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Matt Seneca is the rare guy who writes about comics that can make you excited about a medium that's in the process of chewing off its own legs and slowly bleeding to death. He's got an artist's eye for why things work on the page and a critic's capacity to reduce things to their component parts. Here, Matt and me take on Jim Steranko, a guy we're both completely obsessed with.
Oh, you know you're excited.
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Sean : Well, to start off with the big stuff – lets talk about Steranko's legacy. I know in the piece you did with Jog you mentioned his influence is kind of disappearing recently but I don't know if I buy it. Everything I see these days has Steranko's fingerprints all over it – from the obvious direct references in a dozen current Marvel comics to Casanova and Bulletproof Coffin, but also there's a real formalist urge to some of the best comics artists these days, that I think you could trace back to Kirby, but really found its feet with Steranko. The page-as-a-work of art in superhero comics, where the whole is way more important than the story, its born right here in the pages of Nick Fury.
Matt: Not saying any different: I mean, Steranko is obviously in the blood of anyone who's trying to do more than the boring ol' "serve the story" with their superhero pages. That's just it though — the lack of "story" innovations, the visual thrust behind everything Steranko did, the same thing that keeps him so there in the work of JH Williams, Mazzucchelli, David Aja, Brendan McCarthy — it's the thing that keeps him from actually getting talked about, recognized, fully assimilated. On a certain level it's just hard to put words to pictures, and Steranko invites it less than about anybody else. If you've got a Steranko comic at hand it's the easiest thing in the world to point out what he did, because you just turn to those so-often-quoted passages and point. "He did this, and he did this, and he used the screentones to do this and the colors to do this." It's when you try to verbalize those things that it gets tough, indefinable: fake fisheye lens perspectives, Crepax ripoffs, repeated acts of bad drawing, Krigstein layouts, figure animation? Hardly the stuff of revolutions.
SW: I guess it is difficult to speak of his outside influence beyond stuff like that – or even if we're talking revolution, its things as simple as those X-Men covers which don't really look particularly striking these days, even in comparison with Steranko's other (better) covers, they were the first time someone broke those specific rules. A few years ago I remember seeing Kurt Busiek of all people go on a tirade on some forum about how he just didn't get Steranko – and that his Captain America was the definition of "plotless", "Image-style" storytelling, and just not understanding exactly how he could think that way and yet still going "of course you think that you write for George Perez and Brent Anderson". Of course that guy only cares about the most basic of basic storytelling, which Steranko had little to no use for. Even in this issue the most banal moments are presented graphically with new tricks, sometimes to the story's detriment.
MS: Well, Steranko never cared about story, at least not so you could ever tell. Let alone long-form incremental Kurt Busiek storytelling, haw! That is right though, the IMAGE comic began with Steranko — he just had more highly evolved pictorial concepts than Rob Liefeld. What Steranko comics have, often in lieu of plot, is tone, more so perhaps than any other '60s comics on either side of the mainstream: a thick, deeply seductive ambiance about them. The stories are rarely good, not always even there at all, and the whole oeuvre's impact on the wider field can easily be reduced down to those ten or fifteen really famous panel sequences, the ones people are likely to have actually seen ( let's not forget, you can't beg, borrow, or steal these comics for the most part).
I feel like for all the Steranko put-ons we see in modern comics, few have ever really engaged with that supercold, futurist feel his work has, the total alien disregard for story, the deliberate sacrifice of sensicality and plot dynamics for pictorially based experimentation. People only want to emulate those eminently quotable "things he did", the silent pages, the sly lettering, the psychedelia. Steranko's biggest (only?) precept was expand the page, and the modern comics we can see him in aren't always doing that, they're usually just copying the same old '60s motifs and innovations he brought to the form. That's what I mean by saying that his influence is disappearing: we don't have any Marshall Rogerses anymore, nobody (except maybe JH Williams) using his ideas and broader aesthetic goals, though no end of guys want to copy that one picture of "Hulk" he drew. Maybe comics have moved on. I don't know. But there's more to be gotten from Steranko, things that no one since has taken up.
Your mention of Bulletproof Coffin is a perfect example of what I'm talking about: that comic is Kirby hot and Kirby loud all the way through, and when it incorporates Steranko it samples the EXACT PHOTO of the moon that he used in "Today Earth Died" — it doesn't actually go to that barren, echoing realm of total silence where the SHIELD stuff happened. Which is a good thing as far as the reading experience goes: that place is inhospitable, hostile to the reader, and Steranko's status among today's artists isn't that of a real influence, it's that of an effect, a gimmick to pull out for added dazzle.
SW: I don't know – I think that McCarthy and Williams have their moments where they do get close to that – I guess I would call it a disconnect between what they are telling and how they are telling it. It's hard to quantify, but Steranko's not even interested in how well these panels are drawn a lot of the time, that's why calling him an early version of the "image-style" bugged me. Because I think "Image" basically means flash over storytelling, which Steranko can and will do, but it also means that kind of slavish dedication to making things look "cool" by adding as many lines as possible, or just going into tits-and-guns overdrive. Steranko would cheat whenever he could, and it didn't matter because he was after the total effect of the image. That's where the pop art influence at its biggest on Steranko, maybe that's the substance. He pulled the De Palma trick a lot too – of just having a sequence just to contradict it immediately, so it wasn't just on the page it was a part of his stories. So the total issue's reading experience is treated the same way as the page – where it doesn't need to make actual sense so much as feel right, look right, hang together. And Bulletproof Coffin – I didn't realize it was the same photo, but of course it doesn't have the same scraped-to-the-bone finality that Steranko's page has. I remember reading that page for the first time and it didn't recall anything for me but the terrible chapter-heading paintings in Dangerous Visions, which it doesn't look like at all. It just shares that desolate feeling. Bulletproof Coffin, as much as I like that story, is going for the fun apocalypse of Kamandi not "Day the Earth Died".
MS: Yeah, a big hallmark of Steranko's stuff is that what he drew was so perfectly mirrored in the way he drew it. Anger or fear: red panel! Suspense scene: subdivision! Big machine: collage page! None of that is novel — he cribbed from the ECs here, Kirby there — but the way he employed it has become a legitimate part of the comics language. Talking about JH Williams especially — that guy's whole thing is mirroring the function with the form in stuff like his red pain boxes and bat-shaped panels, and I'm not sure if he gets there without Steranko as a point of departure. That "newspaper sequence" at the end of Seven Soldiers? Nobody since SHIELD had been to that place, that visual conceptualization of the comics page.
SW: Oh no way that he could, but I don't know if that's even conscious on his part as much as the motif-jacking and framing. I think that is something that's more processed through just general comics storytelling – he could have taken those things internally through a Frank Miller or an Alan Davis, but the way he takes on a page is a lot more of a conscious act (actually with Williams, I think he takes more from Steranko's paperback covers than anything else.) Do you think the Marshall Rogers/Gulacy/Starlin crew directly influenced by Steranko took more from him? I think Gulacy is kind of a different beast who saw Steranko the way Eisner saw Orson Welles, as an innovator and toolbox rather than an actual storytelling influence.
MS: Yeah, Gulacy not as much, though I do think he went deeper into Steranko drawing than anybody else. His early Shang-Chi stuff, oh my goodness — it's the entirety of the shorthand laid out for all to see, with a little better grounding in anatomy and more typical Marvel blocking. Gulacy was the one who carried the "Steranko look" into the '70s, though that also died a death with the ascendancy of John Byrne, George Perez superhero comics, the high '80s Kirby/Neal Adams fusion that hero artists are still working with today. Starlin and especially Rogers though, yeah! Definitely! Not only were they engaging with the shorthand (which with Steranko extended to production-method stuff that you can see in Starlin's colors and Rogers' screentones), but they were actively chasing down the concepts he had laid out on his pages. Starlin at his best got straight aggro with the non-intuitive layouts, and Rogers ended up certainly equalling and maybe even besting Steranko with the bending/welding of form to content in his panel compositions. Neither of them really went after the Steranko story feel — Starlin had his own things to say and Rogers mostly worked with writers — but they both produced art that not only looked like and called back to Steranko, it made a concerted effort to follow down the blind alleys those SHIELD issues left behind them.
I think where the coldness comes in is with Corben, his garde. The big exception, in fact, to the rule of dudes not being hard enough for Steranko's frostbitten tone is the artists of early Heavy Metal, the Macedos and McKies, who maybe even took it too far into abstract conceptualizing and transgression — and obviously writing their stories while high — for most people to follow, and in a visual era that hasn't aged nearly as well as the skinny-tie '60s.
SW: I'm less familiar with Rogers than I am Gulacy and Starlin, but I can see that. And my Heavy Metal knowledge is nowhere near yours, what I have read of those books was at least ten years ago. So I'm kind of out of my depth there. But going back to the "futurist", "cold" approach of Steranko – do you think of the SHIELD stories as actual scifi or just gadget-y? I don't think that Steranko particularly cared about the future the way that Kirby did, but he cared about making his pages look cutting edge? But even in doing so, there's less of a Kirby-drawn insanity to his gadgets and machines than there is a sense of actual technology, not in the Ken Adam engineer way but closer to that than Kirby's machines (when Nextwave came out Warren Ellis said something great about the amazing uselessness of Steranko's gadget design) .
MS: Well, Steranko was basically a pure-visual artist working in comics, so the future he concerned himself with was a visual one. (One that largely came to pass — you ever see early '70s ad art?) But nah, it's never scifi cause there's never any actual science to it, not even on the order of the ridiculous gobbledygook Stan Lee would put in Reed Richards' mouth. The long, massively complicated names of the scientific devices remain because they suit Steranko's aesthetic. The rest is just drawings — drawings of a future that incorporated rockets and smooth metal sheeting for their visual flair, not the science-based implications those things carry. It's not scifi, but it's scifi cold. It leaves the known behind for the new, and more important than that, it's willing to accept the new without explanation. I've talked before about Steranko's nihilism — maybe that's where it starts. Kirby, Ditko, Eisner, Krigstein, they asked the future "why?" Steranko sneers and asks "why NOT?"
