Minimate Customs: Rocket Raccoon

Little (admittedly embarrassing) backstory here: a bunch of us over at the Minimate Multiverse (your home for all Minimate chat) have spent the last several years championing Avengers villain Kang as a shocking omission to the Marvel Minimate lineup.  Well, last spring, the impossible dream became a reality, as Kang received a Minimate.  The question now, among Minimate fans, was whom would we champion next?  Within days, this became an all-out Civil War, as factions were formed, alliances were created and broken, and general chaos reigned in the Minimate world.  Oh, the fun we had!  I'm sure anybody reading this that wasn't there is simply green with envy.

Anyhow... I threw my weight behind Rocket Raccoon.  Two reasons (besides Rocket Raccoon being awesome): one, he's become an important part of the Marvel Universe over the last decade; and two, I figured he was beyond my customizing skills.  While the former is certainly still true (even moreso, now that the Guardians of the Galaxy are heading towards the big screen), the latter actually ended up being incorrect....

On Guns and Violence, part 2

Here is a letter I sent to my Congressman, Republican Patrick Meehan of the Pennsylvania 7th District:

Dear Mr. Meehan:

As one of your constituents, I urge you to support the agenda to remake our gun laws put forth by President Obama today. Like so many Americans, I have become increasingly horrified by the amount of lives lost in the name of appeasing a few strident voices.  It is clear to me (as it should be to any student of American history) that this kind of unfettered access to weapons of war is not what our founders intended when they drafted the Bill of Rights. 

I work in a public setting, as a librarian; my wife works in a public setting as the associate rector of an Episcopal church, both within your district.  On more then occasion in the last few months I have lain awake at night imagining that we could be next.  All of us that work in public buildings are targets. What are we to do?  Turn our libraries and churches into fortresses, as Wayne LaPierre wishes to do to all our schools?  Does that really make more sense then simply making it harder for potential threats to get their hands on a weapon?

As a voter, I've always prided myself on being an independent, unaffiliated with any party.  Likewise, I've never believed in being a one issue voter.  However, I feel so strongly about this cause, and that ignoring these problems and rejecting these solutions is to be criminally negligent, that I would find it impossible to vote for a representative that would put the welfare of us all behind limiting the rights of a few.

Sincerely,
Kenneth Raining

I urge everyone to contact your Congressman and make sure that your voice is heard as this debate continues.  Find your Congressman at http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

I Know I Shouldn't be Surprised, But...

... I am surprised- shocked, really, and horrified- that the NFL is carrying on with tomorrow's Kansas City Chiefs- Carolina Panthers game in the wake of Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher murdering his girlfriend and then committing suicide in front of Chiefs coach Romeo Crennel and GM Scott Pioli.  I know that the NFL has never been known for its' sensitivity, but this strikes a new low.  Rather then allow an obviously distraught team(not to mention community) a day or two to collect themselves, the Chiefs will take the field a little more then 24 hours after one of their teammates orphaned his three- month old son daughter.  Crennel will have to try and lead his troops through a game with visions of one of them ending his life.  And why?  Because this is a heavyweight game between two playoff-bound titans.  Oh, nope, not that: the Panthers are 3-8, the Chiefs the worst team in the league at 1-10.  But, you see, this game has ramifications.  What if the game were cancelled, and the Denver Broncos miss out on a first-round bye because the Chiefs are only 1-14, and their strenghth of schedule is affected?  Wouldn't that be a tragedy?

No, of course it fucking wouldn't.

So now we know what's more important then football: nothing.  Not even death.  I'm sure that Crennel and the Chiefs players want to play... but they shouldn't.  Just like in every other profession, your place of work would be closed the day after a tragedy, since it's still a crime scene, for god's sake. The NFL has to be the voice of reason here.

In 1963, the week after John Kennedy was killed, the NFL played its' full slate of games to massive national criticism.  Legendary commishioner Pete Rozelle called it the greatest regret of his career.  Well, congratulations, Roger Goddell: by allowing a meaningless game to be played the day after an employee kills himself on your property, you're finally in Rozelle's class.

Minimate Customs: Calvin & Hobbes

It's been a while since I've shown off any customs.  The truth is that I've been none too active for most of the year, and so, despite the fact that I still have quite a backlog of 'mates to post, I haven't really been inspired to do so.  Well, that changed this week when I realized that a project I'd had on the back burner would make for a perfect entry in a contest my buddy Luke Porter's running.  The theme? Dynamic Duos.  My entry?  Well, see for yourself:

As Good an Explination as Any

The other day, my (soon to be) five year old daughter asked me why the Eagles are so bad.  I said I didn't know.  She then said "maybe the Eagles are so bad because Dr. Doofenshmirtz zapped them with an inator."  I said that makes as much sense as any other explanation.

