[Ray Bradbury died today]

I was filching my seventh cup of caffeinated splendor from the coffee machine when a coworker came rushing towards me. He had mustard on his shirt and concern in his eyes. “Hey man, how’re you holding up? You all right?”

After taking a rip of coffee, I proceeded. “Rodrigo, what the hell’re you talkin’ about? Why wouldn’t I be all right?”

“Oh shit, I thought you heard…Dude, Ray Bradbury died.”

“Bwahahaha,” I sprayed coffee all over my dress-pants. “That’s hilarious!

Rodrigo was befuddled. “Hilarious? I thought you’d be upset. Isn’t Bradbury your favorite author?”

“Of course he is! Bradbury straddles the lines between science fiction and fantasy and parable like no other! He’s an avuncular horror-master, a winsome conveyor of the fantastic! Fahrenheit 451! The Illustrated Man! The Martian Chronicles! How could Bradbury not be my favorite?”

“So,” Rodrigo ventured forth cautiously, “you love Ray Bradbury but don’t care that he’s dead?”

I once again found myself struggling to spill the coffee past the bulwark of laughter and into my gullet. Finally successful, I wiped an errant tear streaming down my cheek and broke into a smile. I’d help my coworker understand.

“Ray Bradbury  can’t die. When he was twelve years old, Mr. Electrico imbued him with the power to live forever! And now, regardless of what’s happened to his corporeal form, Ray’s going to be with us forever.”

[Ray Bradbury is going to live forever]

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June is upon us my friends. And that can mean only two things, beach days and high school graduations. This high five will be dealing with the latter. As a new high school grad, there are some notions of college life that have to be explained. Where better to look than the silver screen? These are the top 5 movies every prospective college student should see, and subsequently emulate (not really) if they want to fully embrace the collegiate experience.

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All hands on deck!

It appears that Spaceship Omega has inadvertently veered off course. Somehow, perhaps because Navigator Burton fell asleep after drinking too many Pepsi-and-gasoline cocktails, we have slipped into a pocket of spacetime usually avoided at all costs. That’s right, folks, batten down the hatches and brace yourselves! We’re headed right for it!

The beginning of the workweek!

As wave after wave of ennui, minutiae, and stress wash over us, we can rest assured. For every passenger of Spaceship Omega has a spot in the refuge known as the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE! What is this sanctuary, you ask? Well, this is where I take the time to show you the various bits of entertainment and mind-drivel I’ll be using to survive the onslaught of real-world responsibilities. Then, you hit up the comments section and tell us which floatation device you’ll be clinging to when your ass is tossed into the Ocean of Obligation.

Yes, beneath the half-baked metaphors and bleeding-heart-on-my-sleeve hyperbole, it’s folks tryin’ to point one another in the direction of cool shit.

Oh no! Another wave! Let’s do this!

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I don’t go gaga over celebrities.   There’s no band in existence I want to see before I die.   There are very few people that I put on pedestals. Why is this?   What makes me different?   Well, I’m a sociopath for one, so its easy to dismiss all other beings as supporting players in my movie of life.   The other reason is George Lucas.   He taught me that no one is bullet proof.   He was my first hero, and he failed me.   I’m not bitter, it made me stronger.   The solution was to hero worship people whose accomplishments were complete.   People who could no longer ruin their legacy.   So, since there are no living people that I would want to have a beer with, these are the people of the past that I would love to sit down, throw a few back, and discuss the finer points of life with.

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There is no shortage of taxons for comics creators. There’re the Marvel guys and the DC guys, the independent bros and the artsy-gals. Some artists are known for illustrating superheroes and some writers are summoned to script crime noir. When we think of members of the comic book community, chances’re pretty good that we pigeonhole `em.

But I think I’ve come across a breed entirely unique unto itself.

As a writer, this being has brought fan-beloved and critically-acclaimed series into existence. In the editorial department, this same comics-creature has made contributions that have earned him both an Eisner Award and a Harvey Award. Upon further inspection, it appears that this individual is now rummaging through the Creator-Owned Forest, using Kickstarter to put comics directly into readers’ hands.

What are we to call this amazing creature? Here’s a name – Mark Andrew Smith.

Mark Andrew Smith is the writer behind such works as The Amazing Joy Buzzards, Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors and The New Brighton Archaeological Society. Moreover, he is one of the editors that helped elevate Popgun to the award-winning status it knows today. So after learning about Mr. Smith’s plans to distribute Sullivan’s Sluggers (a collaboration with the mighty James Stokoe) via Kickstarter, I sought an interview and was obliged!

Hit the hyperspace jump to check out Mark Andrew Smith’s thoughts on finding inspiration, the daily life of a comic book writer, and what conditions would have to be met for him to drink with Hemingway!

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Let me tell you a story that my superiors at the Time Guild wouldn’t want you to know.

A couple of days ago, I decided that I wanted to travel to the year 195,000 BCE. Since it was the weekend, I had to use my personal time-machine, which I actually prefer to the stodgy contraption they allot me at the office. However, without the Guild’s temporal disinhibitor-ray, it was up to me to craft a suitable concoction. So after filling my gut with three liters of Pepsi Max, taking a shot of bourbon, and huffing paint thinner for the better part of an hour, I stumbled into my broom closet and passed out.