SW: There is more power to Steranko's design of SHIELD, probably because of I guess advertising influence than even the same basic ideas when Kirby did them in Captain America. I think that his stuff didn't get dated for that express reason, because he treated it the way Howard Chaykin would treat fashion a decade later. So the nihilism, you clearly think its as much an element of the art as the storytelling, do you think that's why Steranko would manipulate the page to – well I don't think the right word is manipulate, but its close – the way he did? The playing to the story but still openly disregarding it?
MS: Well, some of it's the refusal to bend his art to story. Steranko's got nothing idea-based at the core, no warm Kirby humanisms or Ditko reformist zealotry. All he has in him is the big, thundering images, and that's what he wraps his stories around. To finally get to the comic at hand, there's absolutely no discernible reason why "Who is Scorpio" opens with Nick Fury climbing up a tower set into the middle of the sea. We later learn that's SHIELD headquarters he's infiltrating, which we know has branches in New York, Vegas, and a giant helicopter. But nahhh — Steranko felt more like drawing a scene from the Tarot, so that's what went in the book. Playing fast and loose with logic like that isn't dark or nihilist in and of itself — McCarthy, for example, does it with a lot of very human, light English whimsy — but in Steranko's hands it's not a conceit, it's not even a purposeful expression of tone. All he's saying with those illogical image insertions is that he doesn't give a fuck. Not for logic, not for story, not for Marvel, not for the comics form. The man and his drawings stand alone, and whatever's to come of it will come. Either way — he doesn't care. This is Dada, this is punk, this is sans meaning and feeling and everything that's supposed to power genre comics. It's an engine that springs to life of its own volition.
SW: The opening is so brilliantly an announcement of intent. I always wondered if Steranko had seen You Only Live Twice the year earlier and thought that the protagonist killing himself to start the story was a way to one-up Roald Dahl's underworld riff on Bond and still downplay the pretension of that as much as possible. Scorpio himself, is a villain without any spoken motivation, so that does jibe. Also Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD is wholly unlike his peers – there is no mandate for his actions, no real reason for him to do anything. This is a comic without anything driving it – even Bond paid lip service to giving him things that he was fighting for. But SHIELD, for a first issue, is just an organization with a lot of equipment.
While the story is geographically untethered (you could say that's a part of the genre), these are entirely untethered characters. Which is the idea at the heart of the jetset, superspy appeal. And I guess the entire swath of 60s entertainment, stuff like "Thrilling Cities", etc. That it was possible to train yourself to be completely autonomous, even from things like reason and morality. Steranko's Fury was never a bastard like Bond, I guess, but I think that's more about differentiation than anything else. Its a very nihilistic outlook on the world, which I guess is why its so appealing even 40 years later. You could go anywhere, you could screw beautiful women, kill anyone who gets in your way without impunity, and any jam you get in there is a technology to assist you.
MS: And most importantly, everything is meaningless, all action occurs in a total amoral vacuum. Fury isn't a bastard like Bond because in Steranko's world there's no such thing, not even among the villains. Scorpio and Fury are indistinguishable in combat — both pull off ridiculously harmful moves on the other, both go for the kill, and both spout discourse that's gone so far into comic booky stylism that it's left the war of ideas between Good and Evil behind. They talk about what they're gonna do to each other. Then they try to do it. Steranko's people are all just fighting (and occasionally fucking) machines, and the idea that one of them might go about business in a less-acceptable way is just totally foreign.
SW: Of course, on top of that is Scorpio himself, who is a character (and I'm sure we'll talk about this more later on), who has no revealed motivation whatsoever. He is a cipher who mentions revenge and "an oath sworn in blood", but that's par for the course. Scorpio's powers are technological? Cosmic? Does it matter? He's a guy in a mask who's here to bounce Nick Fury off of, who eventually escapes for no real reason. He's a non-character, but intentionally so, which is kind of like laying in a competing wall of static against Nick Fury's blankness. There is a real pushbutton use of emotions in this issue as well, the subplot is openly manipulative garbage that pays a little lip service to Lee/Kirby's device of man-on-the-street being used as a counterpoint, but Steranko does it in such a nasty, brutal way. Or maybe its an attempt at Hitchcock, with mistaken identity being just another plug and play element of the spy story. Either way, its cut short and used as a way to add punch/ distract the reader from the fact that absolutely nothing paid off here and they discovered nothing. Worse than that, this isn't even teaser material, it's just strung along haphazardly. But it is satisfying aesthetically so who could complain?
MS: I can't remember if I've put it in print before, but I've got a theory about why it was the Neal Adams side of late-'60s comic art that "won out" and had a bigger influence on the field in the long run. Steranko's best work represented the farthest out hero comics had ever been visually, taking the Kirby bombast and the underground psychedelia and amping them both up to ridiculous technicolor levels. It's art for the social revolution that bloomed during the Johnson era, in love with the new, with complete faith in itself. For all his layout tricks and ugh, backgrounds that form big faces, Neal Adams is very much the opposite: grounded, humanist figurative realism, with that Norman Rockwell Americana thing that powers Alex Ross today. And by the time the '60s drew to a close, people were just tired of the revolution. They wanted the familiar and the mundane again, they wanted clean-cut simple heroes, they wanted Americana, they wanted Nixon, they wanted Adams. The future'd lost its sheen.
Similarly, it's interesting to contrast Steranko and his stories' march toward total meaningless noise with the rest of '60s superhero comics' progression toward increased levels of meaning, even (shudder) relevance. Ditko went political. Kirby went spiritual. And Neal Adams drew comics about superheroes trying to figure out how they could punch heroin and building-code violations. All while Steranko was stripping his books down, pushing them toward pure visually powered spectacle, subtracting any larger ideological points first, then going further and by this comic basically getting rid of character motivation altogether. The players in "Who Is Scorpio" are objects who follow the laws of thermodynamics more than any personal traits or beliefs. Check out the bomb-test sequence, with Fury lying statue-still in the middle of a desert until danger threatens and he makes it to Las Vegas in under five minutes. Steranko's wind-up toys remain inert unless acted upon, and then they spring into motion.
SW: I get you, but Neal Adams is someone I don't automatically link to that ethos. That's more of a Denny O'Neill thing that Adams was just kind of party to (and I love Denny O'Neill but those Green Lantern/Green Arrow comics are just ridiculous and impossible to get through). When I think Neal Adams, I immediately go to that weird identity he created – back then anyway – of commercial art and ultra-realism. His shit is entirely about verisimilitude and replicating the real world on the page. He and Steranko were barely in the same business. I know that his Batman is continually praised as dynamic, but the famous shot of Batman running is clearly more affecting because it looks like a real guy running, with drapery and physicality. On Steranko's end, his most famous image is truly dynamic, but in a mixed-hot 00s Mogwai album kind of way. It's levels are all peaking red. Its an amplification of what even Steranko was expected to do with a spread. Here's the whole story at once, shirtless hero here to save the day, lady in peril, superpowered villain we've never seen before, like 30 actions occurring at once. There's no photographic quality to Steranko, there is constant motion as these figures crank through their predetermined actions too fast for frames to contain them.
MS: The product is a lot truer to what superhero comics are, of course: the eye-searing quality, the aggressive lack of logic, the supreme rule of violence and sex and more violence, but it's just so close to the bone. In an age where the biggest thing comics had going for them was college kids comparing Stan Lee to Homer, the idea of the medium as total contentless pop art, convenient marketing aside, was a tough one to countenance. Still is today: even if they got the best artist ever to draw it, the superhero fanboys would scream their heads off if Batman killed somebody because it made for a good page. Steranko's discarding the typical superhero frameworks of morals and story makes for great reading, but he took it about as far as it's ever been.
SW: There really isn't another comic you can go to that wants to succeed on the same level that this book succeeds on. Because it does all of these no-content moves but it doesn't ever come off as crass, which is something I think we should definitely talk about. Because I think there are some great comics that are truly about nothing in a really vicious, "fuck you pay me", kind of way. For example, a good Mark Millar comic is a fight scene about nothing with a few nasty fuck-you-audience jabs and maybe something intentionally extra offensive like a Hulk rape joke or something, drawn by John Romita Jr. There is something really appealing about that to me, in a Sex Pistols kind of way. I don't know if that's nihilism in the same way, but its definitely nihilism because it exists for no reason. There is no core, but its not substantive. "Who Is Scorpio?" isn't like that, I never feel like this comic is a shakedown.
(It is weird that the single book that I think picked up on everything Steranko was doing in this run is Elektra Assassin, which is both about nothing and at the same time very concerned with politics and morality and what these comics are about? Assassin is a great comic but its also a comic with a lot on its mind. It would be almost fussy if it wasn't as assaultive as it is. What else is there? The Freakwave story in Strange Days? Nothing clicks the same way.)
MS: Hmmm… let me think. You ever read Valentina? That comic's like Nick Fury plus in a lot of ways, just a lot less violent. All the visual stuff, the pop, the sex, the overpowering tone (though a completely different one). Elektra Assassin, I can see what you mean but that comic has some real ideological convictions behind it, even if it's just "politics is fucked". But I agree, it's SHIELD for the Reagan era. Of McCarthy's work I'd actually pick out Paradax as the more Steranko-y comic, though it has been a while since I looked at Freakwave.
But getting to your point, yeah, I don't mean any of this to say or even imply that Steranko wasn't fully engaged in what he was doing. The thing about Mark Millar comics is that he isn't trying, he's come up with the equation for bare-minimum comics that sell. Which to me makes him like the Don Heck of the modern era. (And if we're gonna talk Sex Pistols-style comics, we need to talk about Kyle Baker.) But Steranko was trying with every panel, and that's what makes this stuff so good to read despite the lack of preoccupation with story. It's not like he was making a concerted choice to disregard plots or making sense, it's that he was so into drawing the pictures, pushing the formal boundaries, designing the pages, that story had to fall by the wayside to a certain degree. You can't make this comic do what it does with a heavier plot, then you get Casanova. And nobody wants that.
Seriously though, while there is a fuck-you aspect to Steranko's illogical, futurist writing, it's not "fuck you person who bought this", it's "fuck you convention". He willfully ignores a lot of the storytelling devices that made comics work then and still make them work now, but it's always so he can add in something new, some layout conceit or crazy gadget, something that will add to the comic as a good read if not as a story. I mean, there's one hell of a lot in this one issue. For all Scorpio's blank-screen aspect he's kind of a fascinating character. The mystery running through the first half, if not absorbing, has some pretty dramatic high points. Fury gets some good moments (that meditating-in-the-desert page is really something, almost Jodorowskyesque). And there's a whole B-plot layered in underneath the hero action, a sleazy '60s pulp thing that hints at the kind of stories Steranko would've been drawing if he hadn't worked in an industry that forced everybody into spandex.
SW: I've only read a few short pieces of Valentina but they were untranslated so I think that I treated them in a different way because of that (in the same way I don't consider that I've read any Corto Maltese because I've only read it in the original language). (As an aside – do you know if Steranko and Crepax had feelings about each other's work? I'd love to know). I don't know if I can even write-off Millar off the same way, (I mean I can, because he's truly is like that) but the guy actually understands how to write an action sequence, which is something I tend to forgive a lot if a writer can actually do that. So he has put enough effort in that he got that part. And Kyle Baker? Shit, I've never even thought about that comparison. Anyway, not to say that Steranko is doing this because he doesn't care, clearly not, but I think that its odd that you have to go to Don Heck or Mark Millar (or hey, Neal Adams) to get to that kind of quality and then its equally shitty because you can tell they don't give a shit. Steranko is "fuck you" in the same manner as the pop art guys he respected – its about audacity more than anything.
MS: I've never heard Steranko on Crepax but I know without doubt that he was into it. He named Fury's girl Valentina! He drew her in a totally Crepaxian sex scene in the issue after this one! If you look at the earliest Valentina, from back in '65 when it was still ostensibly a hero comic called Neutron, you can see the blue print for SHIELD just so clearly. I'd imagine Steranko never talked about Crepax because he made his reputation as an innovator and he REALLY likes to talk about himself as such, but he just ripped Crepax off wholesale. He finally starts getting past it around this time and sort of goes off into a different thing entirely on Captain America, but still. A big amount of the Steranko playbook is Crepax, no filter. Never read Crepax on Steranko either — the one interview with him I've seen is this weird Heavy Metal thing about pornography and Marxism — but I'm genuinely not sure how he would've seen Steranko. We were talking about how Starlin, Rogers, Gulacy sort of stole a big part of the Steranko approach before moving elsewhere with it; that's what the man himself did with Crepax, and I think you just gotta be ok with that as an artist. So that's my long "I dunno."
SW: Oh definitely, you hear stories about Neal Adams going "hey this kid draws like me" and getting 17 year olds jobs. Its a part of the business, I guess they just accepted it. Probably more before you had kids on the internet spotting tracers every week. I was kind of hazy on the Steranko/Crepax timeline (or any comics history timeline really, to be honest). Crepax, even after being a huge fan of Steranko for years, whenever I see that stuff it still looks just a little alien to to me. Which I guess is the appeal. I don't think I'm familiar enough to spot his influence on Steranko, is what I guess I'm saying.
MS: There's a panel in this book — the first Scorpio appearance actually, the one at the raceway — that's shockingly evocative of the debut Valentina story. Later Crepax went off into a style that basically shares nothing with Steranko, so I can't imagine he cared too much that somebody was biting his early works. But getting back to your point about Millar, Don Heck, the guys who make bad comics, I actually think one of the most interesting things about Steranko is that both sides of his work are just so apparent. There's the virtuosic passages, and then you turn the page and it's just failing so badly. And yet somehow it keeps a self-consistent tone. It's not like these issues are patchy comics. They just walk SUCH a thin line between transcendence and incomprehensibility. I know I've bitched before about how there's a whole school of Steranko crit that's unwilling to engage with his failures, but you literally can't make it through a single story without hitting one. Great as the atmospheric ending is, it's got a basis in a really weird subplot that's like the diet-cola version of Hunter Thompson. That eye-popping double-spread has one of the prettiest girls Steranko ever drew, but then he repeats the pose on the next page and it's this weird, distended attempt at a Crepax ass shot that just fails. All the high points are based in the low points, or lead into them. They're inextricable.
SW: I think the subplot has to be a Stan Lee editorial influence. Because it has very little to do with the main story, it seems like the kind of "human appeal" aspect that he wanted to inject. And of course you're right – the amazing "Fury Outruns the Rocket" page is crippled by the three worst panels in the whole story, there really isn't a page with the exception of the splash that I would call perfect. Or the shot of Fury covered in gear being saddled with those three uninspired Fu-Manchu style panels, all at terrible angles. The inconsistencies are part of the deal. Also no one ever talks about "Steranko Girls" the way you'd hear about so many of his peers. They're just drawings on the page, an aspect of the whole. Its not like a Frazetta where no matter how bad the page was, he still spent a ton of time drawing the girl.
MS: Yeah, he could never even get Val to look the same from panel to panel. Or even pretty. The girls are like the machines are like the costumes… set dressing. And then you realize these comics are all set, up to and including the hero: moving sets that don't go anywhere except the visual future of the medium. "Steranko girls", though… you wanna be the first to talk about 'em? Let me see… it's actually interesting you mention Frazetta because this is probably the first issue where you really see that guy leaking into Steranko's art, and I think it's in large part because he was trying to figure out the acme of a pretty girl. He wasn't the pure figure artist Crepax was, not even close, so he was kinda starting to ditch that approach to girls. Frazetta had like this formula for it that you see Steranko starting to address in the splash and a few panels of the subplot scenes too. Of course his faces were still totally off… odd that he could get Fury and Dugan and Sitwell and the rest of the SHIELD gang down to perfect cartoon iconography but never even come close with a pretty girl. I mean, it's not that hard!
SW: I think that Steranko had two specific drawings of women that stick with me – the shot of Val in The Day the Earth Died and that shot of Lady Viper in… is it Captain America? He never ever drew a page as good as that shot of Dugan talking to Val but even there, there is something really off about the proportions. Was that Frazetta influenced? I see a lot more McGinnis in there than anything else.
MS: Well, yeah that one page is weird just cause Steranko could never do a human figure until a while after he left Marvel. And even though that doesn't have to be a problem in comics (like his men were just ridiculous too but he bound them in muscles the right way), he hadn't learned where to mass the flesh yet on girls. I actually see that shot as really Crepax, with the long, sinuous shape, the weird proportions (which mirror some of the anatomical tics that Crepax could actually pull off), and obviously the particular subject matter. When I think Steranko=Frazetta I think stuff like the Val shot in this issue's spread and then really a lot when we get into SHIELD #2 with leopard-skin babes jumping around all over the place. That was the big shift in my view.
SW: Just a digression back to the intent part of the conversation — do you think SHIELD #3 is just a complete mess like I do? Every time I read these things that always feels like the one time he couldn't cohere the pages. There is a part of me that wants to say its the subject matter but literally none of it works. A lot of the time it seems like he's just plugging the characters into layouts he's came up with earlier. It's rough stuff.
MS: I think SHIELD 3 is almost like a sketchbook comic in a lot of ways. You're right, it's way rougher than the sleek "Pop Art Productions" that the rest of the SHIELD books and the subsequent Captain America stuff were, full of pages that just don't work in any way at all. Like we said, all Steranko's books are this mix of success and failure, it's never the one or the other, and I think that one just has a little higher failure rate than normal. However, it's a pretty essential moment in his career: it's the first one where the drawing is actually good all the way through, it gets rid of the tight, Krigstein-y sequences of smaller panels that characterize early SHIELD, especially, and when it does reuse layouts it places the shapes and colors in them really differently. It's like a workshop issue (with a girl that looks more Toth to me than anything else), pretty much a warm-up for the more successful "At the Stroke of Midnight". It's got a lot of steps forward. It's also got the single worst page in Steranko's entire career, the massive "Nazis in the cellar" splash page with like five solid paragraphs of intricately lettered exposition scrolling down it. Painful reading, especially when you contrast it with the blue-white splendor of the spread he opens up the issue with. The learning curve's at its most visible there.
SW: Oh yeah, but the final page of the story gives a good run for worst too (especially the guy's face just melting sideways). Its good to think of as a sketchbook issue, I guess, then you can see a lot of ideas being worked out for greater use later. That kind of leads me to whether or not you think SHIELD is Steranko's apex. I do, but I know a lot of people say Cap or Chandler (dunno why) – I know these books are not even complete in his style choices, story, anything… but to me they seem to be the one time where everything, even #3, was completely captivating from Steranko. I don't even know that I care about the Cap issues the same way.
MS: Well, Chandler kinda blows, I'm sorry. It's like the most interesting comic in the medium's history to kinda blow, but there you have it. But I agree: from a technical perspective and a transcending-his-influences perspective the Cap stuff is way better, but the thing is that Steranko is so much about forward motion. Once he actually hits an apex he's not blazing away quite as wild anymore, and that's the joy of reading his comics. Yeah, SHIELD is the best stuff. Once he's done his first year or so it's got enough proficiency, and he's still trying so much, innovating so much, failing so much. It's got the most energy and verve and idiosyncracy, there's the most there, y'know?
SW: I dunno – Stars My Destination might blow more. Energy is everything with this guy. Which, I remember the first time I saw Outland on some website I was so disappointed because I never saw the transition between SHIELD and it, right? It was just suddenly this guy who got the most out of the medium just doing stained glass spreads. It felt wrong. Now, I can see the trajectory and appreciate it, but man. SHIELD, and I say that the huge Hydra/Yellow Claw saga is the best story that Steranko ever illustrated, was just enough of a middle space between Steranko's urge to innovate and what he needed to do to maintain his position. Even with Cap you get the feeling that he's working without a net, or acting as if he had no editor anyway. There's just as much energy there but I connect with it less, and I think its because that tension is missing. Even if its just something as stupid as being told to cram Dr. Doom into a single splash, that kept him thinking on his feet.
MS: Yeah, I know what you mean. This issue of SHIELD, with the hyper-action only barely beginning to gain self-consciousness and the subplot we keep threatening to talk about, is the last time Steranko's work ever has the feel of genuine pulp. I mean, he obviously addressed pulp much more thoroughly in stuff like Chandler, but that was a big art book really, whereas those Strange Tales issues and early SHIELD are the genuine article, newsprint with an editorial agenda. I think Steranko needed to break out of that to do his best work: the first three books of his I'd show someone are Cap, Day Earth Died, and SHIELD 2, which probably bear the least traces of Lee meddling and Kirby copyism, but yeah, as comics that conform to the experience we expect and desire from the medium, it's this stuff. Maybe if Steranko had done some kind of Frazetta thing and made his best work outside traditional comics it would be different, but you're right: Outland is frustrating, Chandler is frustrating. It's cool to see the progression, they're interesting in his career context, but they don't just hit the way the Fury books do.
SW: Well, lets talk about that subplot then – there is a pulp element to it, but there is also this weird feeling that it's a leftover from a Richard Matheson short story for me. Its just too easily connected, and it feels like Steranko is reaching to counterpoint the Nick Fury and Scorpio relationship with these two near-identical guys, but he doesn't seem to care enough. I would like to sit here and make the argument that Steranko wants to show us that these two men are equally as doomed because of unspecified reasons, and for us to expand that out to Fury and Scorpio. Which, yeah, they're Marvel comic characters they are near-identical blank slates driven together for no reason. I don't know if he's really going there, though.
MS: I actually see this as Steranko's big Eisner moment, not so much trying to make his usual mind-blowing meta-points as just attempting to dial into the real human world going on beneath this Marvel Universe that we were getting to know pretty well by 1968. As Silver Age Marvel goes, it's pretty tough stuff — straightup cold-blooded murder, dudes who break the law for a living on both the "good" and "bad" sides of things, a scene in what's basically a strip club. In a way it's almost like Steranko's taking the "man on the street" stuff that was so much a hallmark of Stan Lee's
contributions to the Marvel Comic and trying to expand it into something wilder ad more interesting the way he did with Kirby's bangin' kinetic stuff. I think you're right that he was trying to go for the big pithy moment where Fury and Flip Mason would've run into each other — "They see a KINSHIP in each other's eyes, these two men — a strange BOND that holds the gaze!" something like that. But yeah, he forgot. Whoops! And you know, it's just another Steranko failure in a string of many, but it draws attention and merits mention because it could have been so interesting if he had pulled it off. As it is, though, this comic still has the most hardcore ending of any Marvel comic in history. "Am I gonna get a tricycle, mommy?" BOOM! Makes me crack up every time.
SW: I really like how it kind of prefigures Lloyd's approach to V for Vendetta, with the stark shot of Fury… actually the whole subplot is the kind of thing that ended up in Alan Moore comics. The tragic, ironic death lurking for the ordinary people along the story's fringes. Which totally evolved from Stan Lee but, yeah… Steranko just coldcocks you with that last page turn doesn't he? Its like he says "This is boring" between drawing those two pages. It isn't the blind black man hanging out with Daredevil and crying, that's for sure.
MS: Yeah, and it leads back into the darkness of Steranko comics. We've got two sides of the guy: there's the ADHD, manic, expansive side who totally would decide that this part of the story was boring between drawing pages, but then there's the darker, glowering one that I guess we're calling the nihilist side, the one who addresses the issue by blowing the dude to smithereens. That cruelty has more than just not caring about plot dynamics as much as page appearance to it. A sarcasm, a black humor, or maybe just a lack of regard for anything. Because I mean, the total effect of it is to invalidate what up to this point has been a pretty carefully plotted (for Steranko, anyway), tight little sequence. What could've been the single moment of genuine human drama in the man's entire career becomes a macabre punchline, a pointing-up of the fact that Fury the hero has done absolutely nothing good over the course of his lil adventure. That explosion turns the Steranko take on "real life" into a random collection of gogo bars, shootouts, and memories, no threads remaining to unify it, no happy endings, no point. Why not be a superhero? It's better than this garbage!
SW: And the superhero side is torn apart too — there's the slightest lip service given to kind of meaning and purpose that having an arch-nemesis would, but it's pretty damn empty too. I know that the two of us grew up way after all these ideas were exploded forever — everything from Moore/Miller/Morrison to Brat Pack to Clowes to the Venture Bros have made this point since, and probably more clearly — but here's both sides of the Stan Lee dramatic structure splayed on an operating table. Conflict for conflict's sake, reversals, human interest subplot, inexplicable ending where the hero comes out safe, villain gets away, explosion, faux-Shakespearean closing line. He's saying you know this story already, lets solo a little bit over this. It is a break too, from what Kirby would do which is just expand the elements he liked of Lee's formula, or Ditko, who provided counterpoint. This is a distancing of the guy who's telling the story from the story itself. The first page declares in Stan Lee fashion: "The first SHIELD novel-length epic of unforgettable suspense and drama" — you know that Steranko doesn't believe that shit for a second. He doesn't care about aping a novel anymore than he does about delivering what comics were supposed to deliver.
MS: Right, but he sure cares about the way that bullet of text sounds! It's the style to that phrase that gets it in the comic, just like everything else. Steranko might have come to Marvel a little late to ever get the klassic "Pop Art Productions" logo on one of is books, but his stuff has got to be the greatest example — and maybe Silver Age Marvel's only example — of comics that actually took up the Pop aesthetic. When you look at everything in this whole damn book as a pure element of style and worry about stuff like sensicality, genre, milieu — even visual import, honestly — after that, it all makes sense. That explosion in the phone booth is fire and concrete and shattering glass, and if you take it as nothing but that it's a hell of a force to be reckoned with. Same with death itself, the elemental force that cuts off Flip Mason's time in the mortal coil. Same with the op-art elements, same with the sexy thrills, same with the Kirbyist posturing. It's all heavy, it's all visceral, it's all intense, and it all has a logic unto itself. People say artists are "playing with weighty themes" so often that phrase doesn't even mean anything anymore, but Steranko was the only one I can think of to really play with this stuff, spray it across the pages like silly string and not worry about cleaning up the mess. Put enough that's good in and you don't have to worry about what comes out. This comic is a fractured, unholy mess, but it's made up of so much that's interesting. Unit by unit — balloon by balloon, panel by panel, page by page, idea by idea, it's comics that go deeper and further than anything else from either side of the genre fence had at the time. Who cares if it's a bitch to unravel?
Above all, it hits, and that's what Steranko was interested in. I guess that's a part of the nihilism too — Kirby wanted to turn the kids who read him into little dreamers, Ditko wanted his to be little fascists, Lee wanted his to be little Marvel addicts, but Steranko just wanted them to know they'd been marked. Effect be damned.
SW: Oh definitely, he's unconcerned with anything other than the way these pages work – maybe not even that they work with each other. You could say he's actually coming to a lot of these things which are revolutionary as a side effect rather than as a desired result. It's not Steranko's intent that he make the reader examine what these tropes are making them think in some post-modern examination, it's not even on his radar, but the guts are definitely being shown in the course of his voodoo process. That sense of play, it was key to Pop Art as a concept, and it always gets lost in the fanboys-mad-at-Lichtenstein strawman arguments that pop up all the time (you ever notice how no one ever brings up Warhol and Tandori Yokoo did the same thing? Because they don't know). For Steranko, it's not a place for him to soapbox or contribute to narrative, and so the delivery system just becomes another tool.
MS: And that's Steranko at the core, isn't it? That's what he did in the medium and that's what he did for the medium. Comics as pure toolbox. The stories will sort themselves out as long as they have these friggin' superheroes in them. So let's use the system — this wonderful, unwieldly, insane newsprint pamphlet — to push further into what words and pictures can do. It doesn't even matter whether or not the stuff reads well. It had never been done before. And most of it hasn't been done since. In that respect, this comic is and has been a complete success.
SW: More than that, it may have been new and unfollowed – its still feels new, it still feels like he's getting away with something as you go through it. Even the most outlandish work Kirby did, it's been processed, and Ditko is way too much like outsider art — Steranko, 40 yrs later, hits that edge-of-culture button you expect from comics but rarely receive.
MS: Yeah, he belongs with the undergrounders in that sense. There's as much Greg Irons or Corben to his weirdest stuff as there is Marvel. He was the one mainstream guy to really go further with the medium in the '60s than Kirby or Ditko — to me that places him with the San Francisco crowd. The guys who drew rock posters with Thor or Dr. Strange on them. Steranko was basically doing that for 20 pages at a stretch.
SW: It is a shame he didn't splinter of a real school inside the mainstream the way some other people did – I guess that places him with the undergrounders too, because his direct influence came years later in weird, mutated forms. I've got to say, though – it doesn't feel like those guys for me because you always feel that Steranko's 60s were the swinging world of Bond and Pan Am while those guys were making out with hippy girls and smelling of bongwater and Kirby and Ditko were drawing in ties and dress shirts. Maybe thats my own prejudices but that's always going to be more appealing to me.
MS: Right, I totally agree, but there's a place all the great material from that decade gets to irregardless of milieu. That immortal splash page with the reams of detail and the swirling color: it could be a Kirby mural, or it could be a Zap Comix jam. It's just the times writ large, and when '60s comics get truly transcendent they all end up in the same place. Single-image immensity, color, pop, drugginess, sex, action… comics. The same place it's all trying to get to.
- Matt Seneca/Sean Witzke November 2010


