Comic Book Review: The Chill

Comic Book Review: The Chill

Comic Book Review: The Chill story by Jason Starr, art by Mick Bertilorenzi

It’s 2009 in New York City and a series of bizarre ritual killings has hit the city. The obvious suspect is a woman named Ariana who’s been seen with more than one of the victims, but no one can agree on a description of her beyond that she’s extremely attractive. Police Detective Pavano is approached by an Irish cop…

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How are my favorite dogs doing?
It’s me, Mary, everyone’s favorite Werewolf and professional badass.

So we have been like crazy swamped, and shit has been going down.
Heh heh … down.

SO!
Ya’ll may have heard about the old fart’s tryouts, which have brought in some new friends and expanded our happy family.
Now I’m all about family, except for my idiot brother, but the ones who didn’t pass … some of them did the belly flop of fail.

So here is a list of the BIGGEST FAILS!
Enjoy.

1. So this one gal waltzes on up and claims that she needs to take on harder challenges. She can mess with yer emotions and eff with people, and the girl was all over the place like spiderman. So we did what any rational people would do, we sent a big ass robot to kick her back into place. Exactly 3 seconds after seeing the bot we learn that she stress farts, loud. Oh my dawg, so she’s trying to fight a huge robot with a handgun and baseball bat, and she’s farting louder than your grandpa. Now we didn’t care if the girl was a loud farter, but it did suck that she started screaming and running when she ran out of ideas on how to fight this thing. Beautiful.

2. Next is this Australian wizard who specializes in strength and speed buffs. What he didn’t tell anyone was that he got the power from animals, but he also channeled their spirits. So he was in a country he’d never been in before and he decided to channel the nearest animal. An effing squirrel. He channels this squirrel and he can suddenly balance and climb like a boss, but then his eyes roll back and the spirit takes over. He leaps onto the old man when he sees that he has a walnut on his coat and claws the HELL out of his face. Squirrel man was disqualified when we eventually ripped him off of the old fart. The dude, however, climbed into the trees and still won’t come down … or put on clothes.

3. Man comes out all Iron Man and demands to be a part of our group. Turns out he’s an android, but decked with tons of gadgets and other pimp toys. So we send the dude out on some trials, guy can fly, super strength, lasers, and a cloaking skill. He was more than qualified. Except he had a problem he was unaware of, he screams at the top of his lungs every single second that his tech is being used. On top of this he can’t hear while doing this stuff and because of all of this we got a screaming deaf man flying around, shooting lasers, and turning invisible. Disqualified.

4. So we had a guy who claimed to be a professional Summoner and he waltzes in and summons an animal or a mythological creature to help him with everything he comes across. He does pretty well, until he summons a whale … in the middle of a room WAY too small for it. It got worse when he got rid of it and then decided to try again, ELEPHANT! Except this one wasn’t under his control and just started rampaging. He decided to summon something else to stop it … a freaking Dinosaur. Big ass T-Rex suddenly in this room and it was awesome dudes. Took us an hour to get rid of the big ol lizard.

5. A lady goes through all the trials and wins EVERY SINGLE ONE. She tears through them and doesn’t even break a sweat, she has the ability to summon up all of her luck and use it whenever she wants. So for like 3 hours she is using up her luck and makes the Old Man look like an … well like an old man. When she completes the last test she steps over the finish line, looks back at us, smiles, and then a deer comes charging out of the forest and kicks her in he back. But then, after the deer runs off, a remote controlled plane flies right into her face. Then when she hits the ground, the lighter in her pants pocket, breaks and lights up her ass. She rolls around screaming until the fire goes out and then just lies there on her back. Until an arrow from another test flies through the air and stabs into her knee. I couldn’t stop laughing.

So, what is the best way to spend a week? Easy, you watch a bunch of wannabe super heroes mess up trying to impress an old bag of bones. I took pictures, and turned them into posters.
:3

“There are several species of Hellebore. The name comes from the Greek words ‘elein’ (to injure) and 'bora’ (food), indicating that Helleborus is poisonous. In some belief systems, it’s been believed to be a purgative, sometimes of bad things generally, used for things like protecting livestock from evil spells & (in powdered form) for invisibility. According to herb lore, the roots of the hellebore plant are are used to treat melancholy diseases & madness.

The original name for Hellebore was

"Melampodium.” According to the Greek historian Pliny, the plant was named for the soothsayer Melampus who used it to cure depression in ancient times. On a happier note & in spite of poisonous nature of the plant, it is often called the “Christmas Rose” or “Christ herbe” because it blooms in winter.

Caption chosen separately.

