Chris Crosby is a chap responsible for various achievements including the invention of Superosity, making his birth one of the most important events of modern history. Yes, I know, so was Hitler, but I'm not going to let a little thing like Godwin's Law stop me from celebrating this occasion. It's not even a real law, you know.
Today when you log into the Blogspot account page a slice of birthday cake is pictured in front of the logo. That's how important and widely recognised Chris Crosby's birthday is.
ANOTHER FUN FACT: In 36.5 days Chris will be 32.1 years old. Consecutive numbers in descending order! That calls for further celebration... and, dare I hope, more cake?
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
How To Make Friends And Influence Mice
It appears that our conical helix has reached its height and plummeted directly back to the central bottom-most point. Now Chris is off to a party, and we're left with the scattered debris of his collapsed adventure. One piece of that debris is a mouse the size of a human! Astonishing.
But on to other things. On to a bygone time when all mice remained smaller than a shoebox, as nature intended. A time not long after all Martians had been made artificially puny, as nature may or may not have intended (it is at this point uncertain how nature feels about Martians.)
A time when mouse-sized antics were helping expose such evils as prejudice and bigotry.
I previously expressed concerns about the application of stereotyping in Superosity regarding mouse dietary habits. As in much fiction, it has Superosity has tended to assume that mice have an inordinate love for cheese, which is quite untrue. They do not turn their noses up at cheese (except perhaps in the act of sniffing it out,) but as omnivorous creatures mice have a variety of tastes and do not restrict themselves so obscenely. Having noted this prejudice, I postulated that as a perfect construction such as Superosity could not have done such a thing in error the use of this stereotype must have been purposefully put forth in a satirical light.
As it turns out, I was quite correct.
Even as I expressed those concerns, the very subplot was focusing on the issue of prejudice in a much larger way. Mice are brought to the brink of war with Martians just because Martians are different, Martians start to suspect mice are stupid just because of a few facts that lie outside of mouse understanding, and then along comes Chris and in Chris we see extreme cultural ignorance.
Just look at his patronising expression as he arrives to a mouse party wearing Mickey Mouse ears and carrying a bottle of oh-so-cute "tiny" wine. Is it any wonder that it came to fisticuffs? Yet Chris himself found reason to accuse the mice of bigotry.
There is a lesson in this subplot for all of us. It is easy to belittle a culture and see only one face of it. It is easy to see nothing more than differences, feel threatened by the differences, and view the bad points alone. This is not understanding. True understanding can only commence when you start to find the good in someone, such as his ability to beat you up. Then the first steps towards harmony be taken. Then you can open a dialogue, learn the virtues of the foreign culture, and invite a foreign culture to learn the virtues of your own. It is sad to think that each character may have only learnt parts of the lesson, leaving the reader alone to view it as a whole.
I can't wait until Mask finds out about Worrimer's new size!
But on to other things. On to a bygone time when all mice remained smaller than a shoebox, as nature intended. A time not long after all Martians had been made artificially puny, as nature may or may not have intended (it is at this point uncertain how nature feels about Martians.)
A time when mouse-sized antics were helping expose such evils as prejudice and bigotry.
I previously expressed concerns about the application of stereotyping in Superosity regarding mouse dietary habits. As in much fiction, it has Superosity has tended to assume that mice have an inordinate love for cheese, which is quite untrue. They do not turn their noses up at cheese (except perhaps in the act of sniffing it out,) but as omnivorous creatures mice have a variety of tastes and do not restrict themselves so obscenely. Having noted this prejudice, I postulated that as a perfect construction such as Superosity could not have done such a thing in error the use of this stereotype must have been purposefully put forth in a satirical light.
As it turns out, I was quite correct.
Even as I expressed those concerns, the very subplot was focusing on the issue of prejudice in a much larger way. Mice are brought to the brink of war with Martians just because Martians are different, Martians start to suspect mice are stupid just because of a few facts that lie outside of mouse understanding, and then along comes Chris and in Chris we see extreme cultural ignorance.
Just look at his patronising expression as he arrives to a mouse party wearing Mickey Mouse ears and carrying a bottle of oh-so-cute "tiny" wine. Is it any wonder that it came to fisticuffs? Yet Chris himself found reason to accuse the mice of bigotry.
There is a lesson in this subplot for all of us. It is easy to belittle a culture and see only one face of it. It is easy to see nothing more than differences, feel threatened by the differences, and view the bad points alone. This is not understanding. True understanding can only commence when you start to find the good in someone, such as his ability to beat you up. Then the first steps towards harmony be taken. Then you can open a dialogue, learn the virtues of the foreign culture, and invite a foreign culture to learn the virtues of your own. It is sad to think that each character may have only learnt parts of the lesson, leaving the reader alone to view it as a whole.
