Bent Corner

I didn’t know that Playboy has a blog, but there are a lot of things I don’t know. This is just one of them. On their blog, Josh Robertson responds to some of the hullabaloo raised in some quarters over the fact that Tiffany Fallon was bodypainted to make it appear she was dressed in a Wonder Woman’s costume.

Josh Robertson writes:

It’s our cover, and while we don’t feel the need to explain in detail our thought process, perhaps a step back is warranted. The story is called “Sex in America.” Wonder Woman is sexy. Her costume is red, white and blue, and she has stars on her hot pants – it suggests the American flag almost as much as Captain America’s does. But we like to put women on our covers, so Steve Rogers is SOL in this case.

He’s exactly right. They don’t need to explain their thought process, but they did anyway. I’m certainly glad they did because it makes most of the criticism over the magazine cover look even more silly then it did because. I didn’t even know that was possible. For instance, comic book writer Greg Rucka theorizing that running a cover photo of Tiffany Fallon painted up to look like Wonder Woman was done to torpedo Hillary Clinton’s run for president.

I don’t know what more embarrassing: That he would come up with that goofy leap of logic that or that a lot of people actually agreed with him. Luckily it’s not my job to figure that out.

Josh Robertson continues:

Is Wonder Woman a feminist icon? If you say so. Is she a sex symbol? Without a doubt. Are the two mutually exclusive? Creator William Moulton Marston would have found the question laughable. The false dichotomy that separates female sex appeal from female intellect and strength of character hobbles feminism, and that’s been Playboy’s view for over 50 years.

It seems some people want to argue that sex appeal and intellect are an either-or type of thing. That a woman can be either physically attractive or she can be smart. She can’t be both. Why do some people think this? Is it because over the years woman have been portrayed this way in works of fiction? It’s as though we are supposed to actually believe a woman can only either be the ditzey bombshell or the homely nerd-girl.

Woman can be smart and sexy. The two are not mutually exclusive. People need to stop pretending that they are.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

My psoriasis hasn’t gotten any better.

My dermatologist took me off the Soriatane. Monday I start taking a medication called Methotrexate. The cool people call it MTX. It’s a chemotherapy drug. It’s used to treat breast, head and neck, lung, stomach, and esophagus cancers. I didn’t even know you could get head cancer.

It’s been around for awhile, but only recently has it been used to treat severe psoriasis. I guess they noticed psoriasis sufferers who were taking it to treat their head cancer ended up killing two birds with one stone. I would not even think of taking it if the psoriasis wasn’t on my hands.

I has some nasty side effects. Chemotherapy has side effects? Who would have thought? One of the side effects actually made me laugh. No, it wasn’t diarrhea or mouth sores. It was something called poor appetite.

I’ve never had that.

I will take two pills Monday night, two more then following morning, and two more that night. I then wait till the following Monday to take them again.

I don’t think I can drink Guinness on Methotrexate either. Both drugs are extremely hard on the liver. That’s why I have to wait till Monday to start taking Methotrexate. To make sure the Soriatane has fully left my body. If I take the Methotrexate for a long period of time, I will have to have a liver biopsy.

I’ve been trying to keep up with the online funny book feminist overreaction to Tiffany Fallon being painted up to look like Wonder Woman on the cover of Playboy. Even though Fallon is technically nude on the cover, it’s not the most titillating image to ever grace the cover of a magazine, especially a magazine such as Playboy. You have to look close to even realize that she is indeed even naked.

Some funny book feminists have been vocal with their disapproval of the cover. Ragnell writes over at Written World:

If they’re smart, they’ll put their foot down and try and reclaim that image. Pink Raygun (NSFW) asked if we’d see a model as Batman in the same sort of thing. The answer’s no. You won’t see Batman in paint on the cover of Playgirl because DC protects their copyright to Batman, and goes out of their way to stop sexualized images of Batman. The character is money to them, they want to control how the public receives him.

The “sexualized images of Batman“ she is referring to is the watercolor artwork of artist Mark Chamberlain. They are more then just sexualized images of Batman. They show Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder engaged in various sex acts. With each other.

Say what you want about the Playboy cover, but at least Wonder Woman isn’t engaged in sodomy with an under aged minor.

It’s true DC sent a “cease & desist” letter to the New York Chelsea art dealer that was selling the gay Batman and Robin watercolors. That was over two years ago. I don’t know what ever became of the case. Honestly, I don’t really care. I noticed today that at least some of the art is still up for sale at the artist’s website. That makes me think DC wasn’t too successful in getting the art removed.

