#kessler effect

[greatprinceofabraham]

sustainability-times.com

"#SpinLaunch’s unique #satellitedeployment strategy involves a...launch system utilizing a vacuum-sealed chamber & spinning arms for payload acceleration...#SuborbitalAccelerator has...demonstrated it's capabilities"

#KesslerEffect

https://www.sustainability-times.com/energy/china-issues-full-scale-alert-us-spinning-cannon-hurls-hundreds-of-flying-pancake-satellites-into-orbit-in-stunning-tech-leap/

[makeupeffectsarchive]

At the end of the iconic transformation sequence, Kessler becomes a 'juvenile' and less furred werewolf, nicknamed the 'man-beast' by the crew. It is only briefly seen in the final film.

The man-beast was a rod puppet operated by someone underneath the set, created from two different moulds - the body was a recasting of the transformation body mould, and the head was a recasting of the final werewolf mould.

[thebeetleguy]

i also lied btw guys. yugioh is infecting my brainspace as well. i have like 4 things trying to be fixations that are beating each other to death in my cranium. anyways here’s a wet dog i found on the side of the road

[ygoartreviews]

Infernity Doom Slinger

Hey man. You got a little something on your chest there. Yeah, it's right there, do you see it? No? Uh... Nevermind. Guess you couldn't see it considering... Well, like I said, nevermind. Anyway, this guy has such a cool look to him. It's probably because he looks so much like Vincent Valentine, just less goth and more cowboy. Doom Slinger also has the whole demon/devilish look going on too, mainly considering his jagged skull face, insectoid horns that overlap with his eye sockets, and glowing red eyes (separate from the red eyes on his chest, of course). Aside from Doom Slinger himself, I adore how the background looks like it was painted, especially the sky. Sure it maybe clashes with the actual focus of the art, but it's just so pretty in a gloomy sort of way.

Rating: 8/10

[lackadaisycats]

Hey everyone! There's a preview clip of Lackadaisy Episode 1 up on YouTube today! Rocky and Viktor have a heart-to-heart. Or something like that.

Watch the full thing here!

Clip above animated and cleaned up by Sam Kessler, Ashley Nichols, Robert Cox, Al Dens Manapat, and Ana Guerrero.

Compositing and effects by Matt Pichette, Michael Parsons, and RitoBandito.

Background art by Candice Messado and Jill Dykxhoorn.

Directed by Fable Siegel.

[haggishlyhagging]

The more women are paid, the less eager they are to marry. A 1982 study of three thousand singles found that women earning high incomes are almost twice as likely to want to remain unwed as women earning low incomes. "What is going to happen to marriage and childbearing in a society where women really have equality?" Princeton demographer Charles Westoff wondered in the Wall Street Journal in 1986. "The more economically independent women are, the less attractive marriage becomes."

Men in the '80s, on the other hand, were a little more anxious to marry than the press accounts let on. Single men far outnumbered women in dating services, matchmaking clubs, and the personals columns, all of which enjoyed explosive growth in the decade. In the mid-80s, video dating services were complaining of a three-to-one male-to-female sex ratio in their membership rolls. In fact, it had become common practice for dating services to admit single women at heavily reduced rates, even free memberships, in hopes of remedying the imbalance.

Personal ads were similarly lopsided. In an analysis of 1,200 ads in 1988, sociologist Theresa Montini found that most were placed by thirty-five-year-old heterosexual men and the vast majority "wanted a long-term relationship." Dating service directors reported that the majority of men they counseled were seeking spouses, not dates. When Great Expectations, the nation's largest dating service, surveyed its members in 1988, it found that 93 percent of the men wanted, within one year, to have either "a commitment with one person" or marriage. Only 7 percent of the men said they were seeking "lots of dates with different people." Asked to describe "what concerns you the day after you had sex with a new partner," only 9 percent of the men checked "Was I good?" while 42 percent said they were wondering whether it could lead to a "committed relationship."

