I haven't forgotten you!

We're coming off spring break here, heading into another school year and it's looking to be a busy one.  As you can probably tell, I used my recent surplus of free time to work on my art.  After a year or more without completing anything of note and confining my drawing to doodles, sketches and experiments, I've once again re-dedicated myself to producing finished pieces.  I have this vague dream of eventually reviving my art career in some small way.  Back when I was a graphic designer, I had access to tools and time, but when I moved to Japan to teach English, art became just a hobby. 

I'd like to reverse that.

Oh, I have no idea where I'm going with this and I've been out of the game so long I don't even know where to start, beyond doing the actual drawings and paintings.  Most of the art jobs I see posted online take the form of, "Artist wanted.  I'm out to get rich as a famous comic book/children's book/animation person.  I've done the easy part and now I need someone to do the difficult, time-consuming stuff I don't know how to do so I can fulfill my dreams.  Your work must be of professional quality.  Looking for someone with the imagination of Dr. Seuss and the rendering skills of Norman Rockwell, so only send samples if you can meet my high standards.  Salary:  $0."

Anyway, between my quixotic ambitions and the work I'm actually paid to do, I haven't been spending much time reading or writing about comics.  I've got a couple of posts about Alex Toth's Dell work coming up, but you're probably going to find Spider-Man eating sandwiches and crap like that here for a while.

Coming up:  More Spider-Man, Supergirl versus Darkseid and Superman versus Batman!

News you can possibly use...

Hello, sports fans!  I mean, comic book fans!  I haven't gone away.  I'm just very busy at work making tests for my students.  Yes, I'm the bald psychic mentor of a group of teens with special powers.  They wear uniforms and work very hard.  What are their powers?  Some can speak English.  Some are very good at sports.  A few can make strange sounds that echo throughout the school.  They're not ready to save the world just yet, but give them time.

In case you're interested, here's what's up at When Comic Books Ruled the Earth.  I'm working on three big posts about the X-Men, communism and Lonnie Loomis.  We're going to have a two-part guest essay coming up soon, and I'm very excited about that.  I hope you are, too.  For now, let's--

What's that?  Cerebro has detected a doughnut in the school cafeteria.  TO ME, MY X-MEN!  AND BRING ME MY WALLET!

Earth bombarded with gamma rays in the 8th century, widespread Hulkism resulted

Apparently, two black holes collided way back in the 8th century and showered our little planet with gamma rays.  That finally explains the thousands of over-sized and oddly-proportioned human skeletons archaeologists have found over the years after excavating cemeteries of that era.  After careful study, scientists now report these roughly 1200-year-old skeletons appeared to be from individuals suffering from some kind of intermittent gigantism, possibly triggered by rage or other stress factors.

"These findings are incredible," Dr. Jacob Kurtzberg of the Thousand Oaks Institute of Medieval Studies, said at a press conference early Thursday.

His colleage, Dr. Stanley M. Lieber, added, "Frankly, we marvel at this new understanding of a crucial era in the development of European culture.  For example, it was during this period we noted the use of larger stones in architecture.  Previously we assumed this was due to advances in technology, but now we think they might have been the result of good old-fashioned muscle power."

Kurtzberg and Lieber then agreed that such gamma ray-induced gigantism might have rendered the individuals' skin a strange, unearthly coloration, such as gray, red or even green.  The scientists added that further research would be needed, as well as finding more well-preserved bodies with skin and muscle tissue remaining.

"I would also expect that tissue to be denser, much denser, than that of contemporaries who were unaffected by the rays," Kurtzberg said before lighting a large cigar and returning to work.

Lieber remained at the press conference for several hours, regaling reporters with stories of how he, Kurtzberg and several other scientists, each of whom he identified with an inventive, sometimes rhyming nickname, pieced together the stories of these hulking medieval people and their lives before closing the event with an obscure Latin word.