Wonder Woman on the cover of Playboy is not the same thing as artwork featuring Batman and Robin engaged in sodomy. Then again, what if it was? I don’t remember anyone - male or female - getting angry over the Chamberlain artwork showing Batman engaged in gay sex. In fact, I remember the complete opposite. I remember most people reacting to the gay Batman and Robin art as though it was kind of funny.

Imagine that.

While I was in the Air Force and stationed in upstate New York, I took a few college classes so I could finish an Associates degree that I started years earlier. One of the local colleges, Utica College of Syracuse University held night classes on the Air Force base. The classes met once a week for about four hours.

They were your typical community college night classes. One of the classes I took was European history. It was taught by a man named John Zogby. He’s the same John Zogby that owns and operates a successful political polling business called Zogby International. He’s frequently on cable TV news discussing how any given politician is doing in any given election. He and his polls are often mentioned by political pundits.

The class took place during the 1992 presidential elections. I guess it was a busy time for Zogby’s polling business. So busy that Zogby presented a somewhat “unusual” proposition to the class: anyone that came into his polling business and did eight hours of telephone polling would have their final grade for the class raised one whole level.

I have to admit the proposition sounded good. Our final grade for the class was based on two things - the midterm exam and the final exam. Both were predominantly essay type questions. Because each test made up 50% of the overall grade, if you tanked the midterm, the best you could hope for as a final grade was a “C”. You could only get that if you absolutely aced the final.

Most of us agreed to his offer. Before any of us could actually go to Zogby’s polling center and work the phones, we had our midterm exam. I got my exam back with an “A”. Getting such a high grade on the midterm guaranteed that I would finish the class with at least a “C” which also meant I didn’t need to worry about raising my final grade one whole grade level. I was getting my 3 credit hours no matter what I did or didn’t do on the side for Zogby.

I decided not to work eight hours at Zogby’s polling business.

It turned out I was not the only one. Two weeks after returning our exams, Zogby went around the room to ask each one of us when we could come in and work for him. Everyone he called upon replied that they had changed their mind and wouldn’t be working at his polling business after all.

He realized something was going on. He stopped asking us individually and instead asked for a show of hands of the people that were still planning on working for him. Nobody raised their hand. He asked us as a group why we had all changed our minds. At first no one said anything. The silence seemed to last for a very long time. Finely one student raised her hand and said, “I thought about it and it seemed wrong to get college credit in European history by working at your polling business. It seemed unethical”.

If I learned one thing in John Zogby’s European history class, it was that John Zogby doesn’t like to be called “unethical”.

The man freaked out. To say he lost his temper is downplaying it. He said that he had never been accused of doing anything unethical before and he resented the implication.

He finally calmed down and even apologized for his tirade. He went on to explain that no one would be required to work at his polling place and that he wanted to just forget the whole thing. He then proceeded with that night’s lesson. That lasted for all of three minutes. He suddenly stopped the lecture and gave in to his anger all over again. He said that he could not get over the fact that anyone could accuse him of being unethical. He claimed that he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

I just remember feeling extremely uncomfortable. Why did he ask the question if he was going to have such a hissy fit over the answer? The whole thing seemed strange, especially considering that his business is based on asking people questions.

He eventually calmed down again. The class continued on. Thankfully, nothing more was said about it.

I ended up finishing the class receiving a “C” for a final grade. This can only mean I received and “F” on my final. There’s no other way for my grade to have dropped so much. I never got my final exam back. The exam was taken the last evening the class met. I only found out my final grade from getting something in the mail a few weeks later.

I remember feeling that the final exam was no more difficult then the midterm. I remember feeling confident after taking it. To think that I was able to score an “A” on the midterm and an “F” on the final seemed a little ridiculous to me.

I think he gave my final exam a failing grade not because I didn’t know the material, but because I originally agreed to work at his business and then reneged on the deal. Being that both tests were predominantly essay questions, he had a lot of room to be subjective. I’m not even sure at this point which of the two grades I deserved the least. The “A”on the midterm or the “F” on the final. For all I know, I only got an “A” on the midterm because I originally agreed to work at his polling center. In my opinion, he was being dishonest with at least one of the grades.

I would have complained to the school, but I had to take one more class to earn enough credits for my Associates degree. Something that at the time I thought was important to have. I didn’t want to rock the boat. Plus, I didn’t really care. My goal for the class was to get my 3 credit hours in history and move on.

I don’t know if John Zogby is unethical. For all I know, it’s completely ethical for community college teachers to base grades on how much unpaid work their students do for them at their place of business. Maybe that’s just the way it’s done.

I just wouldn’t trust anything he says or does.

Adolf Hitler explains why Blu-ray won the HD war against HD-DVD. Hilarious.

It’s called the Hummer HX Concept vehicle, but it looks remarkably like the Warthog vehicle in the Halo 3 game. Throw a chain gun on the back and it would be a dead ringer.

