The Busytown Neighborhood in New-York

Every December the New-York Historical Society lays out a big model train set to visit, and this year’s design celebrates the centenary of Richard Scarry’s birth by sending the trains through Busytown.

The museum’s webpage doesn’t have any images from the display, but Time Out offered the photo above, showing that Scarry’s characters appear as little flat cutouts direct from his illustrations. (Rather than, say, three-dimensionally modeled adaptations.)

There are also “custom-made Busytown vehicle-themed benches” and larger “Busytown characters” for selfies. Busytown is of course a going commercial concern, licensed from Random House. Given how hard most of its inhabitants work at their jobs, such marketing doesn’t violate the Busytown spirit in the least.

Weekend storytimes will feature Scarry’s books, including The Night Before the Night Before Christmas, and on 14-15 December Scarry’s son and collaborator, Huck Scarry, will get busy sketching characters and talking to visitors.

Happy Holidays from Highlights

This week H-Net’s American Studies discussion site published Patrick Cox’s article “What's Wrong with Christmas in Highlights for Children?” While certainly not saying this was a Bad Thing, Cox noted a significant change in how the magazine has presented Christmas to young readers:

Santa Claus, arguably the most prominent figure in wondrous childhood, has been almost entirely absent from the pages of Highlights over the past 30 years. Santa used to appear multiple times in every December issue in stories and images, as did elves and flying reindeer, since the magazine was founded in 1946. Other Christmas-y pages in December Highlights issues of Chistmases past included short non-fiction pieces on, for example, the history of Christmas trees or Christmas celebrations in other countries, and short fiction about children at Christmas who typically learn valuable lessons about giving and kindness. Recurring characters The Timbertoes and The Bear Family celebrated christmas. Overt Christianity was also prominent in the early years of the magazine all year round and the December issues always included bible stories, sheet music of religious carols, and images of the nativity and angels.

Jesus and Santa both appear less and less frequently in Highlights beginning in the 1950’s. By the 1990’s, Highlights is beginning to look a lot less like Christmas. Santa and Jesus are both almost completely absent, as are the decorations, the bright colors, the piles of gift wrapped presents. They’re replaced by pleas to keep Christmas simple, emphasizing time with family and friends, giving to charities, and making presents by hand. Several pages are given to instructions on making homemade presents and homemade decorations. . . .

The children in Highlights are very often white, as I suspect most of their readers are, and main characters in stories and comics in the magazine are most often male, never queer, and pretty much always comfortably middle class. But at Christmas, their anti-consumerist pragmatism is surprisingly non-conformist.

But what should we expect from a magazine so un-American that it includes no advertising?

(Above: Goofus and Gallant do Christmas, courtesy of Envisioning the American Dream.)

Turkey in the Straw Poll

This week Public Policy Polling released the results of a Thanksgiving survey (PDF download) which provided new evidence of OIP Derangement Syndrome among self-identified conservatives and Republicans.

The questions were all Thanksgiving-themed, such as respondents’ favorite pies, whether stuffing should be called dressing, and which Presidential candidates people might and might not like as Thanksgiving guests.

And then there was this question:

Do you approve or disapprove of President Obama’s executive action last year to pardon 2 turkeys rather than the customary one turkey at Thanksgiving?

Choices were approval, disapproval, and “not sure,” which we should assume includes “don’t give a darn.”

The results were quite widely split by party affiliation and political leaning. As PPP reported, “Only 11% of Republicans support the President’s executive order last year to 38% who are opposed—that's a pretty clear sign that if you put Obama’s name on something GOP voters are going to oppose it pretty much no matter what. Overall there’s 35/22 support for the pardon of Macaroni and Cheese thanks to 59/11 support from Democrats and 28/21 from independents.”

But what’s really telling (though not told by PPP) is that Presidents started “formally” pardoning turkeys each year back in 1989, and there have always been two turkeys involved. The breeders provide a matched pair in case one doesn’t look like it can handle the ceremony. Here, for example, is the report on President George W. Bush pardoning two turkeys in 2007.