Drawing titled 'Heleborus’ by @cat.schappach

This town has always been a (sometimes ambivalent) home for ambitious, closeted gay men and women. But now ballot measures, state legislatures, and federal judges are advancing LGBT rights by the day; more openly gay members join Congress every cycle; the issues they and their allies champion occupy pride of place on the political agenda; and even Washington culture has become entirely habituated. A change like this reaches beyond the surface topography, deep into the tectonic architecture of Washington. These shifts have brought about the rise of an entirely new class of D.C. power players. Here are the most influential.

So opens a major feature in the new issue of National Journal, a weekly magazine on American politics.  The piece is titled The 30 Most Influential Out Washingtonians and is part of the journal’s special report: Gay Washington. Scroll down the list of portraits and short bios and it is impossible to notice that the list is mostly cisgender white men.

I have to acknowledge my naivety as I saw the article tweeted and rushed to scroll through, looking for someone from the trans* community.  Who would they acknowledge as a power player?

Would it be Mara Keisling, the popular political commentator on trans* issues and founding (and current) executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, whose recent political victories include trans*- & LGBQ-inclusive national hate crime legislation, trans*- & LGBQ-inclusive anti-discrimination policies for federal employees, innumerable policies and laws making it easier for trans* people to change their identification documents, and the biggie: getting a trans-inclusive Employee Non-Discrimination Act through the Senate in November?

MaybeRuby Corado, trans* Latina activist known for her role as founder and CEOofCasa Ruby, the trans*- and Latin@-focused LGBT multicultural community center (the first of its kind) in DC? Though, despite the $25,000 grant Casa Ruby just won from the city, her influential work might be considered a little too grass-roots for a list and publication like this.

But maybe DOD employee Amanda Simpson, who was just promoted from Deputy Executive Director to Executive Director of the Army Energy Initiatives Task Force and made headlines when she became the first known trans* presidential appointee in 2010 would be a better fit? (Watch her It Gets Better video here.)

I thought Allyson Robinson was a shoo-in: the first trans* person to serve as director for a national LGBT organization, Robinson was named D.C.’s Best Transgender Advocate in 2013 by the Washington Blade for her work towards fully open military service and equality for LGBQ and trans* people.

Maybe National Journal would introduce me to one of the many openly trans* Washingtonians that I don’t already know about!

Even with all that excitement and those possibilities, I still was not terribly shocked when I realized there were no trans* people on the list. I was shocked when I went back to read the introduction [posted above] and saw no mention of the lack of trans* people. No mention of trans* people at all. I wasn’t shocked at the lack of inclusion because 1) I’m used to trans* people being left out of so-called LGBT organizations and lists and 2) there aren’t many out trans* people represented in our national political sphere.

In 2012, The Advocate rounded up a list of the nation’s openly transgender elected officials. There were six, a number the publication called “shockingly small.”  Is it really shocking to think that in a country where trans* people are still fighting for their lives, let alone rights, respect, accurate media portrayal, ET CETERA, that few trans* people would have the resources to run for office, fewer would decide to be open about their transition in such a public spotlight, and fewer still would get enough voter support to actually land in office? What’s shocking to me is that anyone would think it shocking! That complete ignorance of the barriers trans* people face is part of the problem I have with the National Journal piece.

My critique is two-fold:

1. There are out trans* folk in Washington that should have been on that list.
2. This was a failed opportunity to address (or at the very least acknowledge) the disparities and discrimination trans* people face in political power and the political world, respectively.

I provided a list of people I would consider influential political powerhouses appropriate for the National Journal’s list.  I wonder if these people were considered at all. The wording of the article sets the list up to just be gay and lesbian folk (not even bisexual or queer), so maybe they weren’t thinking of trans* people from the beginning. Even if the publication staff were to argue that LGBQ and trans* folks are inherently different communities (which is a rather advanced and within-community debate that I don’t think was on National Journal’s radar, to be honest), I’d question their choice of one community over the other or a piece that included both. There’s no excuse for excluding trans* people from this discussion of the changing climate of DC politics.

Which brings me to my second point. The climates of Washington, D.C., and American politics haven’t changed very much for trans* people.  The shifting sands being celebrated by the introduction [again, pasted above] are applicable only to able-bodied lesbian and gay individuals with normative gender expression/presentation and fair skin. People of color, individuals with bisexual or queer sexual orientations, people with disabilities, gender non-conforming folks, and trans* people face persistent and ugly discrimination. Washington, D.C., and the political sphere housed in it (and across the country) are such unsafe climates for trans* people that opponents to trans* rights have no shame (nor consequences) in vocalizing (even campaigning with) smears against and offensive lies and stereotypes about trans* folk. The city is also a dangerous place for trans* people, specifically trans* women of color (TWOC). DC made national trans* news (and even grabbed some mainstream headlines) for its surge in violenceagainst TWOC in the past few years. 