I can't wait until Mask finds out about Worrimer's new size!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Mere Anarchy
Over the past few months we have seen Superosity unfold as an ever-widening gyre. Events have been spinning around events without quite touching one another, leaving an abundance of loose threads which are yet to be resolved. When and how will these resolutions come about? Will everything conclude as handily as it has been crafted? It is of course impossible to pre-empt the author on these matters, and it is frankly ridiculous of you to be hypothetically asking me these questions. You should be ashamed.
Nonetheless, what we can do is examine the story thus far and map out the aforementioned spiral.
I would draw out a diagram for your visual benefit, but my crude drawing abilities are such that I once did an innocent sketch of a duckling in a field of tulips which somehow appeared so outrageously pornographic that the courts officially declared me too irresponsible to inscribe any symbol other than the letters of the English alphabet. Yes, brothers and sisters, we live in a world of criminal convictions which disregard authorial intent in favour of abstract reinterpretation. This is truly the dystopian postmodern society that we have long dreaded.
(Incidentally, such a state of socially entrenched postmodernism semantically delegates the modernist phenomenon of futurism to the past. To live beyond contemporary (modern) times is seemingly to also live beyond future(ist) times. But here we're getting ahead of ourselves.)
So, for fear of the crunch of a truncheon across the rear of my skull, it is necessary to stick with description.
It can be fairly said that the beginning of this story arc lies at the point at which Lester is appointed Vice President and Chris becomes President. This is the point at which all prior issues become resolved. For this reason, the centre of our spiral, the lynchpin of all that has occurred thenceforth, could well be considered to be Chris' new job position. The events that have stemmed from this moment have been:
Picture all of that organised as a conical helix spiralling out from the bottom point of Chris becoming Cool-Ass president and you will have a very pretty picture in your head indeed. If only I were allowed to draw it.
Of these plotlines, only the issue of mouse war appears to have been resolved (the toy thing has sort of been resolved but we haven't seen Mr. Richman's final analysis.) This has been and continues to be a deceptively elaborate storyline.
Next time: A closer examination of the subtext of mouse racism.
Meantime: Please add more entries to Wiki Superosity. It is a very important cause.
Nonetheless, what we can do is examine the story thus far and map out the aforementioned spiral.
I would draw out a diagram for your visual benefit, but my crude drawing abilities are such that I once did an innocent sketch of a duckling in a field of tulips which somehow appeared so outrageously pornographic that the courts officially declared me too irresponsible to inscribe any symbol other than the letters of the English alphabet. Yes, brothers and sisters, we live in a world of criminal convictions which disregard authorial intent in favour of abstract reinterpretation. This is truly the dystopian postmodern society that we have long dreaded.
(Incidentally, such a state of socially entrenched postmodernism semantically delegates the modernist phenomenon of futurism to the past. To live beyond contemporary (modern) times is seemingly to also live beyond future(ist) times. But here we're getting ahead of ourselves.)
So, for fear of the crunch of a truncheon across the rear of my skull, it is necessary to stick with description.
It can be fairly said that the beginning of this story arc lies at the point at which Lester is appointed Vice President and Chris becomes President. This is the point at which all prior issues become resolved. For this reason, the centre of our spiral, the lynchpin of all that has occurred thenceforth, could well be considered to be Chris' new job position. The events that have stemmed from this moment have been:
- Chris found a need to earn the love of his brother-in-law-to-be
- Which led him to make the Cool-Ass crew into a star ship crew
- Which led him to launch the Cool-Ass building into outer space
- Which led him to meet mischievious Martians who claim Chris as their creator
- Which led him to organise a mass emigration of shrunken Martians
- Which led him to try and market shrunken Martians as toys while wondering about kids today
- Which was apparently abandoned when the shrunken Martians started walking outside of their globes and get involved in a dispute with the household mice
- Which led Chris to shrink himself down and act as ambassador
- Which, peace having been instituted, led Chris to agree to supersize Worrimer the mouse
Picture all of that organised as a conical helix spiralling out from the bottom point of Chris becoming Cool-Ass president and you will have a very pretty picture in your head indeed. If only I were allowed to draw it.
Of these plotlines, only the issue of mouse war appears to have been resolved (the toy thing has sort of been resolved but we haven't seen Mr. Richman's final analysis.) This has been and continues to be a deceptively elaborate storyline.
Next time: A closer examination of the subtext of mouse racism.
Meantime: Please add more entries to Wiki Superosity. It is a very important cause.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Hating Alien Meeces To Pieces
Superosity is a comic in which an attempt to win a fiance's brother's affection can lead to a mouse-on-miniaturised-Martian war of genocide with stuff like flying buildings and live performance space movies happening in between. This is a good choice for a fresh example to use in case anybody asks you to remind them what makes Superosity so great.