In other words, 38% of Republicans opposed the current President pardoning two turkeys even though they’d seen his predecessor do that same thing eight times, simply because PPP’s question presented them with a chance to express disapproval of “executive action,” doing something other than “customary,” and “President Obama.”

Keep the Holiday Spirit Rolling

Most people haven’t had the pleasure of seeing comedy writer Steve Young clean a kitchen, but I promise you it’s artistry.

The same attention to sanitary detail pervades the holiday songs that he’s recently shared on YouTube and CBS’s Late Show website. Tune in to these videos for some fine finger-picking and rhyming:

• “Nineteenth-Century Christmas”
• “Unsanitary Manger”
• “The Turkey Processing Song”

Steve is also coauthor of Everything’s Coming Up Profits: The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals, which now offers compilations through iTunes.

The Tradition of the Gävle Goat

For this holiday, Oz and Ends brings you the story of the Gävle Goat.

As Slate describes, the Gävle goat was instituted all the way back in 1966, when two brothers—an advertising consultant and a fire department chief—organized an effort in the city of Gävle to build a large straw statue of a goat for Christmas season. The goat represented one of the two that pull Odin’s chariot in Scandinavia’s pre-Christian pagan lore. It lasted just a few minutes into the New Year before it burned down.

Now you’d think that building a forty-foot-tall statue out of straw (over a metal frame) in honor of the winter solstice would just invite a bonfire. Even in Sweden, where there’s such a steady supply of snow to keep the straw cold and wet. But Gävle works to prevent its goat from burning. There are flame retardant chemicals, volunteer watches, police patrols, and webcams.

And those measures usually don’t work. The news reports I’ve seen differ on how often the Gävle Goat has been torched, though they agree that number is in the high twenties—i.e., more than half the time. The counts might be confused by the fact that it’s been destroyed in other ways: hit by cars and dismantled by hand (and foot). In 1970 the goat survived less than a day, though those young arsonists were caught. In 2005 people costumed as Santa Claus and the Gingerbread Man shot a flaming arrow at the goat and escaped.

In 2010 the goat survived the entire season, though there was a plot to steal it by helicopter. In 2011 it went up in flames on 2 December. In 2012 it survived until 12 December. This year, the goat went up in flames over the weekend. So at least it’s lasting longer.

Despite the widely reported tradition of destroying the Gävle Goat, it’s illegal to do so. In 2001 a visitor from Cleveland torched the goat, thinking he was participating in a local tradition. He was arrested, jailed for eighteen days, and fined SEK100,000, which he didn’t pay. Apparently the tradition is to set fire to the goat and get away.

Santa Claus and the Modern World of Central Heating

One of the hallmarks of L. Frank Baum’s fantasy writing was the crossover—and often conflict or rivalry—of fairy-tale traditions with modern technology. Here’s a passage from the final chapters of The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, published in 1902.

By and by people made ships from the tree-trunks and crossed over oceans and built cities in far lands; but the oceans made little difference to the journeys of Santa Claus. His reindeer sped over the waters as swiftly as over land, and his sledge headed from east to west and followed in the wake of the sun. So that as the earth rolled slowly over Santa Claus had all of twenty-four hours to encircle it each Christmas Eve, and the speedy reindeer enjoyed these wonderful journeys more and more. . . .

However, there was one evil following in the path of civilization that caused Santa Claus a vast amount of trouble before he discovered a way to overcome it. But, fortunately, it was the last trial he was forced to undergo.

One Christmas Eve, when his reindeer had leaped to the top of a new building, Santa Claus was surprised to find that the chimney had been built much smaller than usual. But he had no time to think about it just then, so he drew in his breath and made himself as small as possible and slid down the chimney.

