Howdy all!  Today’s comic came kind of late and with a muddy punchline.  I like the idea of a king needing his “papers”, but I couldn’t get a better joke out of it.  Eh, it happens.

I have two rant-like tidbits for you today.  Firstly, I was meandering over the quotes section of my facebook page (no one even checks those sections anymore), and I noticed a quote from Alan Moore I had noted about the nature of comics.  I had totally forgotten I wrote it down, and in a minute, I will share it, but only before I get something out of the way, as the name “Alan Moore” tends to bring a lot of moans from people in the comic crowd as, if you’re going to act like a comic snob and talk about “artsy” comics (but you’re an idiot), Alan Moore is the first name you learn (nothing against Mr. Moore… that’s just the nature of idiot artsy comic fans).

Alan Moore is one of the most divisive voices in comic books.  I know a lot of people who love him, and a lot of people who out-right loath him.

I’m in the middle.

Some of his work is some of my favorite comic work out there (Top Ten is insanely fun, his run on Swamp Thing is the stuff of legend, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is fantastic).

Some of his work is stupidly overrated.  Watchmen is great for what it did for comics, and while many aspects of the book are phenomenal, especially David Gibbons’ art, I don’t think it’s the Holy Bible of comic book like a lot of people think… seriously who read the Tales of the Black Freighter parts of the book?  And the squid ending… while shocking when it first happens, gets sillier every time I read it.  And V for Vendetta bores the tears out of me.

Some of his work is flat-out terrible.  The less you know about Lost Girls, the better off you are as a human being.

But Alan Moore, however you feel about him, is one of the most outspoken voices for the value of the medium of comics.  He’s wickedly intelligent and, especially on the subject of his own artform, deviously brilliant:

“One thing is that with the comics medium, it has been proven—I believe by Pentagon tests in the late ’80s—that comics are actually the best medium for imparting information to somebody in a form that they will retain and remember. That’s not just me saying that, that’s the Pentagon.

I personally feel—and this is just pseudo-scientific hippie bullshit—I feel this might be because the unit of currency of what used to be called our left brain is the word. Our left brain is what goes about speech and rationality. The unit of currency for our right brain, conversely, would be the image, because the right brain is preverbal.

So perhaps it is because of the combination of words and images in a readable form that comics does have this unique power.”

I spent most of my day today (as I spend most of my day everyday now that I’m unemployed) drawing comics.  Either drawing Meaningless here, or DropKick, or one of my other comic book projects.  And today I had finished a page that I am especially proud of, and I was hit with this complete euphoric joy that I couldn’t quite explain.  I really connected to the comic medium in a hippy, tree-hugger kind of way.  And coming across that Alan Moore quote I noted so long ago just hit it all home.

My final bit of ramble today is to draw your attention to this fantastic article I read on Slate today, which covers the history of the 1957 Civil Rights Act.  Not the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but the act that came before it… in 1957.  I know a lot of people upset about the current health care bill.  I know a lot of people (hello family) who hate that it exists at all.  I know a lot of people who hate that it’s watered down and no-where near as revolutionary as they want it to be (hello friends).  I see it how this article portrays it, as a stepping stone to a larger legislative movement.  Legislation moves slowly in our country, and it’s a good thing, as otherwise if we jumped radical change into the system all the time, our government would move with the tide of the media and the mainstream attitudes of the country.  Our laws would change like the opinions of a teenager.  “I love Susie today.  Now I love Mary.  I want to wear death-metal t-shirts!  Now I want to be uber-Christian.”

Moving slowly allows change to develop naturally.  The pieces of the new health care system will be laid out slowly and allowed to grow if they are beneficial or die if they are not.  The Civil Rights movement moved in a surprisingly similar fashion, like this article displays.  I found it to be very interesting.

That’s all!  I know I’ve been kind of serious today.  To help fix that, here’s this: