Door-to-Door Maniac

Life Imitates Comics

A real-life Batman villain! Read about Two-Face here.

Fantomas

We are approaching, in 2011, the one-hundredth anniversary of the creation of Fantomas, villianous antihero adored by the French. But something about Fantomas just doesn't translate to American tastes, and he's never been popular here.

Somehow I don't think this trailer from Fantomas's 1964 self-titled film will help win over the US audience.

Follies of the Mad Men #50

What image could possibly be great enough for our milestone fiftieth installment? Only this one!

At one time, during either the seventies or the eighties, I believe, this campaign was ubiquitous. I would run across OJ and his boots in every issue of Playboy I intended to cut up for collages, whereupon I would promptly rip out the page intact and mail it to a friend. That's why I had to find a scan on eBay, for this post, and can't tell you the exact provenance of the advertisement.

Of course, today we laugh because of OJ's appearance. "So that's how he was able to escape so fast after the murders! He deployed his third leg!"

But consider the campaign even without OJ.

First you get the off-color allusion to "third leg = penis." Then you get the Addams-Family-style associations of "Our boots are worn by mutants and freaks."

Brilliant!

Bus Rage

A follow-up to the widely reported stabbing and decapitation that occurred recently on a Greyhound bus. (Reported here by Chuck Aug 1.)

In one of those moments of perfect timing that only occur in a weird universe, Greyhound has decided to pull its ad campaign that sported the boastful tagline: "There's a reason you've never heard of 'BUS RAGE'", because unfortunately now everyone has heard of that phenomenon. (Thanks, Gary!) "I had fun" doing the three murders
The charming Randall Rushing, 25, was charged with killing his estranged girlfriend and two others as a result of her dumping him. In court in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., he yawned as the murder scene was being described and blew a kiss to reporters. Associated Press via Yahoo // Times-Leader (Wilkes-Barre) Another one of those executions that you really have to be into capital punishment to defend
Dale Leo Bishop is scheduled to meet His Maker on Wednesday in Mississippi for holding a guy down for a vicious claw-hammer murder. The guy who did the actual hammering got life in prison. Another guy who was there got off, for his testimony. Clarion-Ledger (Jackson)

All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.