On Guns and Violence

Last year, my wife took on the challenge of doing one new thing every day, which she recorded on her blog 365 Alive.  Among the many cool things she did was to go target shooting with my dad.  For me, as I was tagging along, this raised several ethical and moral dilemmas.  For one,  Dad suggested we bring our daughter along, something I was not comfortable with.  For another, he offered to let me shoot as well.  I had to think about this.  I've never held a gun, much less fired one.  In the end, I said thanks but no thanks, having decided that I'd rather spend my life knowing I've never squeezed a trigger, even in a controlled setting.

I can honestly, unequivocally, say that I hate guns and that I think the world would be a much better place without them.  Now, this doesn't mean that I hate gun enthusiasts; I don't hate my dad, obviously, whom I'd certainly term a responsible gun user.  But it does make me uncomfortable knowing he has weapons in the house, even if they are secured.  I don't know how long he's owned a gun, and I don't know if we had a gun in the house during my childhood, and frankly, I don't want to know.

I bring all this up now, obviously, as I continue to process the horrible shooting at a midnight screening of the new Batman movie in Colorado.  Of that, I don't think there's much to say.  But, as always seems to happen in the wake of these ever-more frequent public massacres, my own feelings have begun to shift from grief and horror to anger and bafflement that we as a nation and community don't seem more outraged.  Oh, we're all outraged at the shooter, no doubt.  But why aren't we more outraged that he had guns?

From all early evidence, it seems clear that the shooter purchased his weapons legally, and passed any background check required to purchase weapons.  And our collective response?  To shrug and say "well, he purchased the weapons legally".  Doesn't that very fact implicitly imply that it should be harder to get a gun?  That background checks and waiting periods are fine and good, but they do nothing to deter the citizen with no criminal record and murder in his heart?

Unfortunately, bizarrely, incidents like this, and the Gabby Giffords shooting, and the Virginia Tech shootings, and hell, even Columbine, in the same damn state, seem to do little to move public sentiment towards stricter gun laws.  I've gone beyond asking "what will it take?", because if those things won't convince a majority of the population that outlawing assault weapons is a good idea, I can't (and don't want to) imagine what will.

Here's what I'd like to ask every gun enthusiast, every NRA member, everyone that has fought against any legislation that would eliminate the general public's ability to purchase assault weapons: why?  Why do you need them?  What is the possible reason that any private citizen would need assault weapons, or body armor, or tear gas, or any of the other items used by this lunatic?  And, I'm sorry, but "I like them", or any answer that essentially comes down to "I like them" is simply not fucking good enough.  The argument that "if we outlaw guns, only criminals will have them" is such a strawman, because, firstly, of course only criminals will have them: that's the point.  If they're illegal, you're a criminal if you possess them.  But, more importantly, we'll never know how stricter gun laws will work.  We'll never know if James Holmes might have been deterred had he not been able to walk into a store and buy an item whose only purpose is mayhem.  But we know that he was able, and we should all be appalled by that truth.

Really, what I don't understand is why gun enthusiasts aren't more outraged that something they love is more perverted, and why the NRA isn't leading the charge for stricter gun laws.  Because, let me tell you, as a lifelong comic-book and Batman enthusiast, I'm pretty devastated right now.  It seems to me an inescapable conclusion that something I love contributed directly to the death of twelve people.

Brutal,violent imagery has become such an accepted part of our culture that we barely even blink any more.  My wife, in talking about this last night, told me that, as a comic book novice, the first time she read Preacher she could barely make it through the book, so appalled was she by the gratuitous violence.  Then, upon rereading it two years later, she barely noticed.  In just two years, she'd become almost completely desensitized to the violence.  I can't imagine what a lifetime of it has done to me.  But I'm not so desensitized yet to not be aware that comics have become far more brutal over the last twenty years, and that I wonder what exactly goes on in the heads of writers like Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, and Robert Kirkman that allows them to devise such elaborate depictions of death and mutilation.  It makes me sad that I have to be very careful of what comics I leave laying around my home, lest my four year old daughter pick up, say, the issue of Teen Titans where a beloved pet turns out to be a beast from Hell and brutally, graphically murders his owners.

I do not advocate censorship, nor do I believe a return to the Comics Code Authority is in order, but I do think that all of us that create, consume and enjoy Geek culture need to seriously evaluate how it has evolved.  It's not enough to say "that guy was sick; I enjoy violence, and I'm not going to shoot anyone, so I don't want it taken away or watered down"; any factor that may have contributed to a violent crime needs to be analyzed, not dismissed, certainly not for the sole purpose of keeping one's toys intact.

This post has been written in haste, and I freely admit that it comes from a place of emotion.  I will not presume that my opinions expressed herein will be popular, or are completely rational, but right now I'm just sick and tired of watching people die needlessly and saying nothing.  I welcome any rational, reasonable disagreements.

Minimate Customs: Earth-2 Huntress and Robin

When I began customizing Minimates, I had a short list of characters that I really wanted to do.  Some of these were pretty easy to do, as it turned out.  But there have been a few that stretched my (meager) skills, and actually completing those projects has been hugely satisfying.  You saw one last time I posted a custom, with the Rocketeer; today, you're going to see another, one of my all-time favorite characters, and longest gestating project.