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Teachers & Writers Collaborative is accepting submissions for the 2013 Bechtel Prize, awarded annually to the author of an exemplary essay on literary arts education. The winner of the award receives a $1,000 honorarium, and the winning essay is published in Teachers & Writers Magazine and on the T&W website.
The 2013 Bechtel Prize winner and finalists will be selected by Susan Orlean, the best-selling author of eight books, including My Kind of Place, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup, Saturday Night, and Lazy Little Loafers. Her 1999 book The Orchid Thief was made into the Oscar-winning movie Adaptation. In 2011, Orlean published Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. Orlean has been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1992, and her work has also appeared in Esquire, Rolling Stone, Outside, Smithsonian, and the New York Times.
The submission deadline for the 2013 Bechtel Prize is 5:00 PM (Eastern), Monday, July 1, 2013.
See the 2012 Bechtel Prize essay Now Let's Stare at the Purple, by Barbara Flug Colin, at http://www.twc.org/bechtel-prize-winners/.
For full submission guidelines, please go to www.twc.org/magazine/bechtel-prize.

subset: commoncrawl


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An introduction to Toula's hyper-proud Greek family and the origins of her feelings of inadequacy. Toula's family thinks it's terrible that she's 30 years old and--gasp!--unmarried. She decides the only way to calm them down is to give in. She makes over her looks, her career, her whole lease on life and--presto chango!--she falls in love with a non-Greek vegetarian who's magically not put off by her decidedly opinionated family. Will their love survive the rigorous social wringer it's about to be put through?See Nia Vardalos in an early role in the short film No Experience Necessary!
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GAME NOTES: Hoping to improve their seeding in the upcoming Big West Conference Tournament, the Cal State Fullerton Titans go island hopping as they visit the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors on Saturday.
Fullerton fell to UC Irvine on Thursday night, 62-44, but still has three wins in its last five games overall. The Titans are tied for sixth place in the MWC standings, but their seeding in the conference tourney will depend on the outcome of several other contests.
Hawaii lost two straight and three of four overall. The team dropped a decision to UCSB on Thursday night, 86-77. The loss, coupled with Fullerton's loss on Thursday as well, guaranteed the Rainbow Warriors the No. 4 seed in the conference tournament.
Hawaii leads the all-time series with Fullerton, 5-2, with the Rainbow Warriors winning earlier this season on the road, 83-80, and also taking both contests a year ago.
Alex Harris paced the Titans with 17 points and Michael Williams chipped in 10 in the loss to UC Irvine. The Anteaters ended a dominant first half leading 32-19, sinking 52 percent of their shots from the floor in the frame, while limiting the Titans to 27.6 percent. The Titans never challenged in the second half and for the game set season lows in points scored (44), field goal percentage (.300) and assists (three).
The Titans do not excel at the offensive end, netting only 67.6 ppg and shooting 42.8 percent from the field, ranking eighth in the Big West in both categories. They are allowing opponents to score 71.3 ppg. Williams (17.6 ppg) and Harris (15.6 ppg) form one of the most explosive scoring backcourts in the country. Williams, despite his modest output against Irvine, is fifth in the conference in scoring and has picked up his play down the stretch with 20- point efforts in seven of the last nine games overall. The rest of the roster doesn't give much support in terms of scoring, with Marquis Horne (7.8 ppg) the next best option.
Christian Standhardinger tallied 18 points and Keith Shamburger netted 16 for Hawaii in the loss to UCSB, while Davis Rozitis contributed 11 points and Aaron Valdes had 10. The Rainbow Warriors only connected on 36.7 percent from the field in the first 20 minutes and trailed 39-27 lead at the break. Hawaii cut into the deficit a bit in the second half when it hit 53.8 percent from the floor. However, UCSB was able to stem the tide by shooting 50 percent and outscoring the hosts, 22-4, at the free-throw line. The game featured an odd moment in the first half. After Hawaii head coach Gib Arnold was called for a technical foul with 6:02 left in the period, a fan made his way onto the court and began yelling at Arnold. Standhardinger and Garrett Nevels both pushed the fan away and the fan was escorted out of the arena.
On the season, Standhardinger is averaging a team-best 17.8 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. Isaac Fotu, a 59.8 percent shooter from the floor, is putting up 15.1 ppg and 6.2 rpg, while Nevels (13.3 ppg) and Brandon Spearman (11 ppg) round out the team's double-digit scorers. As a unit, the Rainbow Warriors are scoring a conference-best 79.8 ppg, while giving up 72.6 ppg.
The Titans still have a chance to improve their seeding and should have some extra incentive to take down the Rainbow Warriors, but Hawaii is too strong an offensive unit and Fullerton doesn't have the defensive prowess to counter.
GAME NOTES: Hoping to improve their seeding in the upcoming Big West Conference Tournament, the Cal State Fullerton Titans go island hopping as they visit the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors on Saturday.


text: [Nous sommes désolés, mais cette page n'est pas disponible en français.]3 cups brown sugar 1 cup white sugar 4 tbsp. cocoa 2 tbsp. butter 1 cup milk Vanilla pinch of salt Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently for 10-12 minutes. Test for doneness by dropping into cold water. It's done when drop forms firm ball. Allow to cool, then beat until thick. Pour into buttered pan. Mom is Beth Easter, Mom to Judy and Marion of Nature's Harvest.


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|hope college > campus offices > registrar's office
· Your registration time will be posted on your KnowHopePlus account. You will be notified by email when the time is posted. To see your time, log in to your account, under the "Registrar, Financial Aid, and Student Accounts" menu, click on "Registration" then on "Registration Status" and select the appropriate term.
The on-line schedule is updated as changes are made, so you'll want to check the schedule right before you register in case any changes will affect your schedule. You can also see if classes are closed by checking the on-line schedule.
Meet with your advisor during the advising period. Please schedule your advising appointment at least 2 days before your registration time.
Below are some frequently asked questions about registration:
I've heard that some students can register via the web; who gets to do this and how?
All students studying on off-campus programs register on-line.
Eligibility for other students on-line depends on several factors. Check this link for details.
Students eligible to register on-line will register via their KnowHopePlus account. You can read about the process for on-line registration at http://www.hope.edu/admin/registrar/Hero.html.
Students who are eligible to register on-line will need a registration PIN-available only from their advisor. Students who are studying on an official Hope College-approved off-campus program will not need a registration PIN.
If you want to register for classes requiring permission of instructor or chair, you will need to bring signed permission slips to the Registrar's Office. We will add these classes to your schedule when we receive the signed permission slips. You cannot register for these classes on-line.
What should I do before I meet with my advisor?
Run a degree evaluation to see the requirements for general education and minors and majors you have declared or are considering. Never run one? Check this link http://www.hope.edu/admin/registrar/CAPP/CAPP-Main.html
Check the
Check out the "Advising Helps" on the Registrar's Office home page.
Using the schedule of classes, plan a tentative schedule, using the class schedule planner. Don't forget to block out times for drills, labs, discussion sections. Consider alternates in case classes you want are full.
After you've planned a tentative schedule and alternates, make an appointment with your academic advisor. Schedule your appointment for at least two days prior to your registration time.
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You'll need to complete a readmission application (you can
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If you have a hold, click on "View Hold" on the registration screen to see what kind of hold you have. Then contact the appropriate office:
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Bring your completed registration form signed by your advisor and permission slips for any classes listed in the schedule as "RESTRICTED" or "Written permission of instructor (or chairperson) required." You must have these items to register.
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active: 590 B.C. - 570 B.C. Argos, Greece
A Greek bronze worker in the early 500s B.C. in the city of Argos, Aristodamos is known from a signature on a bronze shield strap in the Getty Museum. This complete inscription, "Aristodamos of Argos made it," has helped scholars identify other works by the artist. Before the discovery of this inscription, scholars had assumed that the name Aristodamos appearing alone on several shield straps found at the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia was meant to label one of the figures depicted on these bands. The Getty Museum's piece makes it clear that these are abbreviated signatures of a maker.
The city of Argos in southern Greece was a center for bronze working in the Archaic period, producing armor as well as sculpture. For an artist to sign his work in this medium and at this time is quite unusual. Aristodamos is one of the first Greek artists known to sign his work, indicating a new awareness and pride in his craft.
Shield Strap
Greek, 575 B.C.


text:
Between 1989 and 2003, Liberia was torn apart by brutal civil wars that left around 250,000 people dead and millions more suffering.
But despite high rates of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, the country has only two psychiatrists and one inpatient mental health facility.
This dearth of support means that people often either go undiagnosed or turn to traditional or spiritual healers for help. Many believe that mental illness is caused by witchcraft or demonic possession.
Reporter Sharita Hutton travels across Liberia to see how some people with mental health problems or conditions such as epilepsy are shackled with chains or treated with herbal remedies or prayer.
In a bid to improve care, Liberian Dr Janice Cooper is leading efforts by the charity The Carter Center to train medical staff in mental healthcare.
They aim to teach 150 nurses and physician assistants by 2015.
Watch The Cure on Tuesday: 2230; Wednesday: 0930; Thursday: 0330; Friday: 1630; Saturday: 2230; Sunday: 0930; Monday: 0330; Tuesday: 1630 GMT.
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Avril Lavigne Says She Has 'Health Issues,' Asks Fan to Pray for Her
Responding to a Twitter DM from a fan, Avril Lavigne revealed that she has quietly been suffering from "health issues."
Responding to a Twitter DM from a fan, Avril Lavigne revealed that she has quietly been suffering from "health issues."
When you look back on 2014, what will you think about? Chances are, you'll see it in this clever clip.
Olly Murs and Demi Lovato give us a a glimmer of hope in their new video for 'Up.'
If you're a fan of the wildly popular 'Divergent' series, then we've got something awesome for you! A full trailer for the upcoming sequel 'Insurgent' hit the web and this installment looks even more insane than the last.
Some homeless men in Syracuse received an incredible present this Christmas time!
On September 13th 2008 I was prepared to make the biggest decision of my life.
Four teams qualified for the postseason in Week 15; just two weeks remain to fill out the rest of the field. Here's a recap of this week's action:
Prepare to feast your eyes (and ears!) on the men of Oxford's all-male a cappella group, Out of the Blue, covering Mariah Carey's 'All I Want for Christmas Is You.'
If you loved 'Divergent' and are already totally on board with the cinematic adaptations of Veronica Roth's young adult science fiction novels, then the trailer for the awkwardly titled 'The Divergent Series: Insurgent' is probably going to prove exciting. If you're unfamiliar with the franchise, prepare for 144 seconds that might as well be in a foreign language.
If you think Santa preps for his big day by sitting around the mall letting kids hop on his lap telling him what they want, think again. It turns out he needs to blow off some steam just like the rest of us.
No, Abigail Breslin did not actually just call Taylor Swift an "emotionally unstable cat lady."
Today I got the chance to talk with Jim Brickman about his 2014 appearance at Turning Stone , his new album, and what to expect this weekend on "Your Weekend with Jim Brickman."


text: Description Facilities Map Important Information Seba Cottages is an overnight accommodation facility situated on a 4464-square metre property in Mokopane in the heart of the bushveld. The buildings on the property are an old farmhouse of the former Vredenburgh district that have been restored to their former glory with original Oregon pine doors and floor and beautiful pressed ceilings. The main house and the three adjacent garden cottages are all decorated in old-fashioned style with antique furniture and feature antique-style baths or showers. Each unit contains either a double bed or twin beds, an en-suite bathroom and a kitchen or kitchenette. The units are all semi or fully equipped for self-catering. All meals are available on request by prior booking, but breakfast is our speciality. All units are non smoking although smoking is allowed on the patios and outside. Type: Self-catering, Bed and BreakfastSleeps: 20 Check-in: 12:00 PM Check-out: 10:00 AM Reviews: 7 Parking AvailableBraai/BarbecueSwimming PoolLanguages SpokenEnglishAfrikaansGradingAA Highly Recommended Toggle Street View * We rely on Google's mapping service, and the location information supplied to us to show street view images. Please use street view as a guide only as we cannot guarantee its accuracy. All meals are available on request by prior arrangement.


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- Antique Jewelry
- The Ages
- Engagement Rings
- Antique Rings
- Diamond Jewelry
- So Much More
Diamond & Sapphire ¾ Eternity Band
Designed to sweep you off your feet, this ¾ eternity band displays an enchanting array of seventeen full brilliant cut diamonds with 58 facets of brilliancy of .15 carats. Alternating with the diamonds are sixteen cobalt blue sapphires with a total weight of .15 carats. The channel set gems encircle the band ¾ of the way around within an 18k white gold mount designed for a comfortable fit.
Measurements: Greater than 1/16 of an inch (0.2 cm) in width north to south on the hand and rises 1/16 of an inch (0.2 cm) off the finger. Weight of 1.8 grams (1.1 dwt).
Ring Size: US 6-1/4 (UK L-3/4; Euro 16.75, 53 mm) and can easily be sized. Ring sizing information.
Hallmarks: 18k
Condition: Very good; light wear to a few sapphires visible with a loupe.
Date: Circa mid to later 20th century.
Note: All diamond and gemstone weights are approximate as the stones have not been removed in order to preserve the integrity of the setting.
Forms of Payment
- VISA and MasterCard, Discover and American Express credit & debit cards.
- Personal checks drawn on U.S. banks only - Please allow 7 business days for clearance.
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Other Forms of Payment
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Layaway information and for full details see Payment Methods.
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Just write "extended return" in the comments box of your order to qualify! Notify us by December 29th, ship back by January 2nd, 2015.
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More details at Full Guarantee including gift giving and holiday options.


