of Gussie's fatuous fiancée, the appalling Madeline Bassett o the limpid eyes and weeping-spasms.

Despite departing snappy dialogue for eldritch description, Moore's got a pretty good handle on Bertie's narrative voice, and there's some spot-on bits that not only had me nodding my head in their approximation of authentic Wodehouse, they made me giggle:

My aunt and all her pals were twitching and convulsing on the clipped grass, foaming at their mouths and jabbering in tongues, with not a stitch of clothing on between the lot of them. I'd feared that Morris dancing might result from all this folk tradition lark. But naturism really was the limit.

Of course, poor Gussie Fink-Nottle gets the worst of it, as usual:

'...If what I have heard of this abominable creatures is correct, Mr. Fink-Nottle's most essential self is at this moment being carried to the place called Yuggoth that they mentioned, possibly some other planet or dimension, in the confines of a copper cylinder. Put simply, sir, I fear they have removed his brain and left him here like a boiled egg that's had its top sliced off.'

'Oh bother, have they really? Do you know, I thought that I was feeling muzzy.'

Gussie sat up slowly in the armchair, lifting one hand gingerly to feel around inside his open and demonstratably deserted cranium. His goldfish eyes gazed up imploringly towards my manservant. 'I say, you couldn't fix my lid back so that it wouldn't show, Jeeves, could you? If Miss Basset saw me like this I should never heard an end to it.'

Wearing a look of incredulity that bordered on the insolent, and muttering about a tube of glue he thought he might have, Jeeves led the pair of us back to the house past what survived of Auntie's soiree.

That last bit, by the way, is the only piece of "What Ho, Gods of the Abyss" that rang truly false with me. Sure, one might suppose that faced with the ultimate evil incarnate, even Jeeves might be shaken enough to drop his usual unflappable decorum. But you know, I'd prefer Jeeves to be the unshakeable, the unsinkable, the non-plussed supermind he is in the Wodehouse books. Here's a counterargument to a shaken and stirred Jeeves from a real Wodehouse (Aunts Aren't Gentlemen):

'Jeeves,' I said, when I had returned to the Wooster G.H.Q., 'I'm afraid I have bad news.'

'Indeed, sir? I am sorry to hear that.'

One of his eyebrows had risen about an eighth of an inch, and I know he was deeply stirred, because I had rarely seen him raise an eyebrow more than a sixteenth of an inch.

Now that's the real Jeeves. But Alan Moore's version ain't bad, and the general concept—although done previously by P. H. Cannon—makes a spiffing excursion into Moore and O'Neill's heavily-celebrity-populated world. I've always thought Jeeves was among history's most Extraordinary Gentlemen...now we have proof.



I may have waited a year to review Moore's Wodehouse pastiche, but you reap the spooky benefits of my delay! How's that? Because The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier just came out in paperback this week at your local comic store, and will be in stock early next week at Amazon and other fine bookstores around the country. (Just click on the link to your right to pick up a copy!) It's the perfect adventure into the world of spies, spaceships, and spooks, capped off with a spectacular (if over-the-top nonsensical) 3D end section. Like it or love it, you have to admit Moore's not resting on his laurels he's given us something new and dramatic that expands the scope of the original League novels. May he continue to surprise, outrage, and entertain us.

A Wodehouse a Week Index.

"I don't think the real Batman wears a rubber mask with his symbol on it." "He would on Halloween!"

Time is ticking away...do you have your Halloween costume yet? If not, don't panic: just set your time machine for the Marvel Comics of the early 1980s and order yourself up a handy cheap rubber mask of your favorite Marvel (and DC) characters:



Golly, $3.99? As Alfred E. Newman would say, "Cheap!" (Buy all four and save a whole buck...whoop-de-doo!) But what's with that Red Skull mask? Were kids really clamoring for this character molded in stinky, malleable thin rubber? "Hey Mom, can I dress up as a Nazi for Halloween this year?" "No, Mikey...you can be a hobo or a ghost again if you like." "Aw, Mom!"

And I like that "Please list alternate selection." Which means all they had to do was produce several thousand Spidey masks, since those seem the simplest mold. "Sorry, kid, you can't be a former bellboy turned Hitler's superhuman henchman this year...how about the guy who accidentally killed his girlfriend when she was plummeting off a bridge, huh?"

If it's cold outside, why not spring the extra two bones for the Spider-Man Ski Mask ("Look just like Spidey...except Spidey doesn't have a mouth, does he? Oh well!"):



With the Spider-Man Ski Mask, every Halloween is a dog day afternoon!

