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Post by DE Sinclair on Jul 14, 2014 16:24:20 GMT -5
I now find myself wondering if any horror comics or movies have ever featured possums (or, I suppose, whether any superhero comics have featured a possum-based villain). Can't think of any. The one I encountered last week was about the size of, I guess, a small dog. Looked like a really big white rat, to some extent. That's the third one (or maybe it was the same creature?) I've encountered here over the past decade or so. I suppose they're mostly nocturnal. The first time, my black Lab (RIP, Dickens) was barking & barking at something in the backyard, & when I went out to see what the heck had gotten into him, I found he was taking umbrage at the presence of a possum perched on top of the chain-link fence at the back. The second time was like the third one, with the possum helping him/herself to the contents of one of the food bowls on the carport. The only other non-cats I've ever encountered in the yard, I think, are squirrels in & around the dogwood in the front yard & a small rabbit who used to hang around the side of the house. Those are long gone, no doubt because of the cats, though the latter are so lazy & spoiled that I've seen them watch uninterestedly as pigeons peck at their food a few feet away. The couple of birds I've come across dead in the yard must've died from boredom or killed themselves over some sort of avian fit of ennui. We have a lot of possums here too, leading to two of the funnier stories of being a homeowner and dog owner in Ohio that I have. The first was what we call Awesome Possum Saturday. My wife and I were home late on a Saturday evening, let the dogs out and Daisy, the more active of the two came back in the house, with a present, a possum in her mouth, all excited to give it to us. She walks up and just drops it in front of Amy. We were both a little taken aback and not sure if it was dead or just well, playing possum. I ran to grab a bag to put it in to take it back outside, and just as I reached down to brush it into the bag with a broom, it twitched.I screamed to high heaven in surprise, but managed to get it into the bag, outside, and into a trashcan. Needless to say, the trashcan was empty in the morning, the possum was gone bag and all. A couple of weeks later, I was mowing the lawn. I mowed the front lawn on a Saturday but was going to mow the back on Sunday. I left the mower out in the back yard overnight. Sunday morning I go out to mow, and the pull cord on the mower is very resistant. It's hard to pull to get the mower started. So, I just yanked it real hard to try to clear what was jamming it, and the mower kicks in and I hear a squeal of pain as possum bits start flying out of my mower and all over the yard. Apparently a small possum had curled up under the mower to sleep when it got light out and was blocking the blade from spinning when I first tried to pull the cord, but when the mower started, goodbye possum. I decided to wait on mowing that day, and about an hour later I had a murder of crows in the backyard feasting on the possum buffet. There's an alternate set of lyrics to I'm looking over a 4 leaf clover form a bad 80's spoof movie (I think Kentucky Fried Movie or some such and it may be Chevy Chase who sings it) that goes something like I'm looking over my dead dog rover, that I hit with a power mower, one leg is missing, the other is gone,a third one is scattered all over the lawn...well it got altered again to have the possum replace the dog to commemorate the event. So yeah, the only possum I tolerate is Pogo. If I never have another encounter with a real possum, I'd be fine with it. -M I accidentally trapped a possum once. I was insulating walls in my house and threw the empty plastic bag out into the garbage can outside. But it didn't really go in the can, just kind of sat on top. Overnight apparently a possum decided to walk across or jump on the bag and fell into the can with the bag. I came out the next morning to find a very upset possum in my trash can. And apparently when they get scared or upset, they take a dump. Which smells far worse than what most animals' scat that I've encountered. I tipped over the can and with a little encouragement, he left. The smell took longer to leave, and I felt a little bad for the sanitation engineers that week.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2014 16:31:39 GMT -5
The reason I think Marvel and DC need to choose if these characters are for kids or not is time and time again, a kids favorite cartoon will be a superhero cartoon. Their favorite cartoon character will be a superhero. Their parents buy them the comic book, because the parent loved that comic as a kid too, and wants to share that joy with their kid. The kid cracks it open and it's nothing but gore and sex. I've heard this same story over and over. The one that sticks out in my mind the most is the one about the little girl that loves Starfire. Imagine the impact this has had on that kids life. comicsalliance.com/starfire-little-girl-teen-titans/This is where responsibility on behalf of the intellectual property owners comes into play. Not to mention, it makes us comic geeks look like a bunch of complete creeps to pretty much anyone who happens to look inside any of these comics. You think that kid will ever go to Comicon now? How many potential fans are pushed out, how many long time fans leave?
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jul 14, 2014 16:39:00 GMT -5
[quote source="/post/16912/thread" timestamp="1405372500" author="@dupont2005
If Superman and Batman aren't children's properties, then I guess they have no place in children's books or on Saturday Morning cartoons. Choose one or the other. [/quote]
Superman and Batman as originaly created were meant for both adult and children appeal.It was not a one or the other situation.The millions of comics sent overseas to the Army in WWII were not sent to little kids armed with lollypops.The same can be said about the theatrical cartoons of the same period.They were meant to entertain both the old and the young
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2014 16:48:25 GMT -5
The millions of comics sent overseas to the Army in WWII were not sent to little kids armed with lollypops. Are you saying Herbie never served?
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jul 14, 2014 16:51:40 GMT -5
The millions of comics sent overseas to the Army in WWII were not sent to little kids armed with lollypops. Are you saying Herbie never served? Is there any record of Nazis getting bopped?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2014 16:56:06 GMT -5
Herbie really should've joined Sgt. Furious & the Hostile Commandos in Not Brand Ecch #1.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 14, 2014 17:06:58 GMT -5
The newspaper comic page was designed to be all audiences. The Sunday page less so, which is why you see the gag strips in Mickey Mouse Sundays and adventure strips in the dailies.