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Home > Art / Photo > Pen & Ink > Henna/ Mehndi
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Join the DiscussionThis art/photo has 4 comments. Post your own now!
MaddyMaddyMaddy said...
May 29 at 3:19 pm
May 29 at 3:19 pm
This is a really cool drawing! I love doodling stuff like this :)
j.g.poems said...
Apr. 18 at 8:11 am
Apr. 18 at 8:11 am
This is sick! I would want it as a tattoo.
XxPandahKittyxX said...
Apr. 11 at 11:01 am
Apr. 11 at 11:01 am
This would be an amzing tattoo
Natalie_Wheeling replied...
Apr. 15 at 8:00 am
Apr. 15 at 8:00 am
I have been putting together a portfolio and trying to see if I can become a tattoo apprentice :)


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|Get out of my head, massage therapist!
What is it about big goals that freaks people out?
Why does one always want to burst the bubble of the dreamer?
After weeks of persistent headaches, I decided it was time to start taking care of myself again. So I went to a massage therapist--a new one who was much closer to my home.
As he worked on releasing tension in the most painful parts of my body, he asked seemingly harmless questions--all the better to get to know his new client. Somehow, an innocent conversation about gardening led to my intention to move to the tropics in a few years.
"Not that I don't like it here," I hastened to explain, intuiting that he was one of those people who was blissfully happy where he was. "The climate just isn't for me. I want a different lifestyle, too, where no one cares what I'm wearing, what car I drive, or how big my house is."
"Curacao isn't perfect either, you know," he said, responding to something I'd never claimed. "It gets terrible hurricanes."
"Actually, it isn't on the hurricane belt. That's one of the reasons we chose it. It sometimes gets tropical storms in the aftershock, but it doesn't get the hurricanes."
"Well, with climate change, you never know what they're going to do," he argued, using my back as a map to plot out the potential route of a future hurricane in my potential new home. Then he caught himself. "Not that I'm trying to discourage you."
Why do people always say that when that's exactly what they're trying to do? I'm surprised he didn't tell me my book wouldn't sell and that I should just go ahead and self-publish while he was at it.
I'm used to people telling me that my dreams will never happen. I'm just not used to having to pay for it. Needless to say, I won't be going to that massage therapist again. I wish I'd been more open about telling him exactly what I thought of his "advice".
I can understand people being skeptical about my desire to write books for a living. Unless you know someone who's achieved that ambition, it must seem akin to winning the lottery or becoming a rock star. I get that. But now even moving away is unrealistic and doomed? I feel safe telling people this particular goal, even people I work with, because I know no one believes it will ever happen. Lots of people say they're going to escape to a tropical island, but few ever do.
I've never understood why people will persist in arguing with you about your own plans for your life. Who knows you better than you, after all? When I was in high school, I had a girl friend who would always dispute my statement that I was not going to have children.
"You'll change your mind," she insisted. "Everyone does."
As I reached my late twenties, and then my thirties, and still proclaimed that I had absolutely no desire to have a baby--that my maternal instinct was, in fact, limited to animals, the sentiment changed somewhat, and I was told:
"I felt exactly the same way as you...until I had kids."
Well, there's the difference. I won't have kids unless I feel I really want them. And sorry, that just isn't happening.
I know all the sayings, all the cliches: Life is what happens while you're making other plans; men plan, God laughs.
But He really doesn't have to go to the trouble, does He? Not when he has massage therapists to do the work for him.


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The Brazilian Acai Berry is one of the natures true "super-foods" being packed full of essential fatty acids, protein, fibre and Omega 3, 6 and 9.
In fact, the fruit contains twice the amount of antioxidants found in blueberries and ten times the level found in grapes.
Although Acai berries are well known for their positive effects on preventing disease and premature ageing, it is the remarkable effect they have on our waistlines which has turned them into one of the hottest slimming supplements available today.
50% off Evolution Slimming 100% Pure Acai Berry
Where does Acai come from and what does it look like?
They are normally found growing in parts of the Amazon rainforest. Acai is a very distinct purple berry closely resembling a grape and can be found growing in bunches from tall palms – sometimes more than 80 feet tall!.
How can it help you lose weight?
Acai berries are known to have a detoxifying effect on our digestive system, removing toxins and helping to improve digestion and increase the metabolism.
Supplementing your diet with Acai berries also helps your body burn stored fat for energy, and is clinically proven to speed up the rate at which your body uses calories.
Experts also suggest that it normalises cholesterol levels, provides most of the vital vitamins our bodies need, enables sound sleep and fights free radicals that cause premature ageing.
The results are often fast and impressive, with typical weight loss of around 1-3lb per week with no change to diet or exercise levels.
What to look out for when buying Acai berry products?
Choosing a good quality supplement is no easy task, with hundreds of products containing poor quality Acai "extract" or featuring minuscule amounts of actual fruit. The following is a list of things you need to look out for when buying this online or on the high street;
1. Choose 100% pure Acai and not "extracts"
Nearly all Acai berry diet pills currently available in the UK contain Acai extract as their key ingredient. This is heavily processed and contains minuscule amounts of actual fruit. It is usually sandy in colour and similar in texture to saw dust.
Always opt for Acai berry which contains 100% pure unprocessed fruit, and avoid products which list ingredients like 18:1 extract.
The image below shows how pure acai berry should look:
2. Beware of free trial offers
Due to Acai's massive exposure over recent years, it is often the unfortunate target of online scammers. These free trial scams entice customers with the promise of free bottles which can be sampled for 14 or 30 days.
However, unless the trial is cancelled within a specified period, the customer will automatically enter an auto-ship program.
Cancelling any online free trial is usually purposely difficult, and often requires customers to jump through hoops to do so.
*Avoid any company which offers free Acai berry supplements, you have been warned!*
3. Beware of cheap or fake Acai
It is estimated that around 1 in 3 Acai supplements contain no real beneficial amount of fruit content. It can also be hard to determine actual contents as many Acai berry products contain binders, fillers and bulking ingredients.
Even high street brands such as Holland and Barrett's contain cheap "extract" in addition to bulking powders such as gelatine, beeswax, silicon dioxide, soya and caramel.
Products containing actual freeze dried Acai berry pulp will not be available too cheaply.
What do we recommend?
Currently, our top recommended brand is Evolution Slimming's 100% Pure Acai. Of the many different manufacturers we have reviewed, only this particular product ticked all the right boxes for quality and price.


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These cottages are located close to the Main Hall and clustered around a secluded cottage garden, whose focal point is a romantic seated niche in the wall overlooking the 17th Century parterre garden. Rambling roses adorn the stone walls, and the cottage doorways blend effortlessly into an enchanting backdrop of year round colour and interest in the garden.
Click on thumb nail to enlarge. A selection of images of some of our cottage suites.
Bailiff's House Exterior
New Cottage Exterior
Park Cottage Exterior
Pineapple Cottage Exterior, upper floor (front and back)
Gingerbread House Garden and Exterior
Gingerbread House Sitting Room
Gingerbread House Queen-size bedroom
Byre Cottage Exterior - Triple Cottage Suite
Byre Cottage - The 'Piano' Suite, Sitting room
Byre Cottage - Queen Size Bedroom
Byre Cottage - Single Bedroom One
Byre Cottage - Single Bedroom Two
Garden Cottage Exterior
Mulberry Cottage Exterior
The cottages offer a greater degree of privacy and some have their own private garden. They are the ideal place for couples and families travelling together or a romantic break, and a perfect base from which to discover the glorious countryside, or to call for room service and chill out with treats from our kitchen.
The cottages have a bedroom, some with two or three bedrooms, bathroom, sitting room and a separate area for making tea or coffee.
Main Hall Cottages' Details:


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hey. nick came back last night. :) we hung out & he marked me. lol. he gave me a hickey in other words. as nate marshall calls it, "the mark of ownership". haha. well i guess nick does "own" me. ;) nick, me, & lisa are going to crossgates tonight. well, i g2g. ttyl!
mike just brought me home. he picked me up around 7. we went downtown to eat at this chinese restaurant called "china wok". i don't think i am going to eat there anymore. there was like a miniature penis mixed in with my sesame chicken. it was fucking gross. :/ after that, we went through the dunkin' donuts drive-thru & i got an iced coffee. we visited my friend jake at mobil, since he works there. then we went to wally world & played in the toy section. then we drove around a little & we went to jb's & hung out with jb & amanda. well, i g2g. ttyl!
who wants to buy a bag made out of a kangaroo's scrotum? the seller of that item is a fucking insult to the entire human race. poor kangaroo, just how the fuck did someone get ahold of a kangaroo's sac? some people are just extremely sick these days. *sigh* anyway, it's friday! yay! :D i'm drinking slim fast. mmm. i think it tastes good, that's the only reason why i drink it. haha. i just got off the phone with manda. she might try snowboarding with me this year. :D well, i g2g. ttyl!
hey. jurassic 5 raps my turkey wrap well. ;D i went back to school today after being out for three days this week. i was out of school for a total of eight days counting vacation and the three days i was absent from school this week. that's quite a bit of a break. wee! :D hmm..nick and i are alright now. <3 i have so much work to make up from school. :/ ugh. i am going to try to stay after for geometry tomorrow to get a good grasp of what we are doing in class right now. i'm going to stay after on monday for geometry to make up a test i missed, too. i have to stay after on tuesday to make up an earth science lab with a funny kid known as mike slattery & the funny egyptian kid amed. he's got a 'fro, so he's a cool kid. ;D i hope i head over to the mall with my mom tomorrow afterschool. we need to get some christmas shopping done. "ooh wee ooh killah tofu!" who watches doug on nickelodeon?? :D haha. the ren & stimpy show, rocko's modern life, & aahh!! real monsters are all back on air on nickelodeon. yay! :D hehe. well, i g2g. ttyl!