”I ought to be at the bottom by this time,” he thought, as he continued to slip downward; but no fireplace of any sort met his view, and by and by he reached the very end of the chimney, which was in the cellar.

”This is odd!” he reflected, much puzzled by this experience. “If there is no fireplace, what on earth is the chimney good for?”

Then he began to climb out again, and found it hard work—the space being so small. And on his way up he noticed a thin, round pipe sticking through the side of the chimney, but could not guess what it was for.

Finally he reached the roof and said to the reindeer:

“There was no need of my going down that chimney, for I could find no fireplace through which to enter the house. I fear the children who live there must go without playthings this Christmas.”

Then he drove on, but soon came to another new house with a small chimney. This caused Santa Claus to shake his head doubtfully, but he tried the chimney, nevertheless, and found it exactly like the other. Moreover, he nearly stuck fast in the narrow flue and tore his jacket trying to get out again; so, although he came to several such chimneys that night, he did not venture to descend any more of them.

“What in the world are people thinking of, to build such useless chimneys?” he exclaimed. “In all the years I have traveled with my reindeer I have never seen the like before.”

True enough; but Santa Claus had not then discovered that stoves had been invented and were fast coming into use. When he did find it out he wondered how the builders of those houses could have so little consideration for him, when they knew very well it was his custom to climb down chimneys and enter houses by way of the fireplaces. Perhaps the men who built those houses had outgrown their own love for toys, and were indifferent whether Santa Claus called on their children or not.

Fortunately, the modern world also afforded Santa a solution for this problem.

“I will make all loving parents my deputies!” cried the jolly old fellow, “and they shall help me do my work. For in this way I shall save many precious minutes and few children need be neglected for lack of time to visit them.”

Besides carrying around the big packs in his swift-flying sledge old Santa began to send great heaps of toys to the toy-shops, so that if parents wanted larger supplies for their children they could easily get them; and if any children were, by chance, missed by Santa Claus on his yearly rounds, they could go to the toy-shops and get enough to make them happy and contented. For the loving friend of the little ones decided that no child, if he could help it, should long for toys in vain. And the toy-shops also proved convenient whenever a child fell ill, and needed a new toy to amuse it; and sometimes, on birthdays, the fathers and mothers go to the toy-shops and get pretty gifts for their children in honor of the happy event.

After all, Baum had been editor of The Show Window, a trade magazine for retailers, just two years before writing this book. He had abiding faith in the power of American shopkeepers.

Christmas Colors

For some unaccountable reason, this snapshot is included among the embarrassing family photos in the You’ve Got to Be Kidding blog’s posting titled “Wal-Mart Called—Your Christmas Photos Are In.” I think you’ll agree that it’s hardly embarrassing at all, especially in the context of the rest.

Ragging on the Vatican Embassy

The past two weeks allowed us to observe the birth and death of a fresh manifestation of OIP Derangement Syndrome. The phenomenon surfaced on 20 November as the National Catholic Reporter ran a story quoting James Nicholson, former head of the Republican National Committee, and a handful of other former US Ambassadors complaining about a change in the US Embassy to the Vatican. Some called it part of a pattern of administration attacks on “religion,” by which they meant their religion.

The right-wing clearinghouse Breitbart.com picked up that story on the Monday before Thanksgiving. The next day, the Washington Times, founded and maintained until 2010 by the Unification Church, ran a story headlined, “Obama’s call to close Vatican embassy is ‘slap in the face’ to Roman Catholics”. That story relied entirely on Breitbart, which in turn relied entirely on the National Catholic Reporter. The Washington newspaper did not bother to report the State Department’s press briefing on the issue.

(Digression #1: The Washington Times just published a column criticizing Pope Francis‘s first encyclical as based on “a disturbing ignorance.” But evidently that wasn’t a slap in the face to Roman Catholics because the author insisted he was writing with “deference and respect.”)

(Digression #2: I’ve previously noted a pattern of right-wing media playing up incendiary cultural stories just before Thanksgiving, when many government offices shut down and spokespeople are unavailable to refute falsehoods.)

