Authors, particularly new and unproven ones, have to use promotional events to drive sales. Google Analytics can provide useful information about which cities are worth promoting in. The conventional wisdom is probably that the most readers for the typical book can be found in large cities (NYC, Chicago, LA…) But you can probably do a lot better than just hitting up large cities.

For example, we’ve tabulated our numbers for January 2008 and found that Atlanta and Toronto currently have almost as many Superhero Nation readers as NYC.

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For an explanation of the Jimmy Carter killer rabbit attack, please see here.

If you would like this bumper-sticker on your car, you can look at it here. We’re selling it for $4, of which $.45 goes to the “Save the Starving English-Major Fund.” No pressure! Five will buy us a McDonald’s fish sandwich, 15 will buy us a Chipotle burrito, and 25 will buy us a panini sandwich and a glass of orgo-soy milk. [B. Mac adds: anyone that spends $3 on a glass of milk, let alone FAKE milk, deserves to starve].

Perhaps you’ve heard the proverb that teaching a man to fish goes farther than giving him a fish sandwich. That’s true. “So how can I teach a starving English-major to feed himself, Cadet Davis?” Well… if you’re feeling especially generous and have a large vehicle (like a hummer or an aircraft carrier), I’d estimate that I’m 250,000 249,998 bumper-stickers south of an English degree. At that point, I still won’t be able to pay for my own food, but at least I’ll know how to write grant proposals.

[B. Mac adds: hey, don't forget the Starving Political-Scientist Fund! These bumper-stickers don't write themselves, you know. *winks*]

Picture taken courtesy of NetteBini.

Agent Orange Campaign Poster: BELIEVE

This poster is a sendup of Shepard Fairey’s campaign posters for Barack Obama.

This poster can be purchased for $10 here. (Our art may LOOK communist, but we’re not).

This is part of a life insurance ad that I found very amusing.

Someone used The Sims 2 to make a music video for the Men in Black theme. Normally, I think efforts like this are hackish. But this one was quite funny, particularly from :48-55. If you were writing the script for the music video, it would be like casting IRS agents as dancers and then telling them to improvise Thriller.

I also found the series of bunny hops at around 1:25 perversely amusing.

On April 30, we changed headers…

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Oiur resident political scientist plays with the numbers and concludes that Hillary Clinton could very well end up winning the popular vote.

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Picture taken from Trykemom.

The current crop of presidential candidates leaves us yearning for someone who can plausibly claim the mantle of Commando in Chief. By a vote of 2-1-1-1, Agent Black beats Catastrophe, Lash and Paingod as our preferred candidate. As far as presidential candidates go, I think these runner-ups aren’t bad (certainly more credible than Huckabee or Biden), but they have several key electoral disadvantages compared to Agent Black.

1. Catastrophe isn’t human. Even if we put nonhumans in his camp, Florida only has a million alligators.
2. Lash is black and, probably worse, a New Yorker that works for an organization called the “Social Justice League.” Even without using racially-tinged imagery, you wouldn’t need Lee Atwater or Karl Rove to turn that into a 45 state massacre. If John McCain survives to Election Day, maybe 49.
3. Paingod’s a supervillain. That hasn’t stopped Lex Luthor, Tempus and Savage Dragon’s nemesis from running for the White House, but it would presumably be an obstacle. (“Well, I won’t vote for a Mormon, black, or divorcee… but I guess I could give Paingod another chance”).

If you would like to see this pin at our Zazzle store, please click here.

Note: you may have noticed that this post isn’t tagged with the “National Service” category. That isn’t accidental.

I love Zazzle for selling custom apparel, but its choice of models is a little bit… questionable.

(You can see the shirt here).

This article looks at some rough drafts of Superhero Nation t-shirts and some of the marketing and business considerations of selling your own apparel.

For our first t-shirt version (the expensive one), I assembled a few cast-members on the front and a few funny quotes on the back. It’s a nice shirt, especially if you like the way our characters look, but I suspect that we will have pricing problems.

To see this image full-size, please click here.

Pricing, Marketing and Aesthetics

Currently, we’re looking at a reasonably high price of $20 $15 for this shirt. By selling on Zazzle, we have taken $5 off the price-tag (compared to CafePress). Have I mentioned that Zazzle’s design features are considerably better and more flexible?

We are also working on a cheaper, $10 alternative. I think it’ll look something like this one-sided shirt.

Theoretically, we could take prices even lower by cutting down the number of colors and printing/selling them ourselves. I doubt we have the time, money and salesmanship to make that work, though. As time allows, I will try to provide a rough business model for two different sets of entrepreneurs: those that sell goods through third-party vendors like CafePress, and those that actually invest money and try to distribute the goods themselves.

T-Shirt #3

The next one is a parody of the US Navy’s Accelerate Your Life slogan, brought to you by the conspicuously high-mortality Office of Special Investigations.

Finals is really putting a hurt on us, but within a week or two you will be able to buy the final versions of these drafts at our Zazzle store.

Superheroes should never ask “are you thinking what I’m thinking?” The answer is never helpful.

But where could you find that much nitroglycerin at this hour?

–Dr. Darpa

Unless your IQ has tripled since we’ve last spoken, probably not.

–Catastrophe

You are now.

–Mr. Mental

Don’t flatter yourself.

–Paingod

Science plays heavily in many superhero stories. So, today, instead of coming up with some pithy quote about science, we’ve used others to do so for us.

What is science?

Hocus pocus, but with less hand-waving.

– Agent Orange

Always being within a carton of baking soda of a doomsday device.

– Dr. Darpa

Like Hollywood, except without the beautiful women, oversized budgets and snappy outfits. Actually, it’s not like Hollywood at all, besides the explosions.

–Dr. Savant

A series of triumphs over unpleasant realities.

– Jacob Mallow

Pretty awful. Stick to game theory.

– Catastrophe

Agent Orange: I have learned something important about mammals. Two quasi-mystical words will put a mammal into a hypnotic stupor that will force him to believe anything.

Agent Black: You’re crazy.

Agent Orange: I am prepared to demonstrate my new-found learning of mammalian psychology. First, I will greet a victim-mammal of your selection. Then you will make an outlandish statement. And I will administer the two word hypnotic spell.

Agent Black: Let’s see it.

Five minutes later.

Agent Orange: Greetings, Mammal-Darpa! We have learned something intriguing on our latest posting.

Dr. Darpa: What?

Agent Black: We were attacked by robotic, flesh-eating airplanes.

Agent Orange: IN JAPAN!

Agent Black: … !

Dr. Darpa: Egads! How did you survive?

Agent Black: …

Agent Black: NO!

[end] (If you’d be interested in reading a related article, “Stuff Mammals Like: Japan,” please see more.

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This art is used by Red Alert 2, a video game that portrays an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States.  There’s a major artistic flaw in the drawing (and it’s not that there are enormous blimps attacking New York, of course)… can you spot it? I’ve got the answer at the bottom.

In this picture, the blimps are facing the same way as the Statue of Liberty. However, the Statue of Liberty doesn’t face towards the United States, it faces towards the ocean! These blimps are not attacking– they’re fleeing.

Here are several quotes from the book Soon I Will be Invincible. Which character says them? You have three choices: a mutant cat created in a lab accident, a genius millionaire turned businessman and a whiny teen idol. If you expect this will be easy, you obviously haven’t read SIWBI.

“This is all geek stuff.”

“Maybe you should be at work, then. Spend some time on the streets.”

“He always looks fine. I know you two kept in touch.”

“Darkness? Crime, you mean.”

“You honestly think there’s something behind this.”

“We haven’t seen a serious threat for almost a year. I’m almost bored.”

The first four are from the mutant cat and the last two are from the genius businessman. If you’re wondering why a mutated cat would use phrases like “geek stuff,” you’re not alone. I’d like to note that none of these lines actually came from the whiny teen idol, but most of them sound like they should have.

(You can read our much longer SIWBI review here).

This article will help you organize the plotline of your story or novel.

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Somehow, I suspect that the individual who got to Superhero Nation by Googling Air Force Office of Special Investigations business cards didn’t stay very long. [I hope he wasn't at work-- B. Mac]

We also got a query for do alligators have thumbs? . Turning to our resident reptologist, P.G…

No. Although alligator feet bear some superficial resemblances to human hands, they aren’t really used for much except traction.

FROM [name removed]
ABIDJAN COTE D IVOIRE
EMAIL [removed]

URGENT BUSINESS

DEAR B. MAC,

I GOT YOUR CONTACT FROM NANOWRIMO.ORG I KNOW YOU MIGHT BE SURPRISE SEEING MY MAIL I AM [name] , FROM ABIDJAN COTE DIVOIRE IN SOUTH AFRICA. AND I AM SOLICITING FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE TO HELP ME TRANSFER THE SUM 7.5MILLION EURO PRESENTLY DEPOSITED IN A SECURITY COMPANY IN EUROPE. IF YOU SIGNIFY YOUR INTREST I WILL GIVE YOU THE FULL DETAILS OF THE TRANSACTION INCLUDING THE DOCUMENTS BACKING THIS DEPOSIT AND FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE 15% OF THE TOTAL SUM IS FOR YOUR COMPENSATION.

From B. Mac
Washington, DC

Dear [Name]

As luck would have it, I’ve been waiting for just the right venture partner, a canny operator that properly appreciates the value of randomly soliciting business partners through amateur writing contests.  I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather involve in a 7 digit* transaction than someone who identifies himself by an initial and writes under the login name “SuperheroNation.”
(*8, if you use real money).

I have enclosed the deposit information for my Paypal account. Please deposit the 7.5 million and I will see to it that you receive your 85%.

Yours,
B. Mac

P.S. Isn’t Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire in West Africa?

Agent Black stumbles into the Special Investigations lunchroom, his face and suit covered with ashes, dust and blood.

Captain Carnage: You look like you done tried your IRS mojo on a Texas woman.

Agent Black: Would you rather have Agent Orange drive a car or handle a submachine gun?

Captain Carnage: Is that a trick question?

Agent Black: Do I look like I’m feeling tricky right now?

Captain Carnage: Well, is Agent Orange in a combat zone on another continent, or is he somewhere where a red light actually means something?

Agent Black: Washington, DC. In my car.

Captain Carnage: Hotdamn, kid. I wouldn’t get in a tank if I knew O.J. was driving it. Give him the submachine gun, I reckon it’s less likely to hurt nastylike when he gets you killed. Those damn reptiles, they drive like everyone’s limbs grow back.

Agent Black: So, I was driving Orange. He was late to a meeting on Capitol Hill.

Captain Carnage: Hooh boy. I like where this is going.

Agent Black: We got a red light and Agent Orange says something like “why are you stopped? Keep moving, keep moving, dummy.”

Captain Carnage: Alligators reckon green and red’re the same color. When they talk about traffic lights, y’just gotta take it like Congress talking about collateral. They’re talking, but they’re not really talking, y’reckon?

Agent Black: Well, uhh. I’d heard about the green-red colorblind thing before. So I said “shuddap, I know we’re late.” And then the back of our car exploded.

Captain Carnage: Rocket launcher ambush?

Agent Black: Ambushes.

Captain Carnage: Many?

Agent Black: Four cars.

Captain Carnage: Hot damn! So you had to pick between driving or shooting. Damn sure he ain’t doing the driving. He makes NASCAR look like bumper cars. You know he once managed 8 digits of damage with a golf-cart?

Agent Black: I believe it.

Captain Carnage: Since you survived, I reckon you gave him the gun. But how did he shoot it? His hands are big enough to palm a rifle.

Agent Black: I took the gun.

Captain Carnage: But that means…

Captain Carnage: !

Agent Black: I long for death’s sweet embrace.

Later that day:

Agent Orange: Greetings, mammal-Mike!