Comic books came out as a way to repackage strips and then grew to original material with a pulp aesthetic. Again they were aimed at all ages. But they definity evolved into kiddie fare. And Super-heroes tended to evolve in that direction much earlier than the other genres. DC/National was very tame fare by mid 1941 at the latest. Many of the big publishers including DC and Fawcett had their own content advisory boards well before the Comics Code was established.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jul 14, 2014 17:22:40 GMT -5
The newspaper comic page was designed to be all audiences. The Sunday page less so, which is why you see the gag strips in Mickey Mouse Sundays and adventure strips in the dailies. Comic books came out as a way to repackage strips and then grew to original material with a pulp aesthetic. Again they were aimed at all ages. But they definity evolved into kiddie fare. And Super-heroes tended to evolve in that direction much earlier than the other genres. DC/National was very tame fare by mid 1941 at the latest. Many of the big publishers including DC and Fawcett had their own content advisory boards well before the Comics Code was established. Very true.I also wonder how much WWII induction sped up the taming process.So many of the creators of the superheroes left for the services(Kirby,Siegel,Everett etc),leaving DC and Marvel in absolute control of the characters.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2014 17:47:03 GMT -5
Superman and Batman as originaly created were meant for both adult and children appeal.It was not a one or the other situation.The millions of comics sent overseas to the Army in WWII were not sent to little kids armed with lollypops.The same can be said about the theatrical cartoons of the same period.They were meant to entertain both the old and the young Well, of course any adult can enjoy kid stuff. But there's no argument it was kid friendly first and foremost, right? How many comics sent overseas were formerly owned by kids, sent off by their parents? Wally Wood's Cannon is a comic strip that was created to entertain the United States Military, and it's clearly not for kids. You can definitely see a difference. Military men are allowed to enjoy whatever they want, adult material or all ages material. But you can tell by the adverts who that material was created for, and who their target audience was.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 14, 2014 17:54:19 GMT -5
Superman and Batman as originaly created were meant for both adult and children appeal.It was not a one or the other situation.The millions of comics sent overseas to the Army in WWII were not sent to little kids armed with lollypops.The same can be said about the theatrical cartoons of the same period.They were meant to entertain both the old and the young Well, of course any adult can enjoy kid stuff. But there's no argument it was kid friendly first and foremost, right? With Superman and Batman, yeah...there's an argument. Again you're dealing with something designed to compete with the pulps. In some ways the first Superman and Batman stories were far more adult that what we see in comics as "adult" right now. Superman was fighting wife-beaters, arms dealers, dealing with the death penalty, mine safety.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jul 14, 2014 17:55:55 GMT -5
Superman and Batman as originaly created were meant for both adult and children appeal.It was not a one or the other situation.The millions of comics sent overseas to the Army in WWII were not sent to little kids armed with lollypops.The same can be said about the theatrical cartoons of the same period.They were meant to entertain both the old and the young Well, of course any adult can enjoy kid stuff. But there's no argument it was kid friendly first and foremost, right? How many comics sent overseas were formerly owned by kids, sent off by their parents? Wally Wood's Cannon is a comic strip that was created to entertain the United States Military, and it's clearly not for kids. You can definitely see a difference. Military men are allowed to enjoy whatever they want, adult material or all ages material. But you can tell by the adverts who that material was created for, and who their target audience was. Kid friendly yes .Foremost debatable.Superman was concieved for a newspaper stripe with a predominant adult audience.Batman had much of his roots within the pulp magazines.I think they were originally meant for universal appeal.Like I mentioned with theatrical cartoons and Slam mentioned with the newspaper strips,they were for the entire family.With more adults than kids in the movie theaters and buying the papers,the adult portion was very important.I think the same for Supes and Bats for their first few years
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jul 14, 2014 19:15:34 GMT -5
What do you do when faced with a situation; life or the internet, in which engaging a person or conversation would make you feel incredibly happy and satisfied to make your point, yet you know the breath you'd use would go to waste? (I think that's the longest sentence I've written.)
You can see the person is egging anyone who will take the bait or is really just that dense/naive about their position/statement.
Is it okay to be as petty as the other person?
Edit: This comes from an observation outside this forum.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2014 19:33:11 GMT -5
What do you do when faced with a situation; life or the internet, in which engaging a person or conversation would make you feel incredibly happy and satisfied to make your point, yet you know the breath you'd use would go to waste? Well it happens here in threads doesn't it? People sometimes just have to agree to disagree. Sometimes it's amicable, sometimes it's not.
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Post by Jesse on Jul 14, 2014 20:19:06 GMT -5
I think it wise to just ignore certain people once it's clear that they're willing to disregard facts so that they can continue to repeat the same talking points over and over again. For some people it's really important to win arguments on the internet. These people are not worth having conversations with.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jul 14, 2014 22:08:18 GMT -5
I'm a very non confrontational person. So whether in life or on the internet when I feel the desire to interject my opinion/observation/critique I start to secind guess myself as just as foolish as the person expousing said things.
Especially on the internet do I feel foolish trying to call out someone (out of honest desire to make them see) on ragging on a perceived point of someone else's that they are guilty of supporting they just can't see it.
It's like a Trekkie ragging on a comic book geek for how sily they're conventions are, trying to take the high moral ground that society has better things to spend their money on than comic book conventions. It's like "hey buddy your s..t is worthless and a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere too".
But instead I shut up or vent about it here cause I know we respect each other.
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