Dynastic Presidential aspirant Jeb Bush picked up the “Vatican embassy closing” story and in a tweet tried to tie it to a controversy over the Affordable Care Act. The National Republican Senatorial Committee tried to capitalize on it with a webpage headlined “Obama Closes Vatican Embassy.”

And the whole thing turned out to be illusory. Normally we use the term “closing an embassy” to refer to breaking off or suspending diplomatic ties, but in this case it referred simply to moving the US Embassy to the Vatican to another office building closer to Vatican City. The embassy will be in another part of the same building as the US Embassy to Italy, allowing for more efficient operations and security at a smaller cost. The State Department had started to consider that idea when Gov. Jeb Bush’s brother was President.

CNN, the Washington Post, and Politifact all deemed the right-wing complaints bogus. But facts don’t matter to people suffering from OIP Derangement Syndrome. Especially when they think they’re on a mission from their God.

Parade Balloons Over 75 Years

Macy’s 1939 parade included a Tin Man balloon to promote MGM’s new movie, The Wizard of Oz.

For the movie’s seventy-fifth anniversary (which is actually next year), the movie’s current owner, Time Warner, paid for another balloon. According to Yahoo TV, “Macy's repurposed an older balloon. . . . The designers took a balloon shaped like a — see if you can follow — hot-air balloon and decorated it with images of the beloved L. Frank Baum characters.” The portraits were hand-painted.

Let Us Be Thankful That This Isn’t Rerun Every Year

In 1980 the Muller Rosen animation company released a half-hour holiday special for television titled Thanksgiving in the Land of Oz. That show was then recut to remove the Thanksgiving references and released on video as Dorothy in the Land of Oz; as of this holiday, it can be watched in two parts on YouTube. In 1982 Romeo Muller adapted his screenplay into a short illustrated book titled Dorothy and the Green Gobbler of Oz.

Like most Oz videos in the television age, this cartoon was written to invoke MGM’s Wizard of Oz. Dorothy meets the Wizard in Kansas again, the Cowardly Lion is bipedal, there are songs, and so on. But the filmmakers also obviously knew the Oz books and used them as inspiration for characters, settings, and plots points, albeit without being faithful to those books.

Thus, for example, just as in L. Frank Baum’s original novel and the MGM movie, Dorothy and Toto accidentally travel to Oz and meet three male companions who help her on a quest to vanquish a villain. One of those companions is an animated refugee from a farm, another made of metal, and the third a big carnivore with gentle habits. But in this movie those characters are Jack Pumpkinhead, Tic Toc [sic], and the Hungry Tiger, whom Baum introduced in different ways in his second and third Oz books.

Jack lives in a pumpkin house, as John R. Neill drew it in The Road to Oz. Other Oz houses resembles those he and W. W. Denslow designed, and a sequence of children opening Christmas presents owes a lot to Denslow’s art, rendered with less character. However, a trip over a rainbow at the end is clearly inspired by the MGM movie’s most famous song.

The end of the cartoon shows Ozma as rightful ruler of the Emerald City, but there’s no explanation of how she came to the throne. This Ozma seems much older than Dorothy and more like the Glinda of the movie.

Another element that the filmmakers borrowed from Baum’s books appears at the start: Uncle Henry and Aunt Em are about to lose their farm to the bank. The couple plans to go into an “old folks’ home” while Dorothy will have to live somewhere far away with a cousin—perhaps Zeb Hugson from Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. This is a better fate than what Baum wrote about in The Emerald City of Oz, which suggested Dorothy would have to go to work while her aged relatives might end up begging. Still, it was probably a shock to many viewers.

The big-name star of the production is Sid Caesar, who plays the Wizard and narrates the story in that role. Caesar also plays a mince pie that’s brought to life, takes the name U.N. Krust, and delivers every line in a different foreign accent. The pie and its speech patterns play no role in the plot; they seem to have been included just to put Caesar’s shtick to use. We haven’t seen so much ethnic humor in an Oz adaptation since the 1903 Broadway show.

