Watched just in time for Christmas:

146. (2005.) Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

This movie is infamous because of how public response to its Santa-with-an-axe ad campaign ended up getting the movie pulled from theatrical release. But what it should be infamous for is how it twists the Batman's origin into a (lame) horror story.

As my Christmas gift to the world, I've translated the movie back into comic panels.

Now you can say you've seen Silent Night, Deadly Night (just like how for years I said I'd seen the R-rated Robocop when I'd only read the PG-rated Marvel Comics adaptation). Merry Christmas!

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Twitter very helpfully reminds me that today is Batman Day 2021. Explains the site: "Fans pay tribute to the DC Comics superhero on Batman Day, which is celebrated each year on the third Saturday of September." The only problem with that description is that it is not true.

Maybe Batman Day is held on the third Saturday of September since 2018, but it wasn't always. As I have documented elsewhere, Batman Day has been all over the calendar since it was first recognized in July 2014. But that's not the part I'm really bothered by.

The word "fans" in that description is misleading, unless you'd describe the corporations who own the Batman intellectual property as fans. Unlike Star Wars Day, which began as a genuine celebration of its source material before being taken over as a marketing exercise by The Walt Disney Co., Batman Day has never been anything other than a marketing exercise by WarnerMedia.

I wonder if whoever crafted that description for Twitter wasn't having a little fun with the wording. The phrase "pay tribute," which has come to mean a figurative giving of praise, was originally meant quite literally. A tribute is a tax levied on conquered peoples. Give your thanks (and dollars!) to your corporate masters, Bat-fans!

Which is not to say that I don't like Batman or think it's uncool to say how great the Caped Crusader is. I'd just like a little honesty in why we chose today to do it, is all.

Batman #119, October 1958

Honesty! It's what Batman would want.

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We interrupt this football and Batman month to review the following movies brought to you by the letter "S":

105. (1964.) The Salzburg Connection (1972)
The big question for most if this slightly-better-than-pedestrian spy thriller is whether or not the protagonist is actually a spy. It's not a complete waste of time if you like the genre (and I guess I do), but it's not exactly destination viewing, either. Honestly, almost everything about it feels like a missed opportunity to do something better.

106. (1965.) I Found Stella Parish (1935)
A melodrama about a woman running away from her past and the reporter who feigns a romantic interest to get her story. I watched it in the wee hours of the morning on TCM, and I really can't explain why I enjoyed it (sleep deprivation?), but I did.

109. (1968.) The Suicide Squad (2021)
I do not like the DC Comics character Harley Quinn, and after finally seeing her on screen in this movie, I can say that I like her even less now. (Based on the advice of my friends, I have deliberately not watched any of the movies Harley has been in before this one. Based on her role here, let me say that I have good friends.) If Harley wasn't in this film, it would be an instant classic, but her incredibly violent, absolutely unnecessary subplot left such a bad taste in my mouth that I couldn't enjoy the movie's final act. Ugh.

Some things cannot be washed down with a Coke.

111. (1970.) Seven Keys to Baldpate (1947)
It's a murder mystery comedy of errors! I didn't know it while I was watching, but the play this movie is based on has apparently been filmed 6 other times! This is the only comedic interpretation, and I enjoyed it. (Did I enjoy it enough that I want to watch it 6 more times? Only time will tell.)

More to come.

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Batman '66:

Batman '21:

via Tenor.com

What a difference half a century makes!

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Welcome to the 16th Annual Wriphe.com Batman and Football Month, now with 166% more disease!

A year ago, I looked upon the approaching college football season with trepidation and wrote

I get that the players want to play. As a fan, I want to watch. But just because we *want* football doesn't mean we're in a position to have it. If you're old enough and smart enough to go to college, you're old enough not to let your wants hurt you. If getting this pandemic under control, if ensuring that we break the chain of infections to protect ourselves, our families, and our neighbors means we have to stay in our homes (or dorms) and forego one football season, we should do that, even if we don't want to. Any other behavior is just irresponsible.

Oh, how naive I was in my youth. Let me show you how much things have changed in the state of Georgia in one year. This is August 2020:

And this is where we are in August 2021:

source: worldometers.info

A year-to-year gain of +7,000 cases on a graph that is still climbing! To get numbers like that, you have to be actively trying!

Just like in 2020, I bought UGA football season tickets in the early spring under the assumption that this whole pandemic thing might be under control by fall. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Granted, some things have changed in a year. In theory, the players have all been vaccinated (right?), so they should be safe enough (from COVID if not brain damage). But can the same be said for the fans? There's a non-zero overlap between the group of people who love to watch live football and the group of people who would rather kill children than wear a strip of cloth over their faces.

