Just finished reading a great interview with groundbreaking comics writer Alan Moore in the second issue of Eddie Campbell's Egomania. (For folks not in the know, Campbell is a particularly talented Scottish comics writer/artist, who collaborated with Moore on the brilliant graphic novel From Hell, basis for the recent Jack the Ripper movie. But to describe it as just a book about Jack the Ripper is like saying Jane Austen wrote early Harlequin romances...) It's a great piece about Moore's beliefs and theories about magic (which, like all good things, spread much farther and wider into other areas), but far and away my favorite quote is:

"While religions may indeed offer valuable and worthwhile ideas on how one should proceed in one's spiritual journey, there's no obligation to buy the whole package. Take whatever is spiritually useful or sustaining from any system and use it as a building block in the construction of your own. Or at least, that's my Transcendental Tip for Today."

This came via Warren Ellis's mailing list, and I thought I'd pass it on. It's from comics writer Ed Brubaker, writer of probably one of my favorite current mainstream comics, Catwoman. (Seriously, Catwoman. I mean, I always thought he was a good writer, but his work on this book is just incredible.) It's about his new series:

Ed Brubaker has a new series out from Wildstorm called SLEEPER.
This is the premise of SLEEPER:

"You are an undercover agent. Your assignment is go deep undercover
with an organization of pure evil. Imagine that your assignment is so deep
cover that only one person in your organization knows about it. Now imagine
that that person is suddenly put in a coma. You now have no way out.
Even worse, you don't know if you want out."

Ed Brubaker wants you to try SLEEPER. And this is the deal:

"I think when my publisher is willing to spin the wheel by trying
something new by me, like SLEEPER, then I should be willing to
put myself on the line with it, too. So, in the hopes that it will get
readers and retailers to take a chance on it, and because I love this
book and have total faith in it, I'm going to offer a money back
guarantee on SLEEPER: If anyone buys SLEEPER #1 and is
unsatisfied, they can email me at: edbrubaker1@hotmail.com and
I'll send them their 3 bucks back.

"If you like shows like THE SOPRANOS, ALIAS, or THE SHIELD, or
comics like 100 BULLETS or ALIAS (again), then give SLEEPER a try,
because it's right up that alley, I swear."

So take Ed up on it.

Once again, it's been a while. Circumstances beyond my control, believe me, and not pleasant at all. Still not back to 100%, but in the meantime, I cannot urge you strongly enough to check out this article on SUVs and their owners. Just the idea that research exists proving that SUV owners are, for the most part, self-centered, dickless arseholes just fills me with glee. Every time I see some brain-dead frelling moron making a right turn from the left-turn lane without pause, or making an illegal u-turn, or anything else that shows a complete disregard for the safety of the people around them, it's always somebody in one of these big fuel-guzzling, war-supporting monster death coffins on wheels. The article talks about a whole book dealing with the seduction of the weak-minded, image-conscious, no-self-esteem, incapable of earning respect on their own mindless consumers by the automotive industry, even though these useless behemoths are responsible for significantly more road-deaths than any other vehicles, are just as unsafe for the passengers as they are to other motorists, and have poor enough gas mileage that they can probably be singled out as a major contributing factor to our current troubles in the Middle East. (And they seem to be the vehicles most likely to sport an American flag, too. Ah, sweet irony...)