These men had good cause to pursue nuptials; if there's one pattern that psychological studies have established, it's that the institution of marriage has an overwhelmingly salutary effect on men's mental health. "Being married," the prominent government demographer Paul Glick once estimated, "is about twice as advantageous to men as to women in terms of continued survival." Or, as family sociologist Jessie Bernard wrote in 1972:

“There are few findings more consistent, less equivocal, [and] more convincing, than the sometimes spectacular and always impressive superiority on almost every index—demographic, psychological, or social—of married over never-married men. Despite all the jokes about marriage in which men indulge, all the complaints they lodge against it, it is one of the greatest boons of their sex.”

Bernard's observation still applies. As Ronald C. Kessler, who tracks changes in men's mental health at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, says: "All this business about how hard it is to be a single woman doesn't make much sense when you look at what's really going on. It's single men who have the worst of it. When men marry, their mental health massively increases."

The mental health data, chronicled in dozens of studies that have looked at marital differences in the last forty years, are consistent and overwhelming: The suicide rate of single men is twice as high as that of married men. Single men suffer from nearly twice as many severe neurotic symptoms and are far more susceptible to nervous breakdowns, depression, even nightmares. And despite the all-American image of the carefree single cowboy, in reality bachelors are far more likely to be morose, passive, and phobic than married men.

When contrasted with single women, unwed men fared no better in mental health studies. Single men suffer from twice as many mental health impairments as single women; they are more depressed, more passive, more likely to experience nervous breakdowns and all the designated symptoms of psychological distress—from fainting to insomnia. In one study, one third of the single men scored high for severe neurotic symptoms; only 4 percent of the single women did.

-Susan Faludi, Backlash: the Undeclared War Against American Women

[saywhat-politics]

Donald Trump fired the man who likely saved his life: Former medical official

Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner and chief science officer of the White House Covid-19 Task Force, talks with Rachel Maddow about the devastating effects of Donald Trump's cuts to HHS, not only in dismantling important services, but compromising U.S. medical and scientific leadership to a degree that may not be recoverable for decades.

[henrikvanderhussy]

In this playthru of The Haunted Carousel, I focused on talking to characters as often as I could. CAR has always felt unfinished and short to me. A lot of the locations feel empty, with not enough to explore or look at, and not enough puzzles.

This approach of trying to talk to characters as often as possible definitely did make the game feel more substantial, and made me enjoy it a lot more! An interesting side effect though, is that it caused a bit of sequence breaking near the end.

So, early on, Ingrid tells you that her pliers are missing and to keep an eye out for them (obvs we will need to use the pliers later). And what's supposed to happen apparently is that near the end, you're mysteriously gifted the key that lets you open the door behind the radiator of the haunted house. After going through the door, you spot the pliers at the bottom of the stairs, go and pick them up, and have to get out quick before a booby-trap is activated and something falls on top of you.

What happened in my playthru is that I got the key, and instead of going to use it right away, I talked to a bunch of characters first and got clues about how to access Kessler's workshop. Later, I opened the door behind the radiator, went to the bottom of the stairs, and there was absolutely nothing. No pliers, no trap, nothing to look at or do. (I didn't remember at the time that the pliers were supposed to be there, and was just like "huh. what the hell was the point of this?") After that, when I got the arm from Ingrid for the haunted house decoration that needs fixed, she said I would need pliers, and I thought "oh shit, I never found the pliers. where they hell are they hiding?" Then I noticed they were suddenly in my inventory, without ever finding them and without Ingrid giving them to me.

I'm assuming that the missing sequence with the pliers was a bug that HeR was aware of prior to release, and the workaround was to just guarantee that the pliers were in the player's inventory at the correct time no matter what. It definitely seems like a common issue. I looked through various online walkthroughs and some of them didn't have the sequence in the haunted house. They just said "Ingrid gives you the pliers." (wrong, she does not)

There's also this reddit thread with some speculation about the cause. It seems to happen when you to get to the point of fixing the decoration earlier than the intended sequence. Which, I'm assuming I did by talking to everyone and getting info from them instead of going directly to opening the door behind the radiator after receiving the key.

Obviously this didn't break the game or anything, but it does mess up the logic a little. Without the booby-trap (which implies that the key came from the culprit as a trap), there's no reason for us to have been given the key! It's a weird dangling thread!

[clonerightsagenda]

I've got a new existentially terrible space fact for you tonight.