Mike: The Captain said you had an interesting day today.

Agent Orange: I met a wily mammal-gelatoier.

Mike: A gelatoier?

Agent Orange: A mammal that sells gelato. He introduced me to the seedy and sinister gelato underworld by tricking me with a gallon of orange-flavored gelato. That was very interesting. No doubt Mike-flavored gelato would interest you. But his alleged “orange” flavor was not even remotely similar to my real orange flavor, which proves that it was a foul ruse. I also seem to have lost feeling in my digestive tract. In retrospect, I have concluded that gallons of orange gelato are better-suited to mammals than cold-bloods.

Mike: I think Carnage was referring to an attempted assassination with rocket launchers.

Agent Orange: Oh, there was that, too.

Mike: …

Mike: Don’t you think that was a little bit more interesting than the gelato?

Agent Orange: (Mammals). Before today, I had not ever been offered gelato, let alone gelato that was (purportedly) in my flavor. But assassination attempts are a dime a dozen. In fact, perhaps the gelato was an assassination attempt.

Usually, we wait a month before doing major header changes. However, we got slightly new art, so I wanted to rotate that in as quickly as possible.

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Good salesmanship involves a call to action: do this and you will get that.

The Zombie Defense Coalition probably has the best call to action I’ve ever seen. “Join us and survive the undead hordes.” YES.

Agent Black: You’ve claimed that alligators invented football, baseball and basketball.

Agent Orange: That’s right.

Agent Black: … (Do I even want to know?)

Agent Orange:

Many generations of alligators ago, before the Swamp and before widely available chemical mutagens, my alligator ancestors lived in a state of total boredom.  There was painfully little to joke about besides the pathetic failings of crocodiles, which were obvious even in those dark times.  And, given that there weren’t any mammals, we couldn’t even make fun of golf.

One day a brash, stupid crocodile (to the extent that any crocodile can be unusually stupid) challenged a legendary alligator, the Gregarious One, to a wrestling spectacle. Unsurprisingly, the crowds of gators and crocodiles bore witness to a quick slaughter. Within ten seconds, the crocodile’s head had come clean off. The disappointed crowds began to disperse. The Gregarious One shouted them to attention.

He challenged the crocodiles to stop him and his gator compatriots from ejecting the head of the offending crocodile from the Everglades.  The crocodiles chased the G.O. to the dark ridges at the edge of the glades, where he fooled them into thinking that he would kick the head away. But the kick was a fake, and the crocodiles were entirely unprepared for his bold victory march. Thus the first football game was a Gators victory, 6-0.

Agent Black: …

Agent Black: What about baseball?

Agent Orange: Well… the alligators weren’t quite done with the ball when they took it out of the Everglades.

Agent Orange, paraphrasing Groucho Marx: “Outside of an alligator, a rocket launcher is certainly your best friend. Inside of an alligator, I’d recommend a gun.”

that John Quincy Adams kept a pet alligator in the White House?

It is only when a politician speaks clearly that he is required to “clarify” himself.

–paraphrased from Thomas Sowell

I highly recommend Selling the General, a wacky (and free!) short story about a publicist that works for a genocidal dictator. Its characters are strange enough to be funny but normal enough that you can relate to them on some level.

STG is well-written and have I mentioned that it’s free?

“Gator Nation is more like a cult than a nation, but there are elements of patriotism mixed in with its religiosity.”

–An anonymous LSU sociologist, shortly before bursting into tears

This LSU supporter’s comment is reasonably insightful. But the bonds between Gator Nation, patriotism and faith are actually tighter than he knows. The Gator Gods will wreak horrible fates on teams that prove unworthy…

Agent Orange, our mutated alligator, has already provided a set of Stuff Mammals Like. Now, he offers this insight into Stuff Gators Like.