Another notable casting detail: Joan Gerber supplied the voices for both Ozma and Tic Toc.

The cartoon includes a couple of forgettable songs. Dorothy uses one to convert the villain back into a benevolent toymaker, and at the same time deliver a paean to Christmas shopping. In that respect, this modestly produced special was a perfect start to commercial television’s holiday season.

A Holiday for OIP Derangement Syndrome

At Salon, Alex Seitz-Wald reported on how FOX News has been trying to exploit the Independence Day holiday and present President Barack Obama as unpatriotic:

“Obama Spends $100M on African Trip But Cancels Marines’ July 4th Fireworks,” the headline on FoxNation read. “Shocking! While Obama Funds Syrian Rebels, Military Bases Must Cut Fireworks Celebrations,” another read. . . . Fox gave the controversy airtime twice this week, also contrasting it with the spending on the presidential trip to Africa.

But Seitz-Wald noted the real reason for cutbacks in Independence Day fireworks: the federal-budget sequestration. He wrote, “a handful of military base commanders are deciding to forgo their annual Independence Day festivities, which can cost up to $100,000, in order to devote their diminished resources to other arguably more important things like keeping people employed.”

Of course, the mendacious American right has been trying to blame Obama’s White House for the sequestration of funds. Of course, they’ve also been claiming that those cuts are too small to have any real effect—one of the hallmarks of OIP Derangement Syndrome is that consistency doesn’t matter as long as one can blame President Obama.

During budget negotiations with recalcitrant Republicans in Congress, White House officials did propose sequestration as a spur to reaching a real compromise. At the time everyone publicly agreed that such an outcome would be so ham-handed and counterproductive that they’d work very hard to avoid it. The Senate did so. The White House did so. But recalcitrant Republicans in Congress decided that their party faithful would prefer across-the-board budget cuts in the middle of the fiscal year to any budget compromise with President Obama.

Once the sequestration took effect, however, many voices on the right claimed that it was Obama’s fault. Or they pointed to specific, often symbolic cuts, like fireworks at military bases, and suggested that the President was choosing to cut those. Neither claim stands up to half a moment’s scrutiny.

Let’s try a thought experiment. In the 2012 elections for the House of Representatives, half a million more Americans voted for Democratic candidates than for Republican candidates. But because of how state legislatures have drawn House districts, the Republicans retained their slight majority in the House. But let’s imagine that they didn’t.

Instead, consider what would have happened if the House, Senate, and White House were all under Democratic control, all with the support of clear majorities of the American people. Obviously those bodies would have come to a rational budget deal. People on the right would probably claim that any such deal would involve too many taxes, but they can’t honestly deny there would have been a deal. In that case, there would be no sequestration now.

The only reason we’re seeing the sequestration cuts is because the the Republican majority in the House. And the only people who claim otherwise are suffering from a severe case of OIP Derangement Syndrome that causes them to say false things.

Who Brings Dad His Neckties and Stockings?

The last act of The Road to Oz is basically cross-marketing, with L. Frank Baum bringing in characters from most of the other fantasies he’d published in recent years as guests at Ozma’s birthday party.

Among those titles was The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, whose title character makes a grand entrance, as I’ve quoted before:

“The most Mighty and Loyal Friend of Children, His Supreme Highness—Santa Claus!” said the Chamberlain, in an awed voice.

“Well, well, well! Glad to see you—glad to meet you all!” cried Santa Claus, briskly, as he trotted up the long room.

He was round as an apple, with a fresh rosy face, laughing eyes, and a bushy beard as white as snow. A red cloak trimmed with beautiful ermine hung from his shoulders and upon his back was a basket filled with pretty presents for the Princess Ozma.