Most of us understand the mechanics of the greenhouse effect. As greenhouse gases build up, they trap heat underneath them. This also means the layers of atmosphere above the greenhouse gases actually cool down. The thermosphere is the layer of our atmosphere where most of our low Earth orbit satellites hang out (as well as the ISS). Cooling temperatures cause the thermosphere to shrink and become less dense.

Why is this a problem? Well, ideally, satellites these days de-orbit themselves at the end of their lifespan so they'll burn up on re-entry. If they aren't built to do that, though, we count on atmospheric drag to slowly knock them out of orbit. A thinner thermosphere means less drag, which means it'll take longer for space junk to fall out of orbit. More space junk equals a higher likelihood of my personal nightmare, Kessler syndrome, which can take out existing satellites and drastically decrease our orbital carrying capacity (number of satellites we can keep in orbit).

Climate change! How else can it fuck us up!

[locke-esque-monster]

One of the things I really loved about S4 of The Boys was about how a lot of the characters were struggling with dual identities and the trauma/pain that often comes with that.

Victoria Neuman brought up the point explicitly in episode 5 with Annie, and while she was right about understanding Annie, she was wrong she was one of the few that would.

Sure, Victoria and Annie are the most obvious with their supe and human roles.

But then there's A-Train, trying to be a good person and help The Boys, while trying to hide that to keep his role in The Seven.

MM, struggling to keep his cool and be a family man, but also lead The Boys.

Daphne - how she struggled to be a good mother to Hughie and hide her depression, until she couldn't do both anymore.

Robert Singer, and how he's publicly embracing Victoria while privately aware of her powers and authorizing her murder.

Homelander and whatever the hell is happening with his multiple personalities.

The Deep - hiding his relationship with Ambrosius because it would ruin his image.

Black Noir - literally hiding his actual identity to play someone he doesn't understand.

Frenchie and Kimiko - both trying to come to terms with the terrible things they've done in the past and how that guilt carries over into who they are now.

Arguably most obvious - Butcher - as he wars with the imaginary devil and angel on his shoulders - represented by Kessler and Becca.

It's one thing for a show to have all these characters grapple with this, but to really be effective storytelling you need to have an answer. Or at least a path forward.

And I think Kimiko said it best - that they have to forgive themselves a little. Because I think that's how you reconcile those dual identities into one person.

[makeupeffectsarchive]

The final form of David Kessler was originally intended to be bipedal, like the werewolves Rick Baker was previously designing on The Howling; however, John Landis was insistent that the final film's beast be 'a four-legged hound from hell'.

The inspiration for the Kessler Wolf's final design came from none other than Baker's pet Keeshond, Bosco. Keeshonds have a very shaggy mane of fur, something that was added to the werewolf around its furless face. The face itself would never be shown fully except for some brief frames, so Baker had a vicious expression sculpted for the face so that any shot would catch it.

Being a quadruped presented problems for Baker; he was anxious about not wanting to have it be 'two men in a suit' a la a pantomime horse. Baker remembered wheelbarrow races he had done as a kid, and thus decided the werewolf was to be a man on a wheeled board, wearing the main wolf suit. The suit's arms had the actors own inside them, but the back legs were puppeteered. Three heads were made, with a hero animatronic head able to do snarling expressions and two stunt heads for the attack sequences. All the heads were able to have their jaws open and close for the snapping.

[totalfrybag87]

I’ve never seen people so divided over an episode of The Boys before. Granted I wasn’t active in the online fandom until the tail end of the Season 3 rollout but I digress. What did y’all think if the newest episode? (Under the cut are my thoughts)

So um. I’m really half-n-half with this week’s episode.

There are a lot of things that I enjoyed:

- A-Train saving MM and then him and the kid smiling at each other at the hospital (kripke do not harm my pookie…)

- The Joe Kessler hallucination reveal (even though it was obvious, JDM ate that monologue UP!)

- A-Train and Kimiko interaction cuz how tf does Tek Knight have the perfect titles for books in there??? Also the last time they interacted (from what I remember) is from season 1 where they tried to kill each other so seeing them cooperate is cool.

- The Deep giving the new Noir some direction, something he desperately needed, and effectively radicalizing him (also shows how with a little push from Sage he went off the deep end. Ha.)