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October 2002
Provides approximately $700 million in grants and loans for a one-time reduction in the backlog of applications pending on May 13, 2002, for loans and grants for water and waste disposal and emergency community water assistance.
Reauthorizes, with no funding, the emergency community water assistance grant program and adds imminent decline in water quality and quantity as an eligible program purpose.
Authorizes, with no funding, the Rural Water Circuit Rider Program to provide technical assistance for daily operations of rural water and waste water systems.
Authorizes, with no funding, water and waste facility grants for Native American tribes.
Reauthorizes, with no funding, grants for water systems for rural and native villages in Alaska.
Authorizes, with no funding, grants to nonprofits to capitalize a revolving fund to finance predevelopment costs and facility improvements for water and waste disposal facilities.
Authorizes, with no funding, grants to nonprofit organizations to capitalize a revolving fund to finance homeowners' water well systems.
Authorizes, with no funding, grant assistance to communities under 2,500 in population to prepare feasibility or environmental studies for environmental projects.
Provides nearly $2 billion for direct loans and loan guarantees, through 2007, to improve the access to broadband telecommunications services in communities with less than 20,000 residents.
Provides $1 billion, through 2006, for local television service to households in non-served and underserved rural areas.
Authorizes, with no funding, grants for radio transmitters to increase coverage in rural areas of NOAA's all-hazards weather radio broadcast system.
Authorizes, with no funding, loans to expand or improve 911 access and integrated emergency communication systems in rural areas.
Provides $44 million in grants and $280 million in debt guarantees for a new Rural Business Investment Program to assist companies that will make equity investments in rural businesses.
Provides for a simplified application for business and industry loans of less than $400,000.
Allows for business and industry loans and guarantees for more types of renewable energy systems, such as wind energy system and anaerobic digesters.
Authorizes $115 million in funding authority through 2007 for a new grant, loan, and loan guarantee program to assist farmers, ranchers, and rural small businesses in buying renewable energy systems and making energy efficiency improvements.
Expands authority to make loans to cooperatives and for cooperative stock purchases.
Provides approximately $33 million annually in grants through 2006 for valued-added agricultural product marketing development grants.
Provides $3 to 6 million annually in grants through 2004 for a new Agriculture Innovation Center Demonstration Program to provide technical assistance, business, and market planning for valued-added businesses.
Authorizes, with no funding, the training of farmworkers in new technologies for higher value crops.
Enhances the Rural Business and Industry Loan Program for value-added producers, firms and cooperatives.
Provides $10 million annually in grants through 2007 for a Rural Firefighters and Emergency Medical Personnel Training Program.
Authorizes, with no funding, Community Facilities grants to Tribal colleges and universities.
Requires at least 10 percent of Community Facilities funds to be reserved for child care until April 1 of each fiscal year.
Authorizes, with no funding, grants to improve infrastructure, service, and business development in rural areas that have an out-migration of greater than 5 percent.
Authorizes, with no funding, grants for Rural Development to pay the federal share of the cost of establishing and operating a national rural telework institute.
Authorizes, with no funding, a historic barn preservation program.
Provides $95 million in grants for a Rural Strategic Investment Program to fund regional strategic plans and infrastructure development. Establishes a National Board on Rural America to oversee the program. Also provides funds for a Conference on Rural America.
Revises the definition of rural areas for business, water, and community facilities programs.
Authorizes, with no funding, a National Rural Development Partnership program.
Authorizes, with no funding, a Northern Great Plains Regional Authority to plan and fund development strategies in a 5 state area - Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota.
Providing Programs and Services that Enhance Rural America


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Discover Chocolate and Live La Vida Cocoa!
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Greencow, thank you so much for that PDF. I hope to utilize this information in Puerto Rico this March.
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'Passing Strange' even stronger rearranged
BY HEDY WEISS Theater email@example.com April 26, 2011 6:34PM
◆ Through May 29
◆ Bailiwick Chicago at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts, 777 N. Green
◆ Tickets, $25-$35
◆ (312) 733-6000;
Updated: September 24, 2012 6:25AM
Bailiwick Chicago's Midwest premiere of "Passing Strange," the Stew and Heidi Rodewald musical created in collaboration with Annie Dorsen, is staggeringly good. And anyone in need of a reminder of how Chicago theater continues to reinvent itself is advised to head directly to the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts to catch it.
Not only is the show — a classic coming-of-age story with a notable twist — in many ways far sharper and more intimate here than it was in the 2008 Broadway edition that starred Stew himself. But thanks to a cast of brilliant young singer-actors led by the bravura Jayson "JC" Brooks as "Narrator," as well as the razor-edged onstage band led by James Morehead, and the spare, clever, bristlingly insightful direction of Lili-Anne Brown, it takes on an immediacy the original lacked.
No longer does this feel like a nostalgic piece, even though it is still set in the Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Berlin of the 1980s, and a great deal has changed since then. It now pulses with the energy of this moment. Plus, the fact that its central character is a middle-class black kid from Los Angeles — in search of songwriter dreams, a sense of identity and distance from his loving single mother (LaNisa Renee Frederick) — also brings to mind a certain man now in the White House who very likely was doing similar "self-searching" at the same time as Stew. So the show's meaning has only deepened.
The show's score and book (the latter won Stew a 2008 Tony Award)unspool with a seductive seamlessness that beautifully and often hilariously interweaves American and European history and attitudes, suggesting the changes in pop music styles and, most crucially, the alterations in one young man's inner landscape.
The "Youth" (Stephen Perkins, who memorably pulls out the stops in "Identity," a performance-art-style work in which he taps his fake roots) is something of a classic teenage nerd with a rebellious streak, though he is far from ghetto-bred. He first "catches the spirit" at the local Baptist church, thanks to the decidedly unorthodox ideas of the reverend's gay son Mr. Franklin (Osiris Khepera is priceless), whose dreams of bohemian Europe become realities for the Youth.
Leaving his mother behind, the Youth heads to Amsterdam, where sex, drugs and acceptance are easy and natural. Then it is on to an anarchic commune in Berlin before the fall of the Wall, where he gets a political walloping, briefly plays on his "blackness" and, in the most life-changing event of all, learns of the death of his mother, whom he has selfishly ignored. The Youth has a habit of fleeing, particularly when romantic relationships get too close. He discovers the hard way that while "art" may be a great balm, it cannot replace the real ties of the heart.
In this show full of "adult adventures," the marvelously luminous and talented Sharriese Hamilton and Whitney White play all the females muses, with Aaron Holland easily morphing from garage band pal to transvestite.
As for Brooks (outstanding as Coalhouse Walker in Porchlight Theatre's "Ragtime" revival), he is a wonder — a superb singer, stylist and actor with easy elegance, grace, emotional intensity and heart. And he and the others are splendidly backed by Morehead's band featuring Billy Bungeroth, Kevin Marks, Ben Taylor and David Keller.


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Students will test their selling skills at the 5th Annual UW-Eau Claire Collegiate Sales Competition on Friday, December 1, 2006.
UW-Eau Claire students will develop a 20-minute sales presentation for a predetermined product or service which they will "sell" to a faculty "buyer". Sales presentation will be evaluated by a team of judges consisting of sales professionals and faculty members.
This year's student competitors include:
Student Competitors
Bowie Burger
Ann Lundberg
The prize
The top four UW-Eau Claire students receive trophies and all expense paid trips to the 9th Annual National Collegiate Sales Competition at Kennesaw State University (near Atlanta, Georgia), March 16-17, 2007.
Last year, the UW-Eau Claire team placed sixth nationally, beating teams from such schools as Babson College, Baylor University, Harvard, Purdue, Texas State University and University of Houston. UW-Eau Claire student Lindsey Zastrow took first place in the service category and placed 4th in the competition overall. She was less than one point away from competing in the championship round.
» Read about last year's competition
For more information about the competition, contact La Nette Flunker, Department of Management and Marketing.
» View the National Collegiate Sales Competition website
» Read more about the national award-winning Eau Claire team