Well, I'm off to get into my Hulk mask and green body paint for tomorrow's candy gatherin' festivities. Whatever you go as, play it safe and don't eat any suspicious candy...

...send it to me!

Man Bites Accursed Dog Dept.

Front-page headline in today's Metro ("The free newspaper you can leave behind on the subway!"):


Well, no duh. That ain't news. Doom has never promised us anything but misery and torment in our future. That's not breaking news, that's just consistency.

What we have here is a failure to Communicard.

I miss Marvel Annuals. Oh, sure, in their later years they were mostly a disappointing series of diminishing returns ("Shattershot"? Really?), but in their heyday, just after the all-reprint age and before the interlocked continuing story era, there was no better value for your summertime buck than the big double-sized Marvel Annuals featuring a told-in-one epic tale of heroes, villains, innocent bystanders and J. Jonah Jameson, all rolled into some cosmic tale that didn't interrupt the flow of the monthly series but which was probably neatly footnoted exactly where it fell into continuity. And even when the stories themselves in the Marvel Annuals weren't quite up to snuff, there were always the back-up features: pin-up panels, supporting character profiles, Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe-type bios, or pages from Wolverine's diary (Dear Diary: I kinda like Mariko, but I dunno if she likes me. Later, killed some guys.). So, if you look hard enough, there's gold in them thar annuals. The story may be pure cheese...say, Avengers Annual #21 (1992), which is a great early example of 90s excess. Check out all those new characters introduced on the cover: Raa! (or is that "AAA"—the mutant who repairs your car?) Ssith! (He's what you get when you cross a snake with Darth Whatisname.) Tyndar! Redwolf! Apocryphus! (Legend has it that Apocryphus probably didn't actually exist.) Sir Raston! And the ninetiesest name ever, Deathunt 9000! Say, how do you pronounce that name? Is he hunting deats, or vowing death to unts? Whatever...you know he's doing it nine thousand. Now that all these guys are such major and popular players in the Marvel Universe, isn't it fun to see where they got their start?

No, there's not much of real interest in Avengers Annual #21, until you flip to the back bonus pages and gape in awed wonder at a two-page info spread titled Secrets of the Avengers Communicard! For those of you who missed out on the exciting, epoch-shattering introduction of the Avengers Communicard, this is an excellent place to catch up. We're promised its "secrets," and although we will not find out the startling cosmic origin of the Avengers Communicard and the shock betrayal it will inflict upon the team in order to save its own family, we will learn how it works and why it's so very handy that even Thor had to buy himself a genuine Tandy leather calfskin wallet to keep his in. Also, his wallet-sized photo of The Bodyguard star Kevin Costner.



Kirk had his communicator, Napoleon Solo had his "open channel D" fountain pen, Jim Rockford had his trusty answering machine, but the Avengers, most of whom didn't have a place to keep phone-call dimes in their costumes, had the Avengers Communicard: a credit-card sized personal computer and communication device that enabled them to stay in contact at all times with their teammates, the US Government, alert Jarvis if they were going to be late for dinner, or leave messages for Matt Murdock that they were in jail again for public drunkenness and needed bailing out. (Last example applies to Hercules, Wonder Man and the Beast only).



More than just a slim-line cell phone in an age when mobiles were the size and shape of a brick, the Avengers Communicard could also activate its own personal cloaking device and turn itself into an ordinary-looking "civilian" credit card that wouldn't arouse suspicion if it was seen in the wallet of a hero's secret identity. Oh, how Hawkeye laughed and laughed after he reprogrammed Steve Rogers's Avengers Communicard to look like a Victoria's Secret frequent shopper card!



Even if you didn't shave regularly, you could use the Avengers Communicard both as an audio and video communication device, which enabled instant satellite hookup to all major telephone and communications networks at the touch of its tiny, wee keys. Later, it would also become handy for watching YouTube videos, at least until She-Hulk ran up a thirty-two thousand dollar AT&T bill watching that sneezing panda.



The Avengers Communicard also is an effective and power tracking and homing beacon so that the World's Mightiest can find its members at any time, anywhere. The text in the feature states that it is powerful enough to track an Avenger over 2000 miles, although this feature was drastically reduced when the Avengers accidentally burst into the MIA Iron Man's Swiss chalet during his extended weekend with Angelina Jolie. It also serves as "an entry keyboard for a powerful calculator," thus ensuring that Rick Jones can perhaps at last pass his tenth grade trigonometry exam.