“Hello, Dorothy; still having adventures?” he asked in his jolly way, as he took the girl’s hand in both his own.

“How did you know my name, Santa?” she replied, feeling more shy in the presence of this immortal saint than she ever had before in her young life.

“Why, don’t I see you every Christmas Eve, when you’re asleep?” he rejoined, pinching her blushing cheek.

“Oh, do you?”

“And here’s Button-Bright, I declare!” cried Santa Claus, holding up the boy to kiss him. “What a long way from home you are; dear me!”

“Do you know Button-Bright, too?” questioned Dorothy, eagerly.

“Indeed I do. I’ve visited his home several Christmas Eves.”

“And do you know his father?” asked the girl.

“Certainly, my dear. Who else do you suppose brings him his Christmas neckties and stockings?” with a sly wink at the Wizard.

“Then where does he live? We’re just crazy to know, ’cause Button-Bright’s lost,” she said.

Santa laughed and laid his finger aside of his nose as if thinking what to reply. He leaned over and whispered something in the Wizard’s ear, at which the Wizard smiled and nodded as if he understood.

Santa displays his magical power in two ways:

• by awing not only Ozma’s chamberlain but Dorothy Gale herself. She hasn’t acted “shy” or “meek” since her first meeting with the Wizard.
• by knowing where Button-Bright lives—something I’m not sure even Baum had settled on by that time.

On the other hand, even Santa’s power has limits: he can’t think of any better presents for Button-Bright’s dad than neckties and stockings. Dads can be like that.

Never Work with Children or Animals

The second installment of Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolf’s Li’l Gotham digital comics appeared this month, pegged to Thanksgiving. It established that Bruce Wayne is the Batman in this version of the mythos. (I thought the first installment was ambiguous on that question.)

This story also shows Nightwing’s chest stripe as blue, Barbara Gordon in a wheelchair, and Cassandra Cain in existence. In other words, Li’l Gotham definitely takes off of the DC Universe that was the publisher’s main “continuity” until last year.

But this is also a universe in which the entire “Bat family” (except, of course, for Stephanie Brown) gathers for an uninterrupted Thanksgiving dinner. Damian has his little friend Colin over, though in the comics Damian was keeping that comradeship a secret. Even Wayne family black sheep Jason Todd is there, though no one has saved him a seat.

Li’l Gotham thus takes place in a world akin to a lot of Bat-family fanfiction, in which reconciliation, togetherness, and cuteness are more important than that usual staple of superhero comics, kicking other people in the face. In both this episode and last month’s Halloween tale, all the action happens early, followed by many more pages of what we’d normally consider comic relief and a festive dinner at the climax.

Both stories also revolve around Damian Wayne, but not the troubled Damian of the main comics. In the current DC Universe, he deliberately killed one of the bat-cave’s bats and had trouble warming up to the Great Dane that his father bought him. In contrast, many fans had decided, based on one Grant Morrison story showing a possible future Damian with a cat he’d named Alfred, that Damian loves kittens. He really, really loves kittens. And the Li’l Gotham Damian gets to lead a parade of turkeys and bring one home with him and name it Jerry and keep it for his very own.

Those fan-created stories and illustrations aren’t necessarily any worse than the traditional type, including some officially published. But resolving foundational conflicts doesn’t leave much space for the next story, as serial publishers desire. And making everyone happy can wash out the distinctiveness of characters. Once Jason is back at Wayne Manor, what’s distinct about him? Once Damian actually has a pal his own age to invite over and trade baseball cards with, is he Damian anymore?

Remaking Batgirl in Li’l Gotham

This week DC published a digital comic called Batman: Li’l Gotham, by Dustin Nguyen and co-writer Derek Fridolfs. It’s a Halloween tale about Batman introducing Damian Wayne as Robin to the custom of trick-or-treating.

