And so the year is at an end. Despite all the craziness that went down (Which I’ll get to), I’m relieved to say that it flew by fast for me.
Here’s Will Eisner’s “A Moment of Destiny” from the December 29th 1946 Spirit Section. As usual, there are a lot of “-isms” that come up, but don’t let that spoil the fun. It’s an irony-tinged comedy of errors you won’t soon forget. All © Will Eisner.
By the way, as much as I enjoy this story, I must point out that it’s a retelling of an earlier Spirit story, the 1941 Thanksgiving special “Eustace the Turkey”, which I had intended to post for Thanksgiving, but couldn’t because several of the pages just wouldn’t scan.
It may take place on a different date and involve a different sort of bird, but the basic plot remains the same, with the Napoleon and Hamlet references intact.
The biggest difference is that the Parelli character isn’t really Italian, but an American thief in disguise. The fate of the bird is also somewhat crueler:
As I’ve demonstrated, carbon-copy retellings like this could be both pretty shameless and pretty common, but it says something about Will Eisner’s talent that, even when ripping himself off, he could still make his retelling as entertaining as the original, even better in some aspects.
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Let’s also take a moment to recap the triumphs and tragedies of this year:
- Politicians, the media, celebrities, and soccer moms all over the country showed their true colors when they tried to turn various horrific national tragedies into blame games so that they could further their own vendettas er, I mean agendas, and by contrast, made the entertainment industry, it’s fans, and even otherwise notoriously self-absorbed celebrities come out looking like the bigger men.
- The same media also helped alert many comics fans to their colorblindness by revealing to us that the Joker’s hair was orange, when we’d all thought it was green this whole time.
- People started finally catching on that Breaking Bad was good.
- People started finally catching on that The Walking Dead was an overrated potboiler that people were taking too seriously. Rednecks certainly helped.
- Jaleel White busting a move on Dancing with the Stars proved that the 90’s truly have returned.
- DC comics officially became 90’s Image, possibly to go along with Jaleel’s plot to bring the 90’s back.
- Speaking of signs of the coming apocalypse, Harold Camping moved further up on everyone’s shit list when Mayan Apocalypse Day rolled around this month and no one had any enthusiasm for it after last year’s big bash. I’d been hoping to go buy some old clothes from Goodwill, fill them with dry ice and leave them outside to scare my neighbors into thinking the rapture had begun. I also had plans to dress up like a crazy homeless person and run around telling everyone that the end is nigh. Ahh, such fun that would have been, but no one had any enthusiasm.
Party pooper.
- Marvel tried yet another gimmick to make people give a shit about post OMD Spider-Man. People still have failed to give that shit.
- Amazon review bashing became popularized by comedy website Least Helpful.com, proving I’m not alone.
- Seven Psychopaths proved to be the best dark comedy anyone has made in ages. Seriously, check it out.
- The Amazing Spider-Man proved to be incredibly well-made and enjoyable, but ultimately unnecessary.
- The above also applies to Cooke’s Minutemen limited series.
- In a truly ballsy move, Cracked.com finally took a stand and called out the idiots who whine about Justin Bieber everywhere on the internet. I wish someone had done it sooner. Personally, I would have gone more in depth by showing how, if they really were the mature and educated music sophisticates that they all pretend to be, then they wouldn’t even know who he is in the first place. I’d never even have heard of him if it wasn’t for all of their whining. As far as I’m concerned, his haters are his fans. Still, it's a start.
- The Avengers was above and beyond awesome.
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And so that’s that. Happy New Year!
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