Pretty fabulous so far, don't you think? Well, the Avengers Communicard is not only all those things, but a bag o' chips besides! In fact, several hundred bags o' chips (even those Steak Nacho Doritos), because it can be used as a credit card or an ATM card that allows any Avenger to withdraw up to $2500 a day! This limit instantly rendered it useless to the Wasp for a shopping trip as she has been known to spend over $2500 a minute.



It's also an official government ID card, so if a six-foot-six blond helmeted hammer-wielding muscled Norse god walks into your bar and demand flagons of mead, you can instantly proof him and find out that he's Sigurd McLovin from Hawaii, age 25, and it's legal to serve him a PBR.



Also, it apparently grants you entrance into tanning booths.



Finally, you can also use it as the ignition key for all Avengers vehicles, including the Quinjet, the sky-cycles, Jarvis's mom's 1997 Buick Skylark, and "Mister Hulk's Wild Ride" at AvengersWorld in Tampa, Florida.

It also gets you 10% off your purchase at any participating Starbucks.

Why, it would be downright un-American not to have one of these fine cards! As the Vikings, pirates, and marauding hordes that frequently face off against the Avengers say, "What's in your wallet?" With an Avengers Communicard in there, you can proudly declare that, um, it's an Avengers Communicard.

So. The Avengers Communicard. And you don't have one. Jealous?!? Well, be green no more (unless you're Doctor Banner)—you too can be a card-carrying Avenger! Copy the template below, Photoshop in your photo and signature, print, cut out, and laminate for real Avengerin' and Communicardin' action! Take it from me...this project is easy to (Avengers) assemble!

The Avengers Communicard. Don't leave Asgard without it.

Hey! This is my 1300th post on this blog!

Cooking with Bully: Rice Krispie Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches

Hi hi hi, everybody! I'm Chef Bully, host of the Food Network smash series A Little Bull and Some Buttered Toast, and I'm here today to show you how to make a delicious autumn treat that's quick to create and yummy to snack on. You can give 'em away as Halloween treats, but c'mon now, who's gonna wanna give away the best cookies in the world? I'm talking, of course, about Rice Krispie Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches.

Right about now I'm sure you're scoffing to yourself and saying Rice Krispie Treats?!? Those aren't anything new, little stuffed bull. Those are just Rice Krispies and marshmallow and... But hold on just a minute, Sonny Jim! We ain't talkin' 'bout your run-o'-the-mill common-or-garden Rice Krispie Treats here. These are Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches. Make 'em along with me and you'll see!

But first, there's a Bull family story behind these delicious melt-in-your-mouth treats. Way back when I was a tiny stuffed bull, Mama Bull would make Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches for me, and I would sing and dance the Happy Bully Cookie Dance. She got the recipe off the back of a Toll House Morsels packet, but one day when she lost the recipe, she went looking for it again on the back of chocolate chip packages, to no avail. It wasn't reprinted anymore on the packets! She wrote to the Nestle Company to ask them to send her a copy of the recipe, and they returned a note swearing up and down they'd never heard of that recipe. It was almost as if we had dreamt them up.

Mama Bull, being the clever mom she is, reconstructed the recipe from scratch, and it was as Jim-Dandy as ever. I suggested (with my mouth full of Rice Krispie Crunchy Fudge Sandwich) that since the company had apparently lost all record of the recipe, that she submit it to their next baking contest as her own creation! Mama Bull, of course, refused to do so, reminding me that honesty is the best policy. I didn't mind, of course, long as I could have 'smore Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches!

The funny thing is, years later, the recipe showed up again on Nestles packages and Rice Krispies boxes. Do you think they lost it for all those years and only just found it later on? Or maybe came across it in a church pot luck supper cookbook and appropriated it for themselves? The world may never know, but I know these cookies are dee-licious. So let's get biz-zay makin' 'em so there's more eating time at the end!

You'll need the following ingredients:

• A bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips (8 oz.)
• A bag of butterscotch chips (8 oz.)
• 8 cups Rice Krispies (a 9 oz. box will do)
• 4 tablespoons butter (half a stick, plus a wee bit more to grease your pan)
• 1 cup confectioner's sugar
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons water

You'll also need a big mixing bowl large enough to stir up eight cups of Rice Krispies. I check out that it is big enough by getting inside it. Your success rate with that procedure may vary.



And, a 13 x 9 inch pan. Make sure you clean, or lick, any leftover cake out of it.



You'll also need a saucepan. Pour the butterscotch chips into the saucepan...



Measure out and add the 1 cup peanut butter to the chips. Be careful not to get any on your fur! It's sticky and nobody wants to take a bath after this.



Turn the stove on low, or get an adult to do it for you. I had that nice Ms. Lawson from down the street come over and help me out by turning on the stove. She's fun to cook with! But I wish she would stay out of my fridge after midnight!



Over the low heat, gently stir the butterscotch chips and peanut butter until it melts. If you're a very fussy cook, you can heat these over a double boiler or a pan of steaming water, but honestly, as long as you keep the heat low, and keep stirring it, you won't have any problems. Except drooling.



While the chips and PB are melting, you can take a few seconds to gently grease the cake pan with a film of butter. Hey, I think this is how Michael Phelps gets ready for a swimming race.



Ooh, lovely and melty! Resist the immediate impulse to dive head first into this delicious goop...



...and instead pour it over the 8 cups of Krispies (Rice) in the mixing bowl.



Stir, stir, stir like your life depended on it! Or, at least, the delicious cookies. The PB/butterscotch mixture should coat all the Krispies and be thoroughly blended. It's the most delicious breakfast cereal ever, but it's not even half done yet!



Spread one-half of the mixture in the pan. And the other half in your mouth. No, seriously, keep the other half in the bowl for later use. (You can taste test it a bit if you want now. Yummy!)



Spread and flatten the half-bowl of mixture in the pan until it's fully spread around. Why, that looks like delicious cookies already. But it's not done yet!



Put the pan in the fridge to cool and harden. You can now start on stage two of the delicious cookery. If you want, have a cold refreshing glass of Lilt before you continue!



Before you continue, you'll need to wash the saucepan and your mixing spoon, so now's the time to do the dishes. Or, get a friend to do the dishes for you.



Now for the chocolately part of the process! Pour the bag of chocolate chips into the saucepan...



...(it's okay to eat a few while you're doing it to keep your strength up!)



To the chocolate chips, measure and add 1 cup of confectioner's sugar...



...4 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons water.



Mix, over low heat again, the chocolate/sugar/butter/water blend until it's smooth and creamy and looks like the river that Augustus Gloop fell into...



Spread the melted chocolate over the pan of butterscotch/Krispie mix...



Until it's completely covering the Krispies.



Let the pan chill back in the fridge for about 15 minutes or until the chocolate hardens slightly and then spread the remainder of the Rice Krispie mixture (from the bowl, remember? You didn't eat it all, did you?) over the chocolate layer.



Once again, make certain it's spread down and flattened for maximum deliciousity! Then, you have to put it back in the fridge (I know, I know, it's difficult to wait at this point!) for about 45 minutes to an hour to let it chill and harden.



You could spend the time waiting, doing all the dishes. Or, you can get a friend to do them for you.



It's cookie time! With a sharp knife, cut the cookies, or get an adult to cut the cookies for you. Don't let Ms. Lawson eat them all!



Lay out the cookies on your favorite plate and be prepared to taste the nirvana that is Rice Krispie Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches! Enjoy!



Just one little postscript to the story above of the Nestle Company disavowing all knowledge of the Crunchy Fudge Sandwich recipe. When I was going to make these cookies, I couldn't find my recipe card that Mama Bull copied out for me, so I headed for a tool Mama Bull never had at her hooves: Google. Sure enough, I found the recipe on the Rice Krispie website, and happiness reigned in the Bull household. I bookmarked the recipe page for future reference.

Except...earlier tonight, when I was writing up this post, I went looking once again for the recipe to link it for y'all, and...

...it's gone from the RiceKrispies.com website.

I saw it...it was there last week! But now it's gone. (See: here's the Google results, but now they link to dead pages.) Where's the recipe gone?

EDIT on 2/17/09: A quick addition to let you know the recipe has now returned to the all-new, all-beautiful revamped RiceKrispies.com website. Click here for the recipe, and read my blog entry to find out about how the kindness of Mr. Karl Miller of Rice Krispies to a little stuffed bull impressed me a whole heckuva lot!

Oh well. But you just gotta wonder...is the Snap, Krackle and Pop Illuminati trying to keep the knowledge of this delicious, yummy treat away from you? Will I mysteriously disappear for giving this recipe out to you? Will my blog stop suddenly becau