- The key book unlocking the dungeon being 120 days of sodom because…. Ofc it is

- Dumb sage interacting with HL and Victoria

- HL realizing he ain’t that smart when it comes to politics and can’t buzzword his way into political domination AND ALMOST CRYING LMAO? Also it affirmed what Barbara said in episode 4 about his need for love.

- Victoria saving HL’s ass cuz SHE is the actual politician and knows what she’s doing #girlboss

- Breast milk nut shot, had me screaming early in the morning cuz that actually shocked me

- Tek Knight being tortured via Starlight, Kimiko, Hughie (and Laddio) donating millions to causes that go against him i.e. The Innocence Project

- Tek Knight dying HALLELUJAH!!! Get that racist rich man gone.

- Hughie acknowledging that he was not okay at the end because with the shit he went through, no one would be.

But, I do have my gripes:

- Hughie’s SA scene. Way too long. Did I have to see him get violated for like half the episode?

- The dialogue. This emcompasses multiple episodes but the dialogue is so…. Edgy? To the point where it’s cringeworthy at times. It’s like that meme “If Vivziepop Wrote The Boys” and it’s just unecessary cursing or awkwardly placed cussing. Like why are these grown adults cursing like middle schoolers who just discovered “fuck shit bitch” for the first time?

- The Supe Virus. Sooooo it was fucking useless okay. But this does leave the door open for Sage. She is obviously not on Homelander’s side, she’s just there for her master plan of overthrowing him (that caesar line? Come on). I feel like she could pull off some double agent shit and help The Boys with the virus. If she can discover a cure for a disease at 11, she can definitely adjust the inner workings of a virus in her 30s. I hope that’s what happens in this season or at least in the next season. (Writers do not fail me now)

- Eric Kripke admitting that Hughie’s SA scene was supposed to be funny like bro what? You were able to handle Annie’s with grace but now that it’s a guy it’s funny now? I can understand making his situation somewhat comedic but really disturbing cuz that’s how I initially interpreted it and it’s really absurd if you decide to unpack the scene (okay i’m going undercover, wuh oh now i’m in a sex dungeon and am about to be dominated :0). But yeah, weird asf. Poor Hughie man. SOURCE

- This episode felt like filler. It’s like they sacrificed narrative progression for Hughie getting tortured. Let’s see what exactly happened in this episode that moved the general narrative forward (at least what I picked up on): A-Train redeeming himself more leading to his eventually defection from The Seven, Joe Kessler hallucination reveal, Sage sorta kinda losing her reliability with HL due to her getting shot in the head, The Deep radicalizing Black Noir 2, The Boys getting dirt on Victoria I guess. Idk I feel like we could’ve gotten more relevant plot moments had they just cut up the SA scene.

But that’s just what I think, lemme know your thoughts.

[ygoartreviews]

Infernity Guardian

Damn, I’ve seen Infernity cards before, but this one??? Easily the coolest one I’ve seen yet. A lot of the Infernity monsters have “creepy little guy” looks, but with this one they just went straight flaming demon skull. I assume that the flames + black frame are a portal of some kind that the skull is coming out of, but I guess it could also be interpreted as just a part of the monster itself. I kinda like my interpretation because the skull could be seen as the guardian of the portal, but either way, I guess it’s guarding something. The background feels a little unusual for a fiend type card, but I really love the color contrast with the main monster.

Rating: 10/10

[lackadaisycats]

A little bit of rough Rocky animation for Season 1, by Sam Kessler and Hyrika!

There's a longer animation preview available on Patreon and for YouTube Channel Members.

------------------

We've recently opened up YouTube Channel Memberships as a Patreon alternative because, unfortunately, Apple is forcing some changes to Patreon that are likely to be detrimental to a lot of Creators in garnering new pledges.

Starting in November, Apple will be charging its 30% App Store fee on top of new pledges made through the Patreon iOS app. If you're an existing Patron, this won't affect you. You won't incur any new charges. If you're looking to sign up anew to support anyone's Patreon, though, you can bypass the extra Apple fees being charged to you or to the Creator by signing up and managing your account via desktop or mobile browser. The Lackadaisy Patreon will continue updating numerous times each month as it has always done. Still, we expect this to have an overall detrimental effect to support, especially when it comes to garnering new pledges, so we decided we best branch out a little. If you're interested in YouTube Channel Membership, visit the Lackadaisy YouTube Channel and click on the 'Join' button (next to the Subscribe button) to view a breakdown of the perks!