1. Steve Irwin. Anyone that hunts crocodiles is a friend of gatorkind. And he survived a wrestling match with Albert the Florida Gator, which proves that he is highly esteemed by the Gator Gods.
2. The Gator Gods. These benevolent divine beings are the source of gator virtues, foremost among them friendliness, charity and bloodlust. The Gator Gods frequently bestow great blessings upon their chosen ones the gators, like the unfairly gifted Tim Tebow.  (See also Janikowski’s Curse of the Gator). In exchange for these blessings, the Gator Gods jealously demand worship (the Gator Chomp) and tribute (FSU blood).
3. Sweet, sweet victory. The first gator to use the phrase “rebuilding season” will be summarily sacrificed to appease the Gator Gods. They are not without compassion, but the total exclusion of the Gators from March Madness was merely the latest sign that the Gator Gods. Are. Angry. We fail to slake their thirst for blood at our own peril.

Web Gumbo provides a great picture of his unit mascot. You might wonder what a Marine mascot does. Deliver pep talks? Rally the fans? Please.

Agent Orange, our mutated alligator, says that “it’s not surprising that they turned to an alligator when they needed someone to scare and bond with Marines. Here you can see the gator playing Marco Polo with a Marine that is obviously enjoying the gator’s friendly and sociable company.”

Lash retorts retorts that “if the guy’s actually enjoying anything, it’s probably the thought that he will soon not be dangling over a watery grave.”

Seth Godin had an interesting, brief post on organization. He finds that alphabetical order is not the best way to organize most things– he argues that relevance is a better measure of organization than arbitrary letter rankings.

I think that applies to sites as well. Most blogging platforms organize posts chronologically by default, but that’s a terrible way to organize information. If someone leaves and later returns, it will be virtually impossible for them to pick up where they left off. If you wanted to send an article you read yesterday to a friend, your only hope is to search through all the posts again. The only strength of chronological organization is that it’s relatively easy to tell when there’s an update.

Avinash at Occam’s Razor has a better approach: a site-map. He splits his articles into a few rational categories and then orders articles within those categories chronologically. That’s effective because it ties articles together in a logical way. If you liked his first article on web analytics, you can run down the list and find ten more in a row. Avinash’s site-map wisely includes dates. That, too, is effective because it helps readers quickly identify if there have been updates and where they can be found.

I like Superhero Nation’s organization– a combination of widgets and chronological ordering– but that clearly pales before a real map. If you look at the widget on the left labelled “Writing About Superheroes,” you can see that we’ve only included links to six articles there and then added a link to a map for our superhero writing articles. Widgets are a great start, but they will probably grow inadequate as you accumulate content. How many widget-links can you use before people’s eyes glaze over? Probably 20, at most. But we have 500 posts (including 120 quotes of the day and 60 articles on writing).

On April 14, we did our monthly header change. (Note: this post is actually dated April 13– we always date our non-comedy posts a day off so that our top post is always comedy).

Here, glance at the two headers and see if you can spot what’s changed.

Original

Revision

The main change is a slight edit to our caption, from “…guide to superhero politics” to “superhero comedy.” I think “politics” scares potential readers and most of our posts aren’t political. Also, I think that people naturally associate “politics” with “propaganda” rather than comedy, entertainment or anything that would encourage them to stick around. So politics had to go.

This looks like a minor change. If I showed the original to 100 people and then showed them the new version 10 minutes later, maybe 5 would realize what was changed. But I suspect that this will significantly reduce our bounce-rate (5-10%). People are quite good at appreciating differences, even if they don’t consciously realize what they’re doing. I’ll release preliminary Google Analytics results in a week to show whether it’s had an impact. Over the past week, our BR was in the mid-to-high 60s.

By comparison, Google Analytics says that Comics and Animation sites have an average BR in the mid-40s. I suspect that we’ll remain worse than average for some time. Our site is very eclectic. Our audience is highly fragmented between sports buffs, politicos, online entrepreneurs and writing aficionados. When I write articles on, say, designing effective header art, someone who’s casually interested in comedic content is going to bounce. Even the the ISS limits its offerings to comedy, although it also makes tangents into sports and politics.

