Super HeroiHOT #17: Veronica Lodge

I feel that it’s time for me to hit up a classic female comic character since Monique and I are saving up our 1000 Things We Hate to unleash them in a couple days.  So, I give you my look into Veronica Lodge:

M-O-N-E-Y

APPEARANCE:

What do you mean I'm half-naked in most of the issues I'm in!?

Veronica is a fashionista.  I mean, with the ability to spend so much money, who wouldn’t be!?  Nevertheless, she is most commonly found in a bathing suit because Archie comics like to be at the beach a lot.

Stick that hip out!

Veronica’s most common accessory for her outfits, though, has to be Betty.  They are quite frequently in the same frame together doing something cute and girly.

Short Skirts Park Time!

Overall, I have to say that in the long history of Archie comics, Veronica’s look has been pretty streamlined.  I really enjoy that she doesn’t necessarily have a “costume,” but a wardrobe.  She’s known for her good style and her black hair with bangs.  Frankly, she looks good, and she knows how to work it.  Now, granted, this is a teen comic… so, there really isn’t going to be that much objectification in the imagery of her character.

Appearance: 9/10

PERSONALITY:

I wish I had that much power...

Here comes Veronica’s downfall… It is made readily apparent to even young readers that Veronica is a snob.  She is crazy manipulative, spoiled, and rather mean.  She is the most popular girl at your high school that you despise but secretly want (girl or guy).  I suppose that the problem is is that Archie comics can only be so basic for young readers.  They cannot show that much complexity in their characters.  In this sense, Veronica always does those (assumed to be typical) girly things in which she tries to make Archie jealous, subscribes to the myth of marriage and dating boys, and gossips behind people’s backs.

I just feel like, if Veronica and I were to go out to a date at an Italian restaurant, she would order something that was $30 and then complain about it…  I would hate that, but she would probably be in a swimsuit or some top that showed off her midriff… so, I wouldn’t necessarily be paying attention.

Early Archie set it up right from the beginning

She is full of herself and represents a pretty basic character set.  This is rather unfortunate, but it plays into the ability to read any Archie story since its inception and still be able to understand it on a fairly universal level.  It’s just unfortunate that the comic perpetrates and propagates this role for a growing woman.

Zooming and Zooming and Zooming

So, on one hand you have imagery that doesn’t deface the character, while on the other you have a concrete character set that really fulfills the most basic and stereotypical characteristics of a teenage girl.  All of this is through the lens of a teenage comic assuming that its readers will only what wholesome stories.

Personality: 1/10

SUPERPOWERS:

*gasp* Marriage!

Is getting Archie to be madly in love with you considered a superpower?  Probably not, but it sure is a simple one to come by in the comics.  As standard, Veronica gets full mark ups for her complete lack of superpowers.

Superpowers: 10/10

SECRET IDENTITY:

Um... weird.

I feel that, even though her personality projects this sort of stuck-up bitchy attitude, Veronica is, deep down inside, a really great person.  However, she just hasn’t learned how to fully articulate herself in a meaningful way.  So, her secret is that she is acting like a person and acting like how people expect her to, but she’s not being true to herself.  Her games with Archie sort of highlight this: she truly cares about him, but desires his attention so badly that she’s willing to hurt him and herself in the process.

It would be great if an alternative perspective could be given and twisted for these characters.  Something fresh, maybe a little controversial, and doesn’t exploit them while acting innocent.

Secret Identity: 5/10

ADDITIONAL ITEMS:

Archie comics propagates the menage a trois fantasy with the male as the dominant and the female(s) seeking recognition, acceptance, approval, satisfaction, and fulfillment through their relationship with the male.  The man has agency and lives out the fantasy, while the females are expected to participate fully and be secondary to that of the man.  Archie’s clumsiness and dumbfounded surprise at this only works to obscure the appropriation of power to him because girls are expected to come after him, and if he goes after them only minor complications will arise before he finally achieves his goal.

Bathing Suit Fantasy

The manage a trois fantasy and male domination becomes reality, and Veronica fully participates.

-5

After all of that, I have to admit that I find the Veronica Lodge Halloween Costume pretty darn attractive (way better than playboy bunnies).

Stylized

+2

FINAL SCORE:

22/40… That’s pretty alright, right?  I mean, what were you expecting?  Veronica functions mostly to be looked at and fulfill a pretty standard role that Archie assumes is what teenagers deal with.  They should update their characters (for more of a full-time sort of thing) to represent more modern problems rather than a wholesome, 50s view of the world.

Desire and Fetish

Green Lantern #52: Review

I figured I’d get my review out of the way for this issue before Blackest Night #8 comes out.

Sinestro = The White Lantern.

We learn history of the universe beginning on Earth.

We get to see all of the emotional entities.

Sinestro gets momentarily chopped in half.