We also now have particular mice established as regular characters. Once upon a time they would be anonymous beings. Giz would interact with these enigmatic beings as though he were Garfield and Mask would interact with them as though he were Tom of Tom and Jerry fame. Now we have Curtis and that other guy have making a return for a second story, after their debut in Mask's guts, and it may be that the Superosity animal kingdom is all the richer for their presence.
It should be noted that the representation of mice as being smitten with cheese is a stereotype, however. Mice like lots of other foods too, and often seem to actually love grain more than they love cheese. We will have to consider the representation of mouse dietary habits in Superosity to be a parody of mouse racism, as it is impossible to accept the possibility that Superosity could be guilty of a hate crime.
We also now have particular mice established as regular characters. Once upon a time they would be anonymous beings. Giz would interact with these enigmatic beings as though he were Garfield and Mask would interact with them as though he were Tom of Tom and Jerry fame. Now we have Curtis and that other guy have making a return for a second story, after their debut in Mask's guts, and it may be that the Superosity animal kingdom is all the richer for their presence.
It should be noted that the representation of mice as being smitten with cheese is a stereotype, however. Mice like lots of other foods too, and often seem to actually love grain more than they love cheese. We will have to consider the representation of mouse dietary habits in Superosity to be a parody of mouse racism, as it is impossible to accept the possibility that Superosity could be guilty of a hate crime.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Wikiosity
Currently in its nascent stages somewhere on the web, probably around about here, lies the Superosity Wiki. We can all thank the efforts of zgeycp in lamenting the lack of such a Wiki, and deepskyfrontier in approaching Chris about it, and Chris for assenting to the request.
Now we must fill it with the jewels of Superosity lore. Just think, next time your grandmama asks what this Superosity jag is all about, you can just point her towards http://www.wikisuperosity.com and have her read all about it. She will be amazed, she will be impressed, she may well even pat you on the head and give you a freshly baked cookie.
That's http://www.wikisuperosity.com, soon the place to go when you need to wise up on Superosity arcana.
Now we must fill it with the jewels of Superosity lore. Just think, next time your grandmama asks what this Superosity jag is all about, you can just point her towards http://www.wikisuperosity.com and have her read all about it. She will be amazed, she will be impressed, she may well even pat you on the head and give you a freshly baked cookie.
That's http://www.wikisuperosity.com, soon the place to go when you need to wise up on Superosity arcana.
Chris The Manager
When Chris first received his current managerial role, I intended to point out various examples in which he has demonstrated aptitude in similar positions, such as the time he convinced Zazno to become his slave instead of vice versa. A combination of laziness and more laziness prevented me from doing so, but developments since then have shown just how relevant this observation was. With the aid of a few rockets strategically attached to the Cool Ass building, the current storyline has become a sequel to the original epic Superosity space saga.
Then, with the addition of some little green men who claim Chris as their creator, the storyline becomes linked with Original Movie, another storyline in which Chris took something of a leadership role. Are these the ancestors of the beings who are to one day make Original Movie into a cult classic? There are certain similarities between the appearances of the two.
And if Chris is their creator, that could go some way towards explaining their mental retardation.
Then, with the addition of some little green men who claim Chris as their creator, the storyline becomes linked with Original Movie, another storyline in which Chris took something of a leadership role. Are these the ancestors of the beings who are to one day make Original Movie into a cult classic? There are certain similarities between the appearances of the two.
And if Chris is their creator, that could go some way towards explaining their mental retardation.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Free-Roaming Dogs Suck
Let us all gaze upon Mask, committed whinger that he is, as he complains about the outdoors being wet while also complaining about his only source of shelter which also happens to be the moistest object he is in contact with.
There are a great many people in Superosity who complain pettishly. Mask, Bobby, Barton, Alan's embittered mother... but this is probably my favourite. That zany spoiled brat.
I have no great insights today. If you desire more intriguing observations, check out the exciting discussion about Lester's relationship with Chris (and Lester's extreme modesty regarding bare shoulders) in the comments for the post below this one. I promise you won't be disappointed- unless of course you have unreasonably high expectations, in which case you have nobody but yourself to blame for any disappointment you may experience.
There are a great many people in Superosity who complain pettishly. Mask, Bobby, Barton, Alan's embittered mother... but this is probably my favourite. That zany spoiled brat.
I have no great insights today. If you desire more intriguing observations, check out the exciting discussion about Lester's relationship with Chris (and Lester's extreme modesty regarding bare shoulders) in the comments for the post below this one. I promise you won't be disappointed- unless of course you have unreasonably high expectations, in which case you have nobody but yourself to blame for any disappointment you may experience.
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