Other Header Modifications

Kudos if you picked out these aesthetic changes. The heroes have gotten a bit bigger and more spaced-out. Catastrophe’s face is a bit more evenly purple. The blue portions of the US flag are a bit brighter.

It looks like Catastrophe’s face is wider and rounder. It’s not, but we see a wider cut of it because I moved Agent Black (the white guy).

Other Modifications

At the same time I changed the header, I also changed our WWSGD plug-in.  Before, new visitors to our site were greeted by this message at the top of the screen.  “Superhero Nation is a wacky comedy site devoted to a superhero novel, sports and politics.”

I changed that to “Superhero Nation is a wacky comedy site and novel about New York’s second-most inept superhero and a Homeland Security agent that might not be a mutated alligator.
In addition, we are the world’s #1 provider of Lol Gators and occasionally offer noncomedic articles on creative writing, business planning and market analysis, visual design and marketing.  In fact, we may be the only site anywhere to offer these things in addition to Lol Gators.”

Scenelet of the Day: That’s the Spirit! (Parts 1 and 2)

Agents Orange and Black enter a Missouri restaurant in the dead of night.

Agent Orange: Greetings, waitress-mammal!

Waitress: (Weirdo).

Agent Orange: We’re from Homeland Security. Have you seen an anorexic purple cat?

Waitress: What is this, a joke?

Agent Orange: …

Agent Orange: No, but it ends with you in cuffs and me laughing.

Agent Black: What my colleague just attempted to say is that we are looking for a purple mutated cat. The cat is, uhh, probably from New York.

Waitress: Figures.

Agent Black: He may be a witness to a crime.

Waitress: I don’t reckon I’ve seen him.

Agent Black: We’re offering a $50 finder’s fee.

Waitress: Downstairs in the bar, second table. He comes in every night.

Agent Orange: …

Agent Orange: I could have done that.

[end part 1].

Agents Black and Orange enter the bar. The purple cat is so drunk that he’s holding on to the table to avoid falling off his stool. He is damp with beer and has several $20 bills on the table.

Agent Orange: Greetings… mammal? (Right?)

Catastrophe: So I says… what the hehll? Is that?

Agent Black: He’s a mutated alligator.

Agent Orange: I’m a Special Investi-Gator. I’m like Agent Black, but with real teeth and a tail. And awesomeness.

Agent Black: …

Agent Orange: (It’s true!)

Catastrophe: So I finds that the bartender is my neighbor, right. Right! And so I says to him—bartender. Bartender, the only thing you’s got that I don’t is a freaking smart neighbor.

Agent Black, to bartender: Mind if we take him off your hands?

Bartender: He’s still got $40 left.

Agent Black: Here’s $50.

Bartender: Have a nice night!

Catastrophe: You too! I’m here all week–

Catastrophe passes out.

Agent Black: You want to carry him, Orange?

Agent Orange: Sweet mercy, no. He reeks of foul brews… Miller Lite?

Bartender: All night, every night.

Agent Orange: I will not sully my claws with the Lite.

Agent Black: He’s too heavy for me to carry alone.

Agent Orange: (Mammals).

Agent Orange: Bartender-mammal, do you have any beers that smell better than a rotting carcass?

Bartender: Coors?

Agent Orange: Indeed! I will have your largest denomination.

Agent Orange grabs a Coors keg and slices it in half, soaking Catastrophe’s prone body with cold, refreshing Rocky Mountain brew. The agent then hoists Catastrophe onto his shoulder.

Agent Orange: Ready?

Agent Black: For a new partner, yes.

I was looking through my computer today and found this picture. Eek.

There is nothing wrong with this picture, particularly if you like desolate, bleak prairies. I’m more of a radioactively cartoony New Zealander myself. Enter the Photoshop saturation tool.

In radioactive New Zealand, even the water glows. And the rocks are blue!

Earlier this year, the Everglades got pretty cold.

Picture courtesy of Burnt Umber.

These six character traits will probably make your readers groan… but they don’t have to! Find out how to turn self-guilt, rebelliousness, moral perfection, dishonesty and intelligence into winning character traits.