[joe-spookyy]

asks you about american werewolf in london

hoooly shit it’s finally happened. someone asked me The question. thanks anon.

i am now going to try and sell you all on this movie cause i can’t recommend it enough and i think everyone should watch it. so: let me tell you a thing or two about hit 1981 horror comedy an american werewolf in london!!! and this is off the top of my head so if any of it is slightly off numbers wise im sorry. if you like 80s horror, men, queercoding, re-animator, the thing, jaws, saw, the lost boys, or just werewolves in general. hear me out on this one. link included to watch.

The Premise:

fresh off the heels of his cocaine fueled jazz musical masterpiece The Blues Brothers (1980), director john landis decided he was going to cook up the greatest film ever made. and he did. he was actually gonna have john belushi (jake blues) and dan akyroyd (elwood blues and yes the ghostbuster) play the two main characters, david kessler and jack goodman. now, who are these fellas? well i’m so glad you asked. david (played by david naughton) and jack (played by griffin dunne) are two dear pals from new york on a cute little backpacking trip across europe. david's the tall one. he's silly and gleeful to be out and about. jack is the short one. he's very much not gleeful about the fact that they're on the rainy moors and wishes they were in rome. together they find their way to a cute little pub and go inside, looking for hot drinks. the locals do not love this. they also do not love when jack asks them why there's a five pointed star on the wall (since lon chaney and universal studios assert that that's the mark of the wolfman!) it gets awkward. so they leave, with nothing but the warning to stay off the moors, stick to the roads, and beware of the moon. obviously, they do not follow this. wouldn't make for a very interesting movie if they did. and, as i'm sure you've assumed, they encounter a werewolf, leaving jack like this (dead):

and david, who survived the attack, with the curse of the werewolf. but fear not! david is transported to a hospital where he makes a lovely recovery, and jack um. well he stays dead. but he comes back to haunt david! he shows up a few more times in further states of decay to tell david that he really ought to just kill himself so that the curse is broken, jack and all the other werewolf victims can rest in peace, and david won't accidentally maul any additional civilians as a werewolf. hey while we're talking about jack heres me when i dressed up as him at a horror con. and the man himself.

anyways. hijinks ensue, and you're taken on a delightful romp across 97 minutes of fun as david tries to navigate life as... you guessed it. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON!

why it rules:

in my opinion, that's enough to make this movie flames as fuck. but if you're not convinced yet? let me tell you some more. first off. the practical effects on this bad boy are straight up excellent. they're done by my personal favorite vfx artist rick baker (who also worked on star wars, men in black, videodrome, king kong and more!), and he does not hold back. the picture of jack shows how nasty and detailed the wound is pretty well, but in action it's even better with all the nasty fleshy bits dangling and wiggling and eugh. it's gross. but it's so well done. and he does a terrific job showing how jack decays throughout the rest of the movie. but of course, what really matters is the werewolf. it's not called an american dead guy in london. which is good. cause that would be a dumb name for a movie. anyways. if we’re going to talk about the werewolf, we have to start with the iconic transformation scene. sped up.

wow! pretty impressive stuff right? it’s all practical, no cgi, and i think the way it’s almost drawn out and the relative silence of the scene adds to the impact it has, since it sort of forces the audience to sit with and feel just a little bit of the discomfort that david seems to be feeling. we just have to watch him scream in pain and beg for mercy. yeesh. now, the transformation scene is hard to top. but i think the final werewolf design is actually pretty solid. it’s distinctly not man, but it’s also distinctly not wolf. i would include a picture, but i feel like part of the allure of the film is how it (jaws style) doesn’t really let you get a good look at the monster itself until the end of the movie. it’s a great way to build the tension and leave a little bit up to the audience’s interpretation. and the audience will always imagine something way more horrible than you could have ever created. which is kind of beautiful. the first time i watched, i found myself kind of disappointed in the werewolf’s appearance - its face seemed to be stuck in a sort of permanent scowl. i was kind of lost, because i couldn’t imagine why a static face had won out over whatever the vfx team was clearly capable of making. but Oh. dear reader. when nurse alex price, david’s dear love, who cared for him in the hospital, allowed him to live with her, and even banged him, approaches the wolf. when she tells david she loves him. the wolf’s eyes soften. it begins to drop the snarl. see. i lied here’s part of the wolf. all snarly like and scary. before it melts at three simple words from alex. god.

