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Today is yet another anniversary of those horrible attacks in New York, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania. I live just a few miles away from one of the sites of the terror attacks (the Pentagon) and I have friends who knew people who were on board that particular flight that hit the Pentagon. The one thing about frequently watching new horrors unfold in Ukraine on a regular basis is that I no longer feel as emotional about September 11 as I used to be. With Vladimir Putin hellbent on conquering Ukraine while unleashing his troll farms on the US in an attempt to affect next year’s elections, I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole thing becomes even more monstrous as time goes by.
On a better note, I’d like to share a couple of photos that I took last month. One late afternoon day I had to run a few errands. It also happened to be raining that day. By the time I finished the last of the errands that I needed to do it was sunset. I saw some incredible cloud formations mixed with the setting sun so I snapped a couple of pictures.
Today is the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, DC. This morning I came across this really nice tweet by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commemorating that sad occasion:
It seems like this past year has gone topsy turvy with Russian invading Ukraine, that disastrous Supreme Court ruling on abortion, the banning of abortion in the most conservative states in the United States, and the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II.
The war in Ukraine is starting to sound positive for the Ukrainians. They have retaken key towns that are both railway towns. This is the latest in a series of humiliations for the Russians. Seriously, I think that Vladimir Putin should just admit that this war is simply unwinnable and withdraw all of his military from Ukraine before he humiliates himself any further. However, given how he has this stupid obsession with reconstructing the old Soviet Union, he probably won’t do that anytime soon.
But I’m pretty concerned about not only Ukraine but in the U.S. as well. The U.S. government is building a credible case of espionage against Donald Trump while some of his most fanatical supporters are threatening a new civil war if Trump gets arrested.
A couple of weeks ago I came across this thread on Twitter by Dave Troy where he lays out Putin’s attitudes towards Ukraine and governments in general and how he has allies in the U.S. who are on his side (such as Donald Trump). Having read that thread is the main reason why I’m very cautiously optimistic about the recent Ukrainian military victories. I’m glad for them but I also think that this war is far from being over because Putin is so obsessed with reuniting Ukraine with Russia that he doesn’t give a damn about sacrificing a very huge number of his own soldiers.
Dave Troy wanted this thread to be spread as widely as possible. I decided to make a short video slideshow showing the highlights of that thread (that thread was way too long to use all of the posts in that video because I feared that people will become quickly bored) while I paired it with the Chambers Brothers song “Time Has Come Today.” I uploaded it on to TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
Since that Twitter thread went live, Dave Troy has come up with two other threads that are both sequels to the original. I found it fascinating and horrifying at the same time. Here are the threads in question.
A part of me hopes that he’s wrong but I’m afraid that he could be correct about everything. If everything he writes about comes to fruition, then America will be fucked worse than it was on September 11, 2001.
The local chapter of the Poor People’s Campaign held an interfaith prayer vigil for peace in Watkins Regional Park in Upper Marlboro, Maryland on September 12, 2021. The date coincided with the day after the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The prayer vigil was open to the general public and it went off pretty well. The only major competition we had was a softball game that was held near our event but it still wasn’t bad. I took some photos of this event which I’m posting below.
Here are some of the banners that were displayed at this event.
People were socializing before the start of the event. Everyone was required to wear a mask at this event because, after all, we were still in the middle of a pandemic.
The prayer event involved clergy from a variety of different faiths including Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, and Unitarian Universalism.
At one point one of the ministers brought a marching band that performed a couple of songs. They were quite talented.
I can’t believe it’s the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I still remember it like it was yesterday. I had recently began to take art classes at a local community college and I had Tuesdays and Thursdays off from school. So I was home that Tuesday morning while my then-husband went off to his job at NASA. He told me that he would be in a meeting all morning regarding this satellite project that he was working on at the time.