There you have it – my secret recipe for spacetime fabric softener.

Anyways, when I came to I was in the dense jungles of prehistory. Looking skyward, I saw a pterodactyl soaring majestically. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I looked to the ocean just in time to catch a glance of a megalodon snapping a leviathan in half before submerging once again. And on the path before me, two cavemen bros riding their steeds, a saber-toothed tiger and a mastodon, respectively.

The caveman on the saber-toothed tiger was the first to see me, and he quickly pointed me out to his buddy. “Daniel, check it out! It’s another one of those dudes from Beyond the Wheel.” He waved to me invitingly, “C’mon over, man!”

I was nervous, but I obliged.

The other caveman hopped off his mastodon and shook my hand. “Hey there! My name’s Daniel and this is my friend Hollis. Who might you be, Beyonder?”

“Pleasure to meet you, Daniel and Hollis. My name is Rendar Frankenstein and I’m from the year 2012. Well, actually, I’m originally from 1986 but I’ve caught up to 2012, and I guess that’s when I’m not shifting all over. I’ve been to a lot of points in the 20th century, and hell, I’ve even gone back Plato’s cave and the Garden of Eden and beyond that. You guys ever see 2001?”

Blank stares.

I laughed. “My bad! Anyways, what’re ya’ll up to?”

With a pat on my back, Hollis clued me in. “We’re actually about to meet back up with the tribe and raid a T-Rex nest. With those things on your feet,” he pointed to my hi-tops, “you could really help us out. You want in?”

Long story short – dinosaurs were murdered, the caveman tribe was victorious, and I got to start off today by having a prehistoric omelet.

Just don’t tell my superiors at the Time Guild. I need this job, and they’re lookin’ for a reason to can me.

–-

Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute! I’m going to list off the various ways I’ll be salvaging my (dwindling) sanity during the workweek. It’s then your duty to hit up the comments section and share your own recipe for mental-refuge. C’mon, ain’t this the whole point of an Internet community?

Let’s stab this dino in the heart with a fuckin’ bone-shard dagger!

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Take a look at those two faces.  Those are probably the two smartest, and most well-connected men in King’s Landing, and even they’re confused and unprepared.  They don’t really have a handle on what’s coming next week.  The capital isn’t prepared for Stannis’ impending invasion fleet.  But, as with most story threads laid out in this week’s otherwise hollow episode, the hint of hope is teased for much more to come in the final two episodes of the season.

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We all are the heroes of our own stories.   So what does that make our friends?   Our loyal sidekicks of course.   But if they are the heroes of their own stories, does that make us their sidekicks?   It’s a bit confusing.   So today’s High 5 is a salute to the sidekicks and second fiddles out there that don’t have identity issues.   They are there to support our lovable protagonists and put their own interests aside for the sake of their friend’s goals.   So here we go, these are the people I want riding shotgun if I have to step up and save the world … or solve a crime … or find a way to get reasonable prices on Red Sox tickets (If I even wanted to see a 5^th place team in person).

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As a lifelong nerd, I occasionally delude myself into thinking that I’ve acquired superpowers. Truth be told, most of the time my faux-epiphanies are innocuous. So instead of jumping to my death in a moment of perceived super-flight, I just render myself nauseous after a hyper-metabolism delusion inspires me to eat fifty buffalo wings too many.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking, and I can’t disagree. I’m the type of moron that gives comic book fans a bad rap. But every now and then, my fantasies enable me to do something pretty rad.

For example, what would happen if I stopped thinking of myself as a hack-writer/petty-blogger? What if I started to believe that I could actually correspond with artists whose work I admire? And what if, in the midst of this Pepsi-drinkin’ daydream, I actually contacted someone in the hopes of sharing their words with the world?

Well, then we’d get a feature like the one I’m about to present — an interview with Farel Dalrymple.

As one of the founders of Meathaus, the creator of Pop Gun War, and one of the artists currently working on PROPHET with Brandon Graham, Farel Dalrymple is a comics creator worthy of respect and admiration. Despite his incredible workload, Mr. Dalrymple was gracious enough to respond to my semi-coherent questions. And this might just be the type of reinforcement that convinces that I do have superpowers after all.

Dangerous.

Punch it into hyperspace to see Farel Dalrymple’s thoughts on comics anthologies, his current work, and even Type   O Negative.

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Better Off Dead is one of the best high school comedies about the absurdity of adolescence. It presents a myriad of predicaments that could conceivably mire a typical student’s well-being–mental, familiar, financial, social, and sexual, just to name a few–and runs wild with them all for the express purpose of laying waste to the insecurities and hang-ups that concern most people during this weird time in life. Every romantic hiccup is exaggerated to disastrous dimensions; every apparent shortcoming is tantamount to total deficiency. In turn, most of these problems that might trouble a young person are revealed to be completely laughable when they are properly framed for bizarre effect: anything this ridiculous and cartoonish should not be taken seriously, and issues even remotely similar to them should, as a result, become less world-crushing. When it can’t get any worse, it can only get better, and Better Off Dead is leaps and bounds funnier than many other comedies because it’s more than willing to go to some humiliating and hilarious lows before its protagonist ascends the proverbial mountain in the end.

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