This comic just kind of comes off as christian propaganda (I could really expand on this, but I’ll leave it as is).  You have all of the demigods of the White Lantern entity with the emotional spectrum entities.  Basically, only the first three that were revealed are anywhere near original.  Ion, Parallax, and the White Lantern Entity.  I’m really upset about the whole self-centered earthiness to the story because now we have really lame-ass entity figures instead of neat alien creations/beings.

I do like that Willpower first showed up by the little Ion guy willing himself to move… that’s cute.  But, the origins of the others sort of makes it seem like Adam and Eve had to have happened.  Earth started everything: a snake was the first fucking thing to feel greed and a bull (A BULL!) was the first thing to feel rage.  I’m sorry, but those are really, really simple fan fiction stretches.

I was really expecting for Sinestro and Nekron to finally duke it out.  That would have been so awesome.  Nope, it’s just wordy wordy wordy.

So, we’re still at the point of half of the earth’s heroes (which really haven’t played a big part – aside from the big reveal – since they saw sexy dead Bruce Wayne) being dead, Coast City in ruins with a shitload of Black Lanterns coming from around and above, and Nekron not even taking a hit.  Well, that’s neat.  There are just too many characters in the same place and at the same time.

Blackest Night started out really cool, but it’s been a downward slope since then.

Check out all of the entities and information about the Emotional Spectrum hereeeee.

Graphic Journal: March 28th

I’m a bastard, and this is coming off as self-indulgent fuck.  This is nowhere near to me opening up.  This is nowhere near to me sharing emotions.  This is nowhere near to something.

I’m glad that my fingers and hands are coated in superglue because now, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t completely feel the delicate textures behind anything.  All I feel is the pressure behind me putting my fingers violently down like a judge’s mallet in the patterns of my downfall onto this keyboard.

I have sewn the seeds to me leading an unhappy life 7 years ago, and I cannot, for the life of me, remove any of those defenses.  If I get close, then I shut down.  I freak out.  I die a little.  My head constricts and then I realize that this fucking headache is here all the time.  That this fucking line matching with this fucking line matching with this fucking line crossing over to this fucking line will always be with all of the fucking lines for the rest of my life.  I am no longer living in a sea of reminders, I am my own, personal reminder.  I am drawing up the pail from the well and it is coming back empty and cold and splintered.

I’m sure there’s a sparkle, a gleam.  I’m sure that my well meaning attentions can be construed as something emotional.  However, I don’t feel much.  There’s a wall of thirty coats of barbed wire where I can see the other side to Emotionland, but I get pricked when I try to climb and I get spelling errors when I try to reason and I get diarrhea of the brain when I try to fight back.  My metaphorical heart is on vacation to fairytale land, living inside of the witch’s oven.

I am fake.

I am not ready.

I want to be ready.

I am fake.

I am sewing the seeds of an unhappy future with one syllable at a time; Phonetics have failed me.

This is self-indulgent.

I am a mindless fuck.

I want you.

For once, I hope all of my plans fail.

I need another reason.

I need to cause drowsiness or dizziness; I want to not be able to operate machinery.

Harrah the Ocean: To Do Lists

I received two To Do Lists in the e-mail today.  So, this first one is a bit blurry, but I had Rita state:

Phillip left this To Do List inside a wine menu at Harrah’s Casino, Lake Tahoe, CA.

I’m glad that California is so not safe from To Do Lists.

I would love to be walking on the beach and find this.  The delightful to do list seen above is from the ocean as transcribed from Bev with her stating:

I appreciate the ocean’s regularity.

Did anyone spot/find these.  If so, then please let me know!  Both of these lists come (at least, partly) from our friends at Little House on Miami.

I hope the enjoyed their breaks!

Dinosaur To Do Lists/Street Art

To those people (possibly drunken) and on the street who happened to flip over the tags on the dinosaurs (and a peacock) left on 6th ave last night and today, I apologize for you visiting this site earlier and not finding out how/why/where these culprits are.  Nevertheless, I present to you the dinosaur gang:

If you want to read what each dinosaur has to do in greater detail, please right click and choose “view image”.

Oh, and here’s Sabre kickin’ it old school:

She looks like the conqueror of the reptilian.

Me placing the Stegosaurus at the locksmith place.

Michaela placing one of the twins near the middle school and along the road.

Me frantically trying to place the Brontosaurus before a guy rounded the corner and its leg falling off and me trying to turn around in time and a cow…

Oh, and… um… UPS-ers/Puget Sounders/Alderians/Tacomans… If you happen to notice a prevalence of googly eyes along Alder near the campus… Well, there’s a reason my hands are still caked with superglue and smell like acetone.

For Michaela’s version of events check out her site.

Whirlpool

“This is what it feels like to die,” I murmur while leaning to the right.  I sit next to the goldfish I had won with a pocketful of tootsie rolls.  Earlier, I decided to name him Arnold.

Arnold and I were spending the last moments of our hereditary lives together spinning.  I find myself wishing for a grand display of power to cause our circular invention to rise up into the air, into the atmosphere, into space.  Into space where Arnold and I would spend one last glance as his water froze inside the thin, malleable bag made of polyethylene and dead plants and animals.  I would glimpse back down to earth and then attempt to take the biggest breath since I parted the vaginal lips only to find nothing, and there would be great solace in that nothing.  I would be proud of that nothing.