it hits me like a huge truck every single time. rick baker never misses and this movie was certainly not an exception. he got an academy award for it and it was well deserved.

not so into the technical stuff? that’s okay. i have more to praise about this movie. it is one of the best blends of horror and comedy that i’ve ever encountered. although some of it looks a little dated, i do think it maintains its fear factor. it’s plenty gory, and in my humble opinion, the subway scene (you’ll know it when you see it) is one of the most effective bits of horror i’ve ever encountered. even when isolated from the film, it still packs a punch. but i’m not gonna put it here because i want you to just watch it with the rest of the movie. sorry. and on top of the horror, it’s honestly hilarious. if you don’t think seven dead people ganging up on one dude and listing ways he should kill himself in the middle of a porn theater while a porno plays very loudly in the background. well. i don’t know what to tell you. you probably won’t like this movie that much. also, the final needle drop over the credits at the end is so abrupt and so funny. love it.

and of course, being an 80s horror movie with two male leads. i’m sure you can guess what i’m going to say. it is not hard to read jack and david as friends, but it’s also not very difficult to read them as having a little something going on. like love. fellas is it gay to go on a little trip across england with just yoh and your best bro? hard to say. textually, i do think it’s kind of telling that every time jack shows up, it’s either right after or while david is having a heterosexual experience (flirting with alex, banging alex, watching straight porn in the porn theater.) it’s almost like… something other than jack… is haunting david. i dunno. i’m not a cop. but it’s interesting. seems like something the average tumblr user might like to keep an eye on, so i’m letting you know. also they have a conversation while david is completely naked which is like. hello. plus the inherent queerness of the werewolf narrative is something i could talk about for HOURS and was especially prevalent, alongside vampire movies. in the 80s during the aids crisis. my short essay on this ⬇️

also, there’s a classic john landis third act car crash scene, where, in the same vein as the blues brothers, an obscene amount of cars are absolutely demolished.

also also, the muppets make a brief appearance in this movie. this made me jump for joy, because i love the muppets. and you should too.

fun and true facts

still not sold? well, check out this last ditch effort in the form of fun facts. or, if you just want to know more, read on.

micheal jackson was so impressed by the effects in this movie, particularly the transformation scene, that after seeing it, he promptly hired rock baker (vfx guy) and john landis (director guy) to work on the music video for his hit song thriller. you’ve probably seen it, but if not, go watch it. tbh, even if you have seen it before, go watch it again.

david naughton was a doctor pepper spokesman before the filming of this movie. he was in at least a few bits of promotional material, including at least one commercial. unfortunately he lost the job because of the amount of time he spent dick out in this movie. doctor pepper did not want that to be the representation of their brand. cowards, the lot of them.

speaking of his dick, you actually never fully see it at any point in the movie despite the fact that it seems they never felt like telling david to wear pants on set. there is a reason for this! david (character) is jewish and canonically circumcised (dunno how else to put it) and david (actor) is neither of these things. so, to avoid ruining the realism in his. werewolf movie. john landis took great care to never show the whole thing.

the american ambassador who visits david in the hospital is played by frank oz, who also voices miss piggy. because of her brief cameo, he technically plays two different roles in this movie, although miss piggy is simply credited as “Herself” in the end credits of the movie. he also voices yoda which isn’t relevant but it is really funny to me.

see you next wednesday, which is the name of the porno in the movie, is actually a fun john landis easter egg! many of his movies include the phrase “see you next wednesday.” it’s also seen on posters in the subway scene.

in the scene where jack first visits david in the hospital, he was supposed to take a bite of david’s toast, after which it would immediately fall out of his ruined and torn to shreds throat. however, it was cut for being too gross. which is sad i feel like it could have been funny.

when david calls home to talk to his parents, he mentions two siblings: rachel and max. these are the names of the directors children in real life.

griffin dunne, who plays jack, also appears as the family therapist in a season 2 episode of succession. this was a jumpscare.