I decided to start my morning by exercising along this Denise Austin workout VHS tape. I turned on the TV and I saw one of the towers of the World Trade Center on fire. I thought that it was a regular building fire so I decided that I would do my workout first then see if there was still coverage of the World Trade Center afterwards. So I did my 30-minute aerobic exercises then switched the VCR off. I saw that the World Trade Center was still on fire and I was hearing reporters say that it was caused by an airplane crashing into it. My husband’s father and step-mother lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and I found myself hoping that they weren’t in the Battery Park area. I called my husband’s work number but it went to voice mail due to his meeting. I assumed that he and his coworkers wouldn’t have access to a TV screen because they were in that meeting and I wanted to let him know what was going on since it’s happening in the area where his father lived so I left a message.
Then the second plane hit the other Twin Tower so I left another voice mail message telling my husband about this. I began to watch in horror as both towers were on fire.
Then the local news cut in. I was wondering what the hell was going on and why would the local anchors suddenly cut in on a major live news story like that. But then they announced that a third plane had hit the Pentagon. Now I really began to freak out because this was happening in my own area. I had passed the Pentagon numerous times on the Metro whenever I took the Yellow Line. I called my husband’s voice mail again letting him know about the Pentagon.
The local news cut back to the national news and there I saw two side-by-side video footages of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on fire. But then one of the towers of the World Trade Center had completely collapsed. I called my husband’s voice mail telling him this. At this point I began to wonder if he will think that I had gone completely crazy with my voice mails telling him about planes crashing into buildings and one of the towers being destroyed. I know that his NASA building had monitors throughout the hallways of his workplace but they were usually tuned to the Space Channel that showed either the latest NASA space missions or reruns of earlier missions.
But then the other Twin Tower had collapsed and I called my husband’s voice mail letting him know of this. Afterwards there was another plane crash in Pennsylvania. It was headed towards Washington, DC but I later learned that this was the flight where the passengers, who had heard about the other three plane crashes, decided to rebel against the hijackers and storm the cabin in an effort to avoid another plane crashing into a building.
Eventually my husband called me and he told me that there was a TV monitor in the room where he had his meeting and the higher-ups in NASA had decided to have all the monitors in the facility tuned to CNN where my husband and his coworkers had saw the carnage in real time just like I did.
The following day my art class went on as scheduled. When I arrived at campus, I saw somber-looking people milling about like ghosts. There was no talking or anything. The campus was very quiet. All flights in the United States had been suspended so when we saw a plane flying overhead we all looked up in trepidation. The plane was a military plane and it was obvious that it flew from Andrews Air Force Base, which was nearby.
I arrived in class and it was the same situation where people didn’t do much talking. I was taking a digital art class and I basically drew digital flowers on the computer. My classmates were drawing flowers and hearts. We were just trying to process what happened the day before and drawing hearts and flowers were our way of dealing with this unspeakable horror. My teacher just wasn’t into doing any lessons that day so she allowed us to just draw whatever we wanted on the computer. She went around the room and had praised the class for focusing on drawing digital hearts and flowers instead of death and destruction. I remember my teacher ending the class early because her heart wasn’t into doing lessons.
My Unitarian Universalist church was quickly deputized to be one of the places where the funeral was held for a family who was on the flight that hit the Pentagon and some of the local news media had attended that event. I never knew that family because they weren’t church members. One set of the grandparents who lived out of town were UUs and they arranged to have the funeral at our church because it was close to where they lived (University Park).
Even after the deaths on September 11, 2001, that event had continued to take lives. Many of the first responders who were at the World Trade Center would later die after being exposed to the toxic air and dust and they are continuing to die premature deaths to this very day.