This Dynamic Duo is never out of costume, so the pages don’t clarify whether Batman is Bruce Wayne in DC Comics’s current continuity or Dick Grayson during the last year of the last one. I felt the story really belonged in that earlier universe. Damian seems like a very new arrival to America. This Batman’s appreciation of holidays seems more like Dick. Of course, the Li’l Gotham universe doesn’t have to exactly match the standard continuity. (Would any other version of Damian be so excited about candy?)

I suspect that Nguyen created this story in early 2011 or before. He’d been experimenting with this watercolor chibi style for a few years, and DC published a couple of stories written with Fridolfs in 2009. Some of the art promoting the series still shows Nightwing in blue, Cassandra Cain, and other sights not included in DC’s new continuity.

As more evidence of the story’s age, look at the three figures in the left of the detail above. Batman fans would quickly recognize trick-or-treaters dressed as Cass Cain after she stopped being Batgirl, a Batgirl, and Klarion the Witch Boy in blue. Which Batgirl? The big smile and purple stripe down her leg suggest Stephanie Brown, and indeed Nguyen painted Stephanie meeting Klarion in Batgirl, #18, published for Halloween 2010. Contrarily, the red hair suggests Barbara Gordon, once and present Batgirl, who had appeared in Nguyen’s original Li’l Gotham poster. But it’s easy to change a spot of yellow into a spot of orange with Photoshop.

In fact, the Bleeding Cool comics gossip website showed just how easy. The image above comes from DC’s preview of the story, issued early on 31 October. Later that day Bleeding Cool labeled that Batgirl as Stephanie.

The image at left comes from the version I downloaded late on the afternoon of 31 October from ComiXology. Note how its Batgirl has dark hair and a purple stripe.

On 1 November Bleeding Cool shared another image, on the right, showing a further change: even the purple stripe is gone. Someone at DC had digitally recolored Nguyen’s watercolors to remove all visual allusions to Stephanie Brown.

Some observers interpreted these late changes as an attempt to catch up on an editorial mandate to wipe out all traces of that character. I suspect the motivation was to make that Batgirl look more like Barbara Gordon and thus match the current continuity.

But was that at all necessary? Once superhero fans might have been bothered by discrepancies, but today’s fandom seems to accept different versions of the same mythos. Just this week, for instance, DC Collectors highlighted paper dolls from Funko that include a definitely un-round Robin with a look not seen in DC’s main comics since Ronald Reagan’s first term and wiped out of existence in the current continuity. McDonald’s is offering Young Justice toys based on a TV cartoon set in a world all to itself. DC’s parent company is preparing to release a movie based on Lego Batman. It just made a bundle on Christopher Nolan’s “realistic” take on the mythos. Why put so much effort into making the Li’l Gotham world reflect the late-2011 continuity instead of the early-2011 one?

Weekly Robin Holiday Greetings

This weekly Robin shares a few highlights from the holiday story in Batman, #15, dated February-March 1943 but on sale the previous December. That was even before Alfred Beagle arrived at stately Wayne Manor.

The tale, scripted by Don Cameron and drawn by Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson, begins with Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson out holiday shopping. (As usual in winter scenes of this era, Dick wears earmuffs.) They see a poor newsboy and give him presents, but the image of his poverty lingers in their minds that night.

Bruce and Dick decide to bring gifts to the three loneliest men in Gotham. But of course they can’t do that simply as a wealthy philanthropist and his ward. No, they’ve got to show off the bat-tech!

One of the men they’ve targeted is a doorman at an “ultra-exclusive” nightclub.

Batman brings the doorman inside and asks the revelers for a show of appreciation for the doorman. The 1% obligingly rattle their jewelry. But because this is Gotham City, any upper-class entertainment is due to be disrupted by crooks. Sure enough, thugs arrive, walk through the now-unguarded door, and hold everyone at gunpoint.

Fortunately, the Boy Wonder has a brainstorm about one of the presents the Dynamic Duo has brought for the doorman.

Also fortunately, these are the two dumbest crooks in the world. (Full story here.)

Billion for the Guy?