while they were filming the naked in the zoo scenes, they were unable to actually close the zoo, so when filming carried on past the opening time of the park, they just kept going and allowed butt naked david naughton to run loose around the zoo. they did, however, succeed in closing piccadilly circus for the car crash scene.

in the beginning when jack is being attacked by the werewolf, it was in fact half a wolf prop on the front of a wheelbarrow. this is a very funny vision for me.

jack is right - the five pointed star is considered the mark of the wolfman, according to 1941’s The Wolf Man, played by lon chaney junior and produced by universal pictures. the guy knows his stuff. interestingly, rick baker did the makeup for the 2010 remake of the wolf man as well. he did pretty good, i think.

this isn’t even about this movie but blues brothers is an awesome film too and a fun fact about that one is there was a whole part of the budget devoted to buying cocaine. and you can tell. great movie.

director john landis did in fact kill three people the year after this movie came out. so. i do feel a little bad promoting it because jesus christ. but. no harm no foul in pirating it. it’s one easy internet archive search away. and sometimes it’s on tubi. but just in case, here’s the internet archive link. https://archive.org/details/an-american-werewolf-in-london

so. anyways. please check out this baller ass movie and talk to me about it. thank you so much to whoever asked this. i love you. thanks for reading. bye.

[unfunky-and-out-of-time]

real talk why bother reading the boys like is ANY of it actually any good or is it really just constant rampant bigotry

hi! it's a really interesting and warranted question. i'll talk a bit about my thoughts on it!

in short: the main the boys comic is a collection of edgy and offensive writing with at least some interesting moments of sociopolitical commentary. i hesitate to write off the former from coming from a place of pure bigotry (and i'll explain why in a bit). still, it employs racist, misogynistic and homophobic tropes without offering any subversion. this makes it unenjoyable and indefensible, no matter what the author's intentions might be. beyond this, it simply is a mediocre story.

in the spin-offs (by which i mean butcher, baker, candlestickmaker and dear becky), i see the potential for character analysis, as well as character expansion, especially for certain characters i felt were neglected in the show. it's for that reason i even bother with them.

rambling a bit more about it:

(a small disclaimer: i didn't take the time to more specifically research garth ennis' past and current writing beyond what i'll mention because i honestly am just not that interested.)

i never bothered to fully read the main comic and it just bored me. i was mostly interested in exploring how ennis tied up his story to compare it with where we are standing now with s4. there are surprisingly more similarities than i thought? there's a functional analogue for the virus at least and butcher (who in the comics is more like kessler) wants to use that. more's not important. i just hope they go the same route w butcher's death

the spin-offs are a bit different to me. garth ennis treats butcher markedly different because he's such a butcher glazer and it shows. he loves him!!! he's protective of him even on the show if you've read a few articles about it. unfortunately, it hindered him from fleshing him and his flaws out for the most part in the comics. dear becky digs into it a bit more but it's just too little, too late in my eyes.

dear becky dials the violence and shock factor from what you might know from the comics. i always call it "an apology for the edgy writing of the main comic" because of how different it feels at times, how it ""only now"" addresses certain topics (which mind you the show hasn't done itself…) it's a really strange case and the comics will have these every now and then—it's why i hesitate to write them off fully and immediately.

(panel from dear becky)

this part stood out to me when i first read it. to me, it ties back to how becca's rape is handled in the show (keeping it short because this could be a whole new post). comic becca (becky) is a flat character that serves as the main motivation for comic butcher's whole arc—she's quite simply an egregious example for fridging and is never given any depth because she's long dead before the main story ever takes place. the show fleshes her out much more and gives her the opportunity to make (in those terrible circumstances) a choice for herself and more specifically a choice that goes against butcher, our main character and ennis' absolute favorite. it serves to criticize and deconstruct his motivations and to me it's very effective. ennis cant take this approach as strongly because becky was always supposed to be dead and because he’s incapable of criticizing his favorite character and creation.

