Poor Mojo's Two Minute Hate

Here they go again. Ignorance and hatred dominated the local news following rally in Raleigh.

In what Democratic leadership accurately described as a political ploy, 3-5 thousand people were bused in to Raleigh yesterday to condemn their peaceful, and loving neighbors who just happen to be of the same sex. The contrast is stark between yesterday's rally supporting constitutionalized discrimination and the NAACP rally last month calling on the legislature to actualize their stated commitment to civil rights and civil liberties.

To their credit, Senate pro Basnight and Hackney were not moved. In response to Called2Action Chairman Steve Noble's assertion that his group is "able to bring pressure to bear on the people who have bottled [the amendment] up," the N&O reports that

Notwithstanding Basnight's and Hackney's determination not to bring a constitutional amendment to a floor vote, I still can't help but be disappointed by their default response to these efforts which amount to nothing more than,

Did you notice how the good graphic novels plumbed teen angst and autobiography for material? Did you further notice how the great graphic novels covered bigger subjects: the Holocaust, the Islamic Revolution, the Trojan War? Coincidence? I don’t think so.

The Complete Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman The most important graphic novel yet published. Maus recounts the experiences of Spiegleman’s father as a Polish Jew during the Holocaust. It won a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992. Outstanding. A+ $22.05 from Amazon. La Perdida by Jessica Abel La Perdida tells the story of Carla, an aimless young American woman living in Mexico City. The ending is a little Hollywood, but overall, this is a great read. B+ $12.97 from Amazon. Blankets or Good-Bye, Chucky Rice by Craig Thompson Thompson is a Portland-area creator. Blankets is considered his best work to date, and it’s fine in a Tori Amos sort of way, but feels a little sophomoric at times. I prefer the more imaginative Good-Bye, Chunky Rice. Blankets: B $18.87 from Amazon. Good-Bye, Chunky rice: B+ $9.97 from Amazon. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi Persepolis is the autobiography of a woman who grew up in Iran during the reign of the Shah, and during the Islamic Revolution. This book has been compared (favorably) to Maus, and while it’s not quite up to that standard, it’s excellent nonetheless. Highly recommended. A- $11.67 from Amazon. Black Hole by Charles Burns One of the next books on my “to-read” shelf. This highly-acclaimed graphic novel is another portrait of adolescence. It combines a sexually-transmitted plague with a series of murders. Highly-regarded. Inc. $15.72 from Amazon. Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid in the World by Chris Ware The story of a sad family full of sad men. I collected this in comic book form during the mid-nineties — I bought the first issue on the day my father died — but haven’t read it since. Ware is the darling of the intelligentsia.B $22.05 from Amazon. Torso by Brian Michael Bendis Remember Eliot Ness of Untouchables fame? After he stood up to Al Capone in Chicago, he moved to Cleveland. This true-crime graphic novel tells of his other big case, the one that ruined him: a series of gruesome killings. A- out-of-print, but available used at $12.95 from Amazon. Age of Bronze: A Thousand Ships and Age of Bronze: Sacrifice by Eric Shanower Over the course of a planned seven volumes, Shanower is writing and drawing the history of the Trojan War using primary sources as reference. He’s dispensed with the gods and goddesses, but not their roles. When drawing the books, he relies on archaeological evidence to get the costumes, structures, and objects correct. This is great stuff. Age of Bronze: A Thousand Ships: A $13.57 from Amazon. Age of Bronze: Sacrifice: Inc. $12.97 from Amazon. Ghost World by Daniel Clowes Some of you have probably seen the film adaptation of this book. The graphic novel on which it is based is a little different, emphasizing the relationship between the two young women, and spending less time on secondary characters. This is really a series of eight short stories that hang together as a whole. Shortish. A- $9.20 from Amazon. American Splendor by Harvey Pekar This book contains dozens of short autobiographical bits from Pekar’s early work. Some are great, others are less impressive, but on the whole American Splendor does a great job capturing adult angst. I actually prefer the recent film, which is wonderfully post-modern and often hilarious. B+ $11.53 from Amazon. Locas by Jaime Hernandez Though this is a classic in the field, I haven’t read any of it yet. To quote Publishers Weekly: “These superb stories … define a world of Hispanic gang warfare, ’80s California, punk rock, women wrestlers and the subtle battle to stay true to oneself. Hernandez’s main characters are Maggie and Hopey, two adorable lesbian rockers who start out in a somewhat vague relationship.” Inc. $31.47 from Amazon. Palomar by Gilbert Hernandez If you enjoyed Like Water for Chocolate or One Hundred Years of Solitude, then Palomar may be for you. Publishers Weekly again: “The earliest stories in the book owe more to magical realism and Gabriel Garcia Marquez than to anything that had been done in comics before. But in later pieces … Hernandez’s style is entirely his own”. Inc. $25.17 from Amazon. Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson Here’s a graphic novel that I do not own and have not read. Box Office Poison gets rave reviews from every corner. From what I understand, it tracks the misadventures of a group of recent college grads. Inc. $18.87 from Amazon.

AsianWeek regular contributor Kenneth Eng has a bit of a problem. He hates black people — and didn’t mind saying so in a column aptly entitled “Why I Hate Blacks.”

Well, I’m glad he didn’t mince words. Eng, who in another one of his “God of the Universe” columns referred to himself as an “Asian supremacist,” is suffering from a terminal case of ignorance — with complications of bigotry added in there for further misery.

AsianWeek pulled Eng column, but it received a lot of coverage on the blogs, including this story in the San Francisco Chronicle.