Terrible Analogies

I’ve been living with a secret, one so dark and heavy it weighs me down with guilt, shortens my step, and drains me of my otherwise radiant charm.  It haunts me, daring me to go one more day before letting loose to the world this dreadful unknown.  

But I can’t bear the burden any longer.  My trembling, creaking bones can no longer carry the weight of this ill-gotten fortune.  I must share the origin of my blog title…

As a child I grew up with comic books.  For several years I even worked in a comic book shop.  My favorite series was one that holds the record for longest running english independent comic…Cerebus.  Originally a parody of Conan The Barbarian, it quickly evolved into a tale of politics, finance, religion, and ethics.  In the 300 monthly black and white issues that this story spanned Cerebus, an earth pig born, was a warrior, Prime Minister, the Pope, a witness to God, and finally serving as His vessel and doing His bidding before succumbing to a sad, uncelebrated fate Cerebus has foreseen and knows is ultimately unavoidable.

And this brings me back to my original point.  The title of my blog, Terrible Analogies, comes from an issue of Cerebus.  In it, Cerebus the Pope is rejected by the only woman he ever loved.  Having shed his papal garb and holding his old blade he stands at a pivotal crossroads; continue with his mad plan to bankrupt the city-state of Iest, or slink back to his old ways of living by the sword.  

If you’ve never read independent comics when they truly were independent, then I implore you to read the history of this series.  It’s a quick read, but well worth your time.  Check out some of the amazing cover art as well.  And after having reviewed this information you find yourself wishing to dive into this series, you can purchase the phonebook encyclopedia novels that covers the entire run of Cerebus.

So there you have it.  Terrible Analogies owes its title to Dave Sim and his amazing body of work.  

My love for this series knows no bounds…  

I miss the days where one could order pet hamsters, seahorses, and monkeys via the mail.  In the 60′s all you apparently had to do was send your hard-earned cash to an anonymous post office box, and luck willing your pet monkey / seahorse / hamster would arrive alive, albeit possibly slightly confused and dehydrated, at your front door.  

Plus you could raise it on a diet of lollipops!

I can imagine a kid innocently ordering one of these mail order monkeys.  It silently arrives in the dead of night without his parents knowledge in a worn and dented a shoebox labeled “Fragile!  Live freight!”.  Secreting this half-dead simian into his bedroom he revives it with a steady diet of soda and lollipops.  Awakened in the middle of the night by a half-crazed, disoriented, hyperactive spider monkey gnawing and clawing at his exposed face this panicking kid, blinded by blood pouring into his now lidless his eyes, tears through the house screaming in agony, followed closely by a sugar-enraged monkey hellbent on getting his primate ass back to the rain forest and the familiarity of trees and open sky.

It’s a shame we can’t order monkeys by mail anymore…

John Timothy Keehan (aka Count Dante) (1939 – 1975)

Ex-hairdresser turned martial arts master, arsonist, terrorist, and war chief.  The self-proclaimed “Deadliest Man Alive”, if you didn’t agree with him he would just as likely plant blasting caps in your place of business as punch you in the face.  A sensei to some, a criminal to others.  And to the people who read comic books as a kid he’ll always be the karate man with the ‘fro…