Director: Patrick Creadon
Writers: Patrick Creadon & Christine O’Malley
Runtime: 94 painfully boring minutes

What’s an 8-letter word for a movie that totally blows? The answer is a movie entitled Wordplay. It’s a documentary on the New York Times crossword puzzle and the people that do it. Not only the über crossword puzzle nerds that actually go to a crossword puzzle convention and competition every year in Stamford, Connecticut, but famous celebrities such as Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton.

I guess the reason they included celebrities in the documentary is to show that not all people that do the New York Times crossword puzzle are major dorks. Some are just regular people that do the crossword puzzle to unwind. I can’t help but remember what else President Clinton likes to do in his spare time to unwind. It involves a female intern and a cigar.

Forgive me if I don’t take anything Bill Clinton does as an example of normalcy.

These über crossword puzzle nerds don’t just do the New York Times crossword puzzle in pen, they do it while timing themselves. How do you make the New York Times crossword puzzle even more nerdy? By turning it into a speed event. Some of them keep logs documenting how long it takes them to complete the puzzle. The reason they do this is because the competition at the yearly convention at Stamford is timed.

The level of nerdiness displayed by these puzzles doers in comparison makes the Dungeon Master of my old Dungeons & Dragons group look like Fonzi.

Much of the movie takes place at the yearly convention in Stamford. The competition involves seven timed crossword puzzles with the final three people with the best scores moving on to the main event. They then do a puzzle up on stage using a large dry erase type white board while wearing sound-canceling headphones that look to have been invented in 1972.

Towards the end of the competition when the tension was at it’s highest level, I was thinking how funny it would be for someone to pull the fire alarm. If Stamford wasn’t a 7-hour drive, I’d probably seriously consider making the trip just so I could do it.

These people would freak out.

What’s sure to enrage female comic book fans, Tiffany Fallon is on the cover of Playboy magazine sans clothing with her body painted to look like Wonder Woman. The costume is a little off, but it’s certainly a Wonder Woman costume. What does that say about me when I look at a photo of a nude woman and I notice that her red boots are a little off because they don’t have the gold trim normally seen on Wonder Woman’s boots?

Part of me is somewhat surprised that Playboy magazine is still in circulation. Not only because it’s a magazine and magazines are a lot less prevalent in the age of the Internet, but because it is a magazine dedicated to showing pretty females in the buff. I would have thought the Internet would have replaced the need of a magazine such as Playboy. Maybe Playboy is for men that like to look at naked woman, but don’t know how to find porn on the Internet.

In other words, really dumb men. Not being able to find pictures of nude women on the Internet is a lot like not being able to find water at the ocean.

I have to admit that this doesn’t bother me all that much. I’m not a fan of the sexualization of comic book characters, but I guess that’s when it’s done by the actual comic book publishers. For instance, when Marvel Comics authorized that ridiculous Mary Jane Watson statue. The one where she is doing the laundry. For some reason, this doesn’t bug me too much.

It wouldn’t bother me either if Superman or Batman received the same treatment. In fact, I would think it was pretty funny.

I’m not even sure if DC Comics or their parent company, Warner Brothers, authorized Playboy to do this or if it fell into the territory of fair use. It’s not an exact copy of the Wonder Woman costume, but she is referred to as Wonder Woman on the bottom left of the cover.

Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Art: CHRIS WESTON
Colored By: CHRIS CHUCKRY
Lettered By: COMICRAFT
32 PAGES, $2.99

Golden Age heroes fighting for America during World War Two are captured in Germany by Nazis and put into Nazi deep freeze. The Nazis then get their ass kicked by the Russians. Nobody knows about these American heroes that have been placed into Nazi deep freeze. They remain in their state of Nazi deep freeze until 2008 when they are found by construction workers.

Evidently if there was one thing Nazis knew in 1945 was how to put superheroes into deep freeze. When they are frozen, they stay frozen.

This is when it gets a little kooky. For some reason, the U.S. Army is somehow able to take possession of the superheroes. Why exactly is beyond me. A general who had just recently watched the movie “The Untouchables” gets an idea. He quotes the “Sean Connery character” who says, “If you want to avoid getting a bad apple, don’t take it from the barrel. You take it from the tree.” He believes that these still Nazi deep frozen superheroes are the tree. They come from a time when the United States is beyond question the good guy and because of this will do anything the government tells them to do.

Maybe Kooky is too strong a word.

The heroes are then taken back to the United States where they are led to believe it’s still 1945. The belief is that the shock of finding out that it’s 2008 would just be too much for these superheroes to bare. Then again, if the idea is to get superheroes who are patriotic and believe everything their government tells them, maybe it’s not a good idea to start out lying to them.