Over at Boston 1775, I’ve been tracing how a particular stylized depiction of Guy Fawkes has become an international symbol of political protest.

It’s a path that leads from a terrorist plot against the entire British government to festivals of patriotic misrule in the 1700s through boys’ sports in the 1800s and Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta comic to an internet meme and back into the political world. The journey started here.

Grand-dad the Mummy

I admire people who donate their bodies for science, but Alan Billis is the first I know who donated his body for history. Or rather the scientific study of history.

A British cab driver who was diagnosed with a terminal lung cancer, Billis decided to answer a BBC call for someone to volunteer a body to mummify in the style of ancient Egypt. The BBC reported:

Mrs Billis took it all in her stride, explaining: “He just said, ‘I’ve just phoned someone up about being mummified’.

“I thought, ‘here we go again’. It’s just the sort of thing you would expect him to do.”

It looks like an anonymous Maryland donor did the same in 2001. But this time, in the style of the modern west, the process was filmed and broadcast on TV in Britain a week before Hallowe’en.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

The Boston Comics Roundtable publishes three comics anthologies: Outbound, featuring science fiction; Inbound, covering everything else on a given theme, such as local history or food; and Hellbound, devoted to horror.

I read hardly any horror, and I write just a little more. Nevertheless, the 2011 issue of Hellbound will contain a comics story I created with artist Andy Wong, called “RobMeBlind.com.”

More info to come around (naturally) Hallowe’en.

Weekly Robin Christmas Story

This weekly Robin is appearing one day early, and perhaps a few hours late, because it points to a fanfiction short story set on Christmas Eve.

This tale takes place in the DC Comics continuity as it existed in the mid- to late 1990s, I believe. Tim Drake is living with his dad in a Gotham suburb and serving as Batman’s Robin. Dick Grayson, the narrator, has moved to an apartment building in Blüdhaven, which is like Gotham City’s Newark, and tends bar nearby when not patrolling as Nightwing.

There are pretty obvious influences from New Titans, #65, when Tim visits Dick in New York for training before becoming Robin, and Nightwing, #6, when he drops in on Dick in Blüdhaven. The story even shares the title of that latter issue: “The Visitor.” And there’s another, seasonal influence floating behind the prose:

On the night before Christmas, across all Blüdhaven, not a siren was wailing, not a babe needed saving. No crimelords or mooks had abruptly reformed. It was twenty degrees out! They were home, staying warm.

I was in my apartment, atop all those steps, preparing to shower after doing some reps, when all of a sudden came a noise overhead—not a clatter, or thumping, but a single foot-tread.

My visitor might not have meant any harm, but whoever it was had sidestepped the alarms. I threw on a bathrobe and killed all the lights to see out the windows and scan that dark night.

With a glance to the north side, I froze like the weather: whoever was up there had let down a tether and was clambering hand under hand to my floor. I crept to my balcony, opened the door, and blasted him with an extinguisher hose.

It took me a sec to distinguish the clothes: my caller was costumed in red and green tights, and wearing short sleeves on this blustery night.

“Cut it out, Dick! It’s me!” shouted Tim with a sputter as he slammed back and forth on the wall like a shutter. . . .

The little story continues here. Best wishes of the solstice season to all readers.

Comfort and Joy

If you’re in the mood for Ozzy holiday decorating, check out this posting from John Nickolaus’s Adventures in Oz blog. I suspect that’s one of Karyl Carlson’s handmade Woozy dolls; I keep mine at my bedside.

The effort of creating that holiday display might have worn Mr. Nickolaus out since he hasn’t posted much more, but he left quite a bit to explore in just those images.

More recently, Bill Campbell at the Oz Enthusiast has shared pictures of his handmade Jack Pumpkinhead and Sawhorse and Tik-Tok, to go along with the Scarecrow and Scraps.

I prefer to decorate vicariously by posting links like these. Otherwise, it seems too much like work.