Let’s look at this introduction again:

But now ballot measures, state legislatures, and federal judges are advancing LGBT rights by the day;

I tried to find an article summarizing how far trans* rights have to go at all these levels, but it’s so daunting. Just Google “transgender bill defeated” and you’ll get a sense of how little is passing through state legislatures, and when they do (as in the example of California’s transgender students bill) it is not without a hard-fought battle and often after important pieces of the bill have been removed, as is the case in Massachusetts. On the national level, we can’t get a trans*-inclusive employee non-discrimination act (ENDA) to pass, and Democrats notoriously removed trans* protections in the 2007 iteration to make it more palatable (a common political move). [Though excitement and hope is appropriate here as the Senate passed a trans*-inclusive ENDA in November and the NCTE and other orgs are gearing up for a major battle to get it passed in the House.]

The ACLU has a good summary of the ways and places in which trans* people have legal protection. Though they focus on the victories, look at what’s missing and you’ll see how much the National Journal’s above statement does not apply to trans* rights. Also see the NCTE breakdown of trans* law at the federal level.

more openly gay members join Congress every cycle;

There are no openly trans* members in either body of Congress. I searched through the linked article (a collection of LG politicians’ reflections on their lives and politics) for the word transgender and only found it as part of the LGBT catch-all acronym in one person’s piece.

the issues they and their allies champion occupy pride of place on the political agenda;

The issues discussed in the article they linked to were gay marriage and AIDS drug trials (HIV treatment and research, by the way, are far from trans*-inclusive, despite TWOC having an insanely high infection rate.) I see no “pride of place” for issues specifically significant to trans* people. Where are, for example, the bills requiring insurance cover gender transition costs?

and even Washington culture has become entirely habituated.

Again, I will refer you to thedevastating amounts of violenceagainst trans* women in D.C. in recent years. 

************************

I don’t say all this to be a Debbie Downer.  I want to state that I think the positive strides being made in D.C. and national politics for LGBQ folks are great. I take great pride in sharing the Smithie title with Tammy Baldwin, the first openly lesbian member of Congress, and am happy to see her on a list celebrating out politicians and activists. I’m so glad we are seeing a rising tide in gay rights victories and cultural attitudes of acceptance. But I think it is irresponsible to celebrate that without acknowledging who is being left behind. I think if we all keep patting ourselves on the back for how far Washington, D.C. has come without acknowledging how far we have left to go, we’ll stop fighting. 

I also think it’s appropriate to acknowledge the victories and changes that are being made for trans* rights and to acknowledge the trans* people making all sorts of differences in Washington. A teacher who attended a workshop I did with my former boss (Jennifer Bryan) on gender and sexuality diversity in schools told me that she plays a game with her early elementary students whenever they read a book as a class. It’s called “who’s missing?” and students talk about what groups of people aren’t being reflected in or represented by characters/stories in the book. I think this is a great way of examining the blinders privilege puts on for us, and there’s a big ol’ giant list of groups that are missing from the entire Gay Washington special report. Trans* people are one of those groups, and I’m challenging National Journal staff to explain why and/or apologize.

In commenting on D.C.’s lack of response to the violence against trans* people in its city, activist Larry Bryant was quoted as saying, “increasing amounts of violence and funding cuts and lack of service for those hardest hit … the term invisibility comes to mind." I read National Journal’s list (and the other articles in this special report) and thought, Well they aren’t celebrating our victories and heroes and they aren’t acknowledging our barriers. The term invisibility comes to mind.

vicshush:

[Text ID :

Games (@GamesXBL) tweeted at 1:35 AM on April 28, 2021 “why is it spelled "camouflage” and not “

Blake (@BlxkeMW2) responded, asking "Not what”

Games responded with a blank tweet.

Blake responded back, “Bruh it’s not loading”

/end text]

Invisibility(2016) displays Apichatpong Weerasethakul's continued interest in the issue of perception and memory. The installation takes a thread from his recent pieces, Cemetery of Splendour(2015) and Fever Room (2015-2016), both of which feature the same actors. Here he takes them deeper into an imaginary world and ponders the future of shared consciousness. The film depicts a landscape where the protagonists are confined to a room, along with the viewers. With no way out they infiltrate each other’s dreams.

Invisibility mirrors the troubled state of Thailand’s politics. It proposes a decayed vision of the future where one needs to constantly evades reality. The viewing experience shifts between seeing and not-seeing, fact and fiction, space and void.

-Invisibility (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2016). Watch here