My late mother-in-law had a friend named RenΓ©e who had long lived in her rent-controlled area in the Chelsea district near the World Trade Center. She worked as a lawyer and she never married or had children of her own. I know that she had an on-again, off-again relationship with a man named Sol because my mother-in-law used to relay the numerous breakups and reconciliations this couple had gone through. RenΓ©e was also a diabetic but she was very vigilant about monitoring her blood sugar and watching what she ate. But then RenΓ©e saw the Twin Towers collapse outside of one of her windows. I found it horrifying enough watching it on television but I can only imagine what it was like to see it in real life. After 9/11 RenΓ©e had stopped being so vigilant about her diet and monitoring herself. She died from complications of diabetes a year or two after the Twin Towers collapse. She was around 70 years old. I strongly believe that what she witnessed on 9/11 contributed to her death because she basically stopped taking care of herself afterwards.
I still remember this country coming close together in the aftermath of 9/11. I thought that this country would ultimately prevail against the horror that happened on that day. I was even thrilled when I learned that the Navy Seals had killed Osama bin Ladin.
Last year I felt less inclined to observe this sad anniversary mainly because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Every week or two more Americans had perished from this virus than the Americans who died on 9/11. As former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton Robert Reich puts it: “Not to minimize the horror of 9/11, but those attacks killed 3,000 Americans; at least that many are now dying of COVID every two days. Yet Republican politicians are threatening civil war over requirements for masks and vaccinations?”
Even though Joe Biden is now president, this hasn’t changed due to a large number of Americans who refuse to get vaccinated. As this tweet states: “Dear A.G. [Attorney General Merrick] Garland: On this tragic anniversary, please ask: Which of these men is accountable for more American deaths?” while posting side-by-side pictures of Osama bin Ladin and Donald Trump.
And, speaking of Donald Trump, he’s doing something way different from the other living presidentsβboth current and former. Jimmy Carter, who’s 96 years old, opted to privately observe the occasion. Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton observed the anniversary in New York City. George W. Bush observed the anniversary in Pennsylvania (where the fourth and final airplane had crashed that day). Current President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden had made appearances in New York, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon.
In contrast, Donald Trump had decided that he would appear as the host of a Holyfield vs. Belfort boxing match at the Hard Rock Cafe in Seminole, Florida. That’s right, a former president decided to serve as the host of a boxing event instead of making any kind of public appearances at one of the 9/11 ceremonies. Man, you can’t make this shit up if you’ve tried.
In a way it’s not surprising that Trump has chosen boxing over observing the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. There is an infamous video from that day when a local New York TV station had talked to Trump about the terrorist attacks and the first thing he mentioned is that one of his own buildings is now the tallest building in lower Manhattan due to the destruction of the Twin Towers. That was the only thing on his mind.
I still remember when this country did come together after the 9/11 terror attacks. There was a sense that we were all in this together no matter what your race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, social class, etc. But now it seems like everything has fragmented and this country is coming apart at the seams. Keith Olbermann did this commentary where he mentioned how openly nastier and more cruel people have become since Donald Trump was elected president back in 2016.
He was referencing this incident regarding a nurse at Cigna named Erica Casher, who literally laughed at a teenage boy who testified at a school board meeting in favor of requiring masks in his school because his grandmother had died from COVID-19 and he didn’t want to risk passing it to his other surviving grandmother.
She’s still gainfully employed by Cigna as of this writing. But there was another incident of a nasty white woman named Janene Hoskovec who became the subject of a viral video and she ultimately lost her job with the software company SAP as a result. She entered into a grocery store in Lincoln, Nebraska without wearing a mask and she picked a few masked people at random to cough on. She basically had the maturity of a middle school bully.
This is yet another reason why I will never forgive Donald Trump or his GOP sycophants for making the Coronavirus into a political issue instead of the health issue that it actually is. It’s just seeing viral videos full of selfish unfeeling people like Erica Casher and Janene Hoskovec makes me wish that they would both get COVID-19 soon and they would end up on the ventilator and possibly dead. Each day the blog Sorry Anti-Vaxxer gets updated with new posts of anti-maskers and/or anti-vaxxers who end up dead and I just have zero sympathy for these people. They weren’t willing to do the bare minimum to stop the spread of this virus and they are not only dead but they have probably spread that virus to other people. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is totally in action in that those who continue to survive this pandemic are the ones who took this virus seriously to begin with.