We continue to spin.  Arnold must be fairly pleased with his short term memory to only remember one revolution to then be confronted by another.

“This is about Identity,” I again turn towards Arnold, grab his bag, and cradle the plastic diversion between boy and fish in the right angle of my elbow.

I sit next to a sheet of paper that declares all of my failures.  I find myself wishing for some anomaly of whatever form to cause the evaporation of the fibers holding the paper together.  We both look out of the half dome and bars we have encased ourselves in – partly due to regulation – and find empty-socketed gods of life.  One with a beard – One with a cut off t-shirt – One with a perm – One with an ankle brace – One with a cigarette – One with a balloon holding the hand of One with a grin – One with a beard – One with a cut off t-shirt… Revolutions.

The one with a cigarette stares at us and all of our fellow cohorts along the industrial testament of man and pleasure.  He watches all of us like a plantation owner without the same income.  He knows that he is part of the system: commodifying our pseudo joy and entertainment.  I decide to throw him a twist to his day.

I remove Arnold from his warming home, and I toss him as far as I can.  Because I am turning, I cannot see where he lands or how he splatters or if he guppies, flapping or if he falls between the steel cracks and gets crushed by the quickly constructed cogs.  When I spin back around, all I see is the refreshing wetness that defined Arnold’s life.

Spinning.  One with a look of despair – One with a look of surprise – One with a look of fear – One with a look of empathy – One with a look of anger – One with tears rolling down to the hand of the One with a look of shame – One with a look of despair – One with a look of surprise… Revolutions.

“You escaped death, Arnold,” I whisper as the one with the cigarette slams the emergency stop button.  My parents call out my name and quickly grab my arm while apologizing, but all I can look at is the reflection of water on the fading red and yellow paint.

Some Goofy Tablet Drawings

The Sea Weed Wam!onster

Alyx came and stopped by yesterday after us not seeing each other for a good year or so.  It was really nice to see her, and I was excited to show off how I do my Graphic Journal updates on the computer with my digital tablet.  So, above is a seaweed monster I drew and colored in about 4 minutes.  Then, I decided to sketch her:

A Very Appropriate Title

So, I started out sketching Alyx, but then terrible things went wrong with it.  I was upset with my poor artistic capabilities… so… how do I fix that, with turning Alyx into a zombie!!!

Sprrrrriiiinnnngggggg

This is a nice little drawing that Alyx did as she tried to figure out how the fuck you use a digital tablet.  It was rather entertaining despite her accidentally changing most of my presets with her affinity of pressing buttons and dragging things all about.

We also both drew ballpoint pen tattoos on each others’ foot.  So, expect a picture of those.  Mine’s rather hilarious: an anthropomorphised bird strangling an octopus… classic.

My English Pre-Presentation Class To Do List

While sitting in class listening to the presentations on texts (a list found in the SUB and the graffiti/etchings found on desks) and their relationships with writing and culture, I spotted a tag sticking out of a chair.  At first, I was incredibly excited thinking that this might be some hidden to do list.  To make sure, I reached behind my chair to see if it was a tag… it was, but a fucking hilarious tag, at that.

Way to go California...?

I decided that this was just too funny of a tag to let it serve its function as only a tag.  So, I wrote a quick to do list on the back of it.

Machopchop!

And yes, the explicit Pokemon reference(s) are because I bought the new Pokemon SoulSilver so Taylor and I could geek out over them.  I have been extremely obsessed with the Pokewalker because it is so goddamn cool.  Hell, it’s in my pocket right now… as I try to ignore the stinging fact that I have an essay to write…

Anyway, I left this in my classroom underneath the remote for the projector.  I hope it’s a good find!

Finishing the Weekend Out With To Do Lists

Hey, so I know I haven’t been posting too much, but I’ve received another batch of “To Do Lists” to share.  I hope you all enjoy, and remember to right click and choose view image to see these larger.

I received this one with a message stating:

Someone secretly slipped this To Do List into a postcard display at the de Young Museum Bookstore in San Francisco, CA.
Peace, Anon

-

-

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Michaela at The Lost Spaces has been our little fairy godmother in California making a multitude of lists and forcing her friends to make them, as well.  Now, that’s my type of friendship.  Here’s what she had to say:

One was left in Max’s Opera Cafe in Palo Alto, one in a Borders Books in Fremont, one in a BJ’s bathroom.

And the last one, as told to me through the title of the e-mail, was from a night with her friends over drinks and making lists.

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Did you happen to find one of these in California?  Well, comment on which one you found!  I hope you all enjoy what’s on people’s “to do lists” because I sure as hell do.  Spread it.

Graphic Journal March 20th

I hope you enjoy.

I enjoy your hope.

I you hope enjoy.

You hope I enjoy.

I enjoy your envoy.

This is the reason why I haven’t been posting: I am happy.