I'm fully vaccinated and have been since May, but vaccination is no guarantee that I can't get the virus. (If you like to be depressed, Google "breakthrough cases" and "vaccine efficacy decline".) Since we have yet to see any sign that this latest pandemic surge is ready to turn any corners, it looks like I'll be missing out on another season.

I guess I should have spent that ticket money on a new, larger television. I may be in my bunker for a long time yet to come.

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Every Batman fan worth his salt knows "The Joker's Comedy of Errors!", better known as "The Joker's Boner" story. Originally presented in Batman #66, Aug/Sep 1951, it can be summed up in one panel:

This is but one of 6 "boner" newspaper headlines in this story.

If you haven't read the story or you struggle with context clues, you might find it helpful to know that my trusty 1977 Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged defines "boner" thusly:

bōn´ẽr, n. a stupid or silly blunder. [Slang.]

As Batman #66 proves, newspaper editors love boners. Which brings us to the point of today's post.

In order to fill column space As a public service, The Newnan Times-Herald newspaper reprints food inspection reports from county restaurants. It's usually a lot of repeated warnings that store managers aren't checking the mold levels in their ice machines. (Come on, guys! It's right there in the Georgia Department of Public Health Rules and Regulations, Chapter 511-6-1-.05-7-b-5-iv-II!)

This month, in honor of Independence Day, the paper rewarded loyal readers by giving our local hot dog stand a boner of its own:

Oysters really are an aphrodisiac!

For the record, the restaurant calls itself "The Half Shell Oyster Bar & Hot Dog Shop." Rumor has it their menu was selected because the city wouldn't let them install an oven in their original location downtown, so they chose items they could cook with steam. (Welcome to Newnan!)

I've never had the oysters, but the chili dogs *are* pretty exciting.

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From the Mark Twain's Obituary Department:

When last we saw our hero, the Red Bee, he was dead. Very dead. Killed by Nazis in World War II dead. Having dinner with ghosts dead.

Well, guess what: He got better!

Dark Nights: Death Metal #5, November 2020

As happens in the funny books, competing gods have altered reality, changing heroes into villains and vice versa. Through a quirk of fate, in this altered reality Batman has been given the power to raise the dead to help him fight those gods, and Red Bee was among the lucky multitude of heroes he brought back from the beyond.

I don't know how a guy who dresses in a translucent blouse and whose super power consists entirely of training bees to sting on command will be of any help defeating gods... but I'm also not Batman. I'm sure he knows what he's doing.

Dark Nights: Death Metal #6, December 2020

In hindsight, Batman probably should have reanimated Michael, the Red Bee's trained bee. Michael was the one with the real powers, after all. All Red Bee really ever does is make his opponents uncomfortable with his sartorial choices. That's probably not going to be too useful against shadow demons who don't even wear pants.

Dark Nights: Death Metal #7, January 2021

Yeah, that went about as well as one might expect. Stay down, Bee!

The good news is that at the end of the fight, all of reality was reset once again. Assuming comic books survive the collapse of America, I'd say we've not seen the last of the Red Bee (or his gauzy sleeves).

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Slate.com's culture blog, Brow Beat, has published a satirical article that is too perfect. (I'm so jealous. I wish I'd thought of it first.) I'm reposting just the start to whet your appetite.

Don't Prosecute Gotham's Supervillains for Their Latest Scheme

Any attempt to bring the Joker to justice is likely to fail or backfire.

By THE JOKER   JAN 12, 2021 · 7:47 AM

It's been a traumatizing couple of weeks in Gotham City, full of unthinkable violence and chaos. We've all seen the appalling footage: the exploding shark, the pier bombing, and the United World Organization building—until last week, a powerful symbol of the democratic hopes of the entire world—being invaded, vandalized, and defiled by the "United Underworld," an alliance of the city's most dastardly criminals: Catwoman, the Penguin, the Riddler, and even the Joker, the coolest supervillain of them all (although his role in the plot was very minor or maybe even nonexistent, from what I'm hearing). People across Gotham are frustrated and angered, and the vicious, unwarranted vigilante attack launched by so-called crime fighters Batman and Robin against the crew of a whimsically decorated Navy surplus submarine in Gotham Harbor did nothing to lower the emotional temperature.

Now it appears that Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara are planning to bring criminal charges against the ringleaders of the United Underworld. This is a grave mistake. Our great city should be looking forward right now, not dwelling on the past. A trial would only dredge up traumatic memories and evidence of the terror unleashed by the Penguin, the Riddler, Catwoman, and possibly others. Criminal trials should not occur in the heat of the moment, if ever, and I fear that investigating this shameful incident any further would only be inflammatory and incriminating.

...

Read the rest at
https://slate.com/culture/2021/01/impeachment-prosecution-batman-joker-penguin-catwoman-riddler-united-underworld-kidnapping.html

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Batman #219, February 1970

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