Meanwhile 659,000 Americans are now dead from COVID-19.
I’m going to end this post with a video of Bruce Springsteen performing “I’ll See You in My Dreams” in New York City earlier today.
Book lover arranges her huge library of novels into imaginative scenes.
Bees love cannabis! Researchers discover hemp could help restore bee populations.
Artist encases incredibly detailed miniature worlds inside antique pocket watches.
Exquisite 19th-century sculpture cloaked in a βtranslucentβ marble veil.
Today is the 19th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I saw the whole thing unfold on television and I was initially concerned about my then-husbandβs late father and stepmother because they lived in Manhattan. I felt terrified when I learned that one of the planes had hit the Pentagon because I lived in the DC area just a few miles away from that place. Just seeing both Twin Towers collapse in real time on television really impacted me for a number of years.
This year I donβt feel such strong emotions over 9/11. Part of the reason is that it happened 19 years ago so thereβs the passage of time element. But part of the reason is because of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, which has grown so bad that every week or two we are losing as many Americans to this virus as the ones who died on 9/11. As of this writing a total of 192,000 Americans have died.
What makes it worse is that Donald Trump has been recorded on video as saying way back in February that he knew how deadly this virus was going to be and he decided to downplay it. This explains why he has been very inconsistent about wearing masks in public and he has held rallies where there have been no social distancing. Last night he held a rally in Freeland, Michigan where, once again, most of the attendees were packed close together with very few of them wearing masks. And Donald Trump wasnβt wearing a mask either. CNN interviewed some of these massless attendees on why they they won’t wear a mask and, well, their answers were jaw-dropping.
So while the U.S. managed to kill the 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Ladin, I feel like this country is slowly being killed from within due to a combination of both the Coronavirus and Donald Trumpβs frequent fanning the flames of racism in his rally speeches. If Osama bin Ladin were alive today, he would be pleased with what is going on with the United States of America and he wouldβve definitely approved of President Trump.
He that scatters thorns, let him not go barefoot.
Continuing the reviews of the more adult-oriented Howard the Duck MAX series that came out in 2002.
Howard the Duck MAX #3
βBad Girls Donβt Cryβ
May, 2002
Credits: Steve Gerber, writer; Glenn Fabry, pencils; Glenn Fabry and Garry Leach, inks; Chris Chuckry, colors; Richard Starkings and Comicraft, letters; Stuart Moore, editor; Kelly Lamy, associate managing editor; Nanci Dakesian, managing editor; Joe Quesada, editor-in-chief; Bill Jemas, president
Synopsis: The story picks up where it left off at the end of the second issue where Howard (in his current rat form), Beverly, and their dog Parsifal look for a new place to stay after the shack at Histyβs Scrap Heap was totally destroyed. The story begins when the three of them are thrown out of the Hotel Egesta by the presumed hotelβs owner because they have no credit card, no cash, no home address, and animals arenβt allowed at the hotel. After briefly considering moving in with Beverlyβs mother in Cincinnati, Beverly finds a posted flyer advertising the Boarding House of Mystery, which has no problems with those who have no credit or cash and it also allows rodents and pit bulls as well.
At the same time that Beverly pockets the flyer (which alludes to events that will happen in the next issue) Howard begins to suffer a series of hiccups where he starts to babble nonsense in between each hiccup. When Howard starts to babble about ramen noodle soup nonstop, Beverly freaks out so much that she slaps him hard in the face. That face slap gets Howard to stop babbling about ramen noodle soup but he still suffers from the hiccups and he continues to babble nonsense.
At that point Beverlyβs old high school classmate, Detective Suzi Pazuzu, shows up on a motorcycle. She is currently working on the case of the fire that struck Beverlyβs workplace in the last issue. Detective Pazuzu had been looking for Beverly for questioning about that case. She sees Howard as a giant rat whoβs hiccuping and saying nonsense and she decides to call up a squad car to take both Howard and Beverly to the police station. Meanwhile a shadowy figure had been secretly tailing Detective Pazuzu and he makes a phone call to report on what he sees.