i've said it before, but it's exactly this writing that ends up falling flat in s4—with hughie being sexually assaulted for laughs, annie's abortion only serving as conflict fodder, frenchie being confirmed to be bisexual while also past seasons writing him as a victim of sexual abuse. even becca in s4 can't escape it. kessler is introduced as an opposite force to becca and he is more expressive in how he is allowed to approach butcher. he's directly misogynistic in how he confronts becca—he was even supposed to hit her based on the leaks which, judging by how many of those were correct, was cut very late in post production. becca is stripped of her autonomy and reduced again to her attachment to butcher and she is made the victim of male violence again.

you have the drop of quality on the show to a level that feels more in tune with ennis' original writing of the characters. it really made me wonder… why?

from a character writing perspective, the comic fails in multiple ways and it goes back to my earlier point. ennis likes butcher so much, he twists the story to suit his actions. again and again. multiple characters suffer as a result of it—if you can call them characters, sometimes they're really just the closest thing he can have to giving him a fourth wall to speak to. the supes in the stories are really nothing but a justification for all his anger. there are very few characters that can hold their ground to his attitude. mallory comes to mind, and he ends up getting killed by butcher so the messaging is pretty clear. ennis gives butcher the decor of a necessary anti-hero through a tragic backstory and an honorable military background and cartoonishly evil antagonists. and omg just once again i need to point out he is never criticized for it!! it's unbearable. butcher is the core of the comic and the majority of the flaws of the comic are reflected in him.

the show obviously handles butcher infinitely better. you can probably count a million reasons why yourself so i'll skip that part. i wanna point out something in particular that really drives home the difference. butcher's backstory in the show has been changed to having served in the war on terror, specifically in special forces. he's been confirmed to have been a war criminal already back in s2 when the butcher short film was written and filmed and then again in s4, though i have my issues with how it's portrayed… like a sort of "fond reminiscing" of his crimes with kessler that in my opinion will go over the head of most viewers (at the cost of dehumanizing very real victims). however, if you consider how back in s1 and s2 homelander as a figure more strongly represented bushism and bush-era politics (through his call for militarization and the focus on "super terrorists" in the regions bush and the US have waged war on), this juxtaposition adds a further layer to the satire—that is unfortunately only ever left between the lines after s2. still, it's the sort of writing for butcher ennis never would've bothered with. ennis has been a vocal critic of the war on terror and US politics post 9/11 especially in his works and sometimes i do wonder what he thinks of this aspect of butcher's character LMFAO

(from here)

i think these moments of commentary are interesting… the story is just not there.

i can't tell you if the shows politics at its core are so much better. i question the morals of any man who finds a drawn out sexual assault scene of a male character "hilarious". i'll always view the comic in a slightly different light because it's the vision of a single person and published more independently.

i don't look to the show for well-written leftist takes because it is a show funded by amazon, a company notorious for having made its money off the exploitation and denial of the most basic of rights of its workers; because it's a show run by eric kripke, because it's a show that has kept a zionist and former idf squad leader employed for five seasons.

i don't look to the comic for well-written leftist takes because it draws on racist, misogynistic, homophobic tropes over and over again and offers little to no critical depth of its characters.

that being said, there's a level of US-criticism we won't ever see in the show and i consider the overreliance on "parody" of current school of conservative thought very glaring and weak. to me, it hides the major issues of US politics that have landed us in this current political climate. and those go back further than just what s3 and s4 cover.

here's a review of ennis' punisher run from 2004 that reads in a very interesting way…

i haven't read his punisher stuff and i probably won't. but that's a level of direct critique of current US politics we'll never get with the show. and i know we didn't really get it with the comic either because the comic just sucks like… narratively. but it comes from a piece written by ennis and though i disagree with the guy on so many aspects, it's still something i take into consideration.

to answer: why bother reading the boys? is any of it actually any good? it's not good as in entertaining and it really doesn't treat its characters very well. you're allowed to have higher standards in this day and age and i'd beg you to. however, after s4 turned out to be so terrible i was just really curious to see what the writers were working with.

i don't regret it as much because it's given me a new perspective through which to view the story that i otherwise might not have cared for as much. it's not constant rampant bigotry that comes from a place of hatred of minorities as much as it's just mostly mediocre writing to paint a very black-and-white moral picture. it doesn't make it any better of course.

my considerations above are mostly to try and shine a bit of a light onto the environment that influenced the comic (and to draw a comparison to the show) and also try to explain why my attitude to it might be a bit different without excusing it.