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“A leader who is poor is a poor leader.”

– Carlos Gonzalez

“If you were a good leader, you wouldn’t need any money.  Worshipers and soldiers–ones worth having, anyway– cannot be purchased.  If you think the difference between a real military force and a gang is shiny tanks and well-pressed uniforms, you might as well shoot yourself and spare us the trouble.”

–Paingod

Over the past few days, our bounce-rate has spiked upwards from about 58% to about 70% and the average time-per-viewer has dropped by about 45% (ouch).  The only significant change I can think of is that we moved to Wordpress 2.5 over that time.  I haven’t noticed any major formatting problems on my computer, but if you’ve seen something that looks hard to read or otherwise weird, please let us know by leaving a comment or e-mailing us at superheronation_at_gmail.com   (replace _at_ with @, of course).

Thanks for your help!

My opponents have claimed that I’m an “evil, reptilian kitten-eater from another planet.” Well, I’m not evil. It attacked me.

–Agent Orange, mutated alligator and self-defending ailurophage

Our mutated alligator, Agent Orange, offers us these insights into misconceptions about alligators.

—

Fiction: “gators attack innocent animals.”

Fact: We gators defend ourselves when attacked. It’s not our fault we’re stronger, faster and bigger.

—

Fiction: alligators kiss.

Fact: John is actually attempting to defend his dubious claim that he had the biggest jaw in the swamp. Hah! I’ve seen bigger hatchlings.

—

Fiction: gators like to make mammals feel inadequate.

Fact: We aren’t just smiling to show off our stunningly white teeth. I mean, if we really wanted to humiliate you, we’d challenge you to a swimming race. Or football.

—

Fiction: Gators are nearly flawless.

Fact: “Nearly”?

Agent Orange, everybody’s favorite mutated alligator, has this friendly public service announcement for the residents of California’s 4th district.

Theodore Terbolizard is running for Congress. We all are in grave danger. Lizards are pathologically dishonest, which is why they love to sell car insurance and overpriced water. And run for Congress.

But this candidate is not merely a lizard. He is, by his own confession, a Turbolizard. He will run Congress so depravedly as to make the rest of Congress look good.

Unsurprisingly, his lizard cronies have rallied to his defense. “We need more lizards in office,” says a lizard named “Sharmuta”. Or should I say Shamuta?

What does Turbolizard stand for, besides pathological deception and nefariousness? “I am opposed to the use of terrorism… since the end of World War II, the United States has continually meddled in the internal affairs of Iran, and I am opposed to this interventionist policy.” How typically lizardly. He is allegedly opposed to terrorism but opposes any action against terrorists! This is like saying “I’m OK with mammals, but mammal-killing is a fine choice, too.”

It is safe to say that a vote for Turbolizard is a vote for the turbo-genocide of mammals. I’m Agent Orange and anyone that doesn’t approve of this message is probably a lizard bent on your destruction.

I’m writing a comic-book script for Script Frenzy. Because the contest ends on April 30 and I’ve already lost six days, I’ll probably end up doing something related to Superhero Nation. That means I have to script four pages a day– something I think is doable even though academic work beckons.

Because the contest requires all-unique material, I’ll probably write a spinoff story, probably focused on Agent Black, Agent Orange, Paingod and a dark century-spanning conspiracy. This comic will answer all the questions you’ve never had about the nefarious links between the 1908 Tunuska explosion, World War I, the Black Sox scandal, the Empire State Building and rag-time (hint: bids for global supremacy).

B. Mac gave me this to post. He says he will be healthy enough to return to full-time status within a few days.

Agent White, junior recruiter: Mr. Smith, I have no doubt that you are an excellent IRS auditor, but I’d like to know more about how an accountant might be qualified for this agency. What about killing. Have you done any of that?

Gary Smith: No, sir.

Agent White: Have you ever seen someone die brutally? A de-limbing, perhaps?

Gary Smith: No, sir.

Agent White: I see. You seem like an excellent fit… for the IRS. I’m going to do you a favor and ask that you leave now. You would break in ten minutes here and you probably wouldn’t even be the first.

Gary Smith: …

Gary Smith: Is that a request or an order?

Agent White: …

Agent White hits his intercom button.

Agent White: Agent Orange, could you step inside, please?

Agent Orange, a hulking mutated alligator, enters the room.

Agent Orange: Greetings, mammals! Mammal-White, Mammal-Smith.

Agent White: Sir, could you please describe to Mr. Smith what your job is here?

Agent Orange: Indeed! I’m the head recruiter and trainer. I determine who enters training and then how best to systematically destroy them. We’ve reduced our mortality/psychosis rate to a historically low 6%!

Agent White: Mr. Smith, so far Agent Orange has broken six Navy SEALS, five Force Recons, ten Army Rangers and so many Special Agents we’ve stopped counting.

Gary Smith: But no accountants, I bet.

Agent Orange: …

Agent Orange: When are you available to start?

This article draws on our experiences writing Superhero Nation to help you create distinct character voices.

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I think I have stumbled onto something really useful about writing character-voice. I’ll post some notes later today, but my thesis is that distinct phrases are crucial.

“I only gradually realized that Gary Smith was wily for a mammal. That should have been obvious. He was an accountant and, as a rule, accountant-mammals are masters of chicanery and deception. (That is why they, like lawyers and journalists, receive graduate degrees: it takes years to learn the arts of subterfuge).”

–Agent Orange

“In fact, the tide threatens to make GOP stalwarts like Texas up for grabs this fall.”

–Markos Moulitsas

I don’t know if Kos does political futures betting, but I’d be willing to offer really long odds on a Democratic victory in Texas.

A reader asked for my suggestions on reading material. I fumbled the question by saying something like “it really depends on your taste.” He responded (paraphrased) “obviously, if I had thought that your tastes were incomparable to mine, I wouldn’t have asked you.” Touche!

So, mainly for the benefit of said reader, I have decided to post a photograph of about half of my bookshelf.

Of these, I would really recommend only Weapon, Starship Troopers and Black Powder War for the average sci-fi or fantasy reader. (With the caveat that BPW is the sequel to His Majesty’s Dragon, which should obviously be read first).

For readers that are a bit more artsy and literary, I recommend The Best American Short Stories of 2007 (not seen above), which has five stories that I found commendable. “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”  was extraordinary, “Sans Farine” was distinctly excellent, and “The Boy in Zaquitos” and “The Bris” were pretty good. And, if you’re more literary than I am, you’d probably like most of the other stories, I think.

My next book is CS Lewis’ Surprised by Joy, which has not arrived yet. I’m not sure what to expect. I’m a minor CSL fan and memoirs have always interested me. It looks to be very religiously influenced, but I’m basing that entirely on the front-cover.

I think someone with a casual interest in politics would enjoy Jack Goldsmith’s Terror Presidency and John Mueller’s Overblown. TP is Jack’s memoir about his time as the head of the Office of Legal Counsel. (I hate dropping names, but I feel obliged to offer a personal disclaimer here. I was once one of John Yoo’s coworkers, in one of the remotest senses imaginable, and Jack’s book treats Yoo like a minor villain. My recommendation of this book should not be construed as an endorsement of Jack’s legal opinions or his feud with Yoo. I simply enjoyed his style of writing and think he provides an interesting perspective on legalism and the legal side of the war on terror).

Overblown is a more conventional argument piece. Mueller’s main thesis is that the risks of terrorism have been hyped and that it’s more appropriate to try to mitigate the damage of terrorist attacks rather than try to overspend on defensive measures that are unlikely to be 100% effective. I thought most of this book was well-argued and interesting. (Again, this is not an endorsement of his politics: off the record, I disagree with probably 75% of the book, but that’s immaterial to its quality). I did take issue with what I thought was an exceptionally questionable point about Pearl Harbor, though. (If you’re interested in that, please keep reading).

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