The next scene is in the offices of a venture capitalist named Mr. Flogg where Doctor Bong is meeting with him. Mr. Flogg had been an investor in Doctor Bongβs company, Globally Branded Content Dot Com and he not only expresses displeasure at the fact that the company he invested in has literally gone up in smoke but he seems skeptical of Doctor Bong asking for his help in killing both Howard and Beverly.
At the moment that Doctor Bong is about to force Mr. Flogg in going along with his latest scheme, the same shadowy figure that had been tracking Detective Pazuzu appears with a gun where he manages to crack off a portion of Doctor Bongβs bell clapper hand. Mr. Flogg introduces the shadowy figure as Ian Whippingham as Ian jumps around dressed like a stylish prince, calling Mr. Flogg βDaddyβ, saying βIβm worthlessβ a few times before finally jumping on Mr. Flogg while, at the same time, suggesting that there is some kind of same-sex dominant/submissive relationship going on in addition to Ian being Mr. Floggβs personal assistant.
Ian reports that Detective Pazuzu is wearing something known as the artifact and she had just taken Howard and Beverly in for questioning. Mr. Flogg suggests that Detective Pazuzu is the one who could kill Howard and Beverly because of her current possession of a certain artifact.
At that point Mr. Flogg begins to explain the history of the artifact, which began in ancient times with the priestesses of the demon Pazuzu. One night, when the priestesses were gathering water in a nearby river, one of them stumbled upon a mysterious jewel that pulsed with arcane energy. This priestess soon heard the voice of the demon Pazuzu, who instructed her to make a bracelet of the purest uranium, place the jewel in that bracelet and wear it. The priestess soon discovered that wearing the bracelet not only protects her from her enemies but it also makes her breasts grow bigger and the bracelet turns into a sword, known as the doucheblade, that the wearer can use to attack others. Through the centuries this bracelet has been passed down to various prominent women (such as Jane Austin, Joan of Arc, and Eleanor Roosevelt) by the demon Pazuzu.
The bracelet became lost 40 years earlier until it was found in a vacant lot in Cleveland by a salesman who stocks claw machines with prizes. The salesman placed the bracelet in a claw machine in a doughnut shop that is located near a police station. Mr. Flogg spent over $38,000 in quarters trying to get that bracelet out of the claw machine to no avail. Mr. Flogg then gets Ian to spend hours at the doughnut shop watching the claw machine until Detective Suzi Pazuzu ends up winning it.
Mr. Flogg tells Doctor Bong that if he bongs Detective Pazuzu after the bracelet makes her transform into the Doucheblade-wielding warrior with big breasts, Doctor Bong can control Detective Pazuzu into killing both Howard and Beverly. In return Mr. Flogg wants Doctor Bong to give the bracelet to him. When Doctor Bong mentions that the bracelet can only be worn by one woman of each generation, Mr. Flogg mentions that he has just begun taking hormone shots in order to make the transition into becoming a woman. Mr. Flogg sends Ian with Doctor Bong to help with locating Detective Pazuzuβs home.
Meanwhile at the police station Detective Pazuzu grills Beverly about her time at Globally Branded Dot Com while mentioning that Beverly seems to have learned nothing since the days when they were both high school classmates years earlier. Detective Pazuzu makes fun of Beverlyβs high school past when Beverly preferred to study modern dance and hang out with art students while the detective acts superior over the fact that she was a cheerleader who hung out with jocks.
Detective Pazuzu takes a break in the hallway where she runs into her colleague, Tompkins, who is questioning Howard in his current rat form. Tompkins mentions that it reminds him of a case that he had years earlier involving a talking duck and a vampire cow (which is in reference to one of the early Howard the Duck stories involving the Hellcow). She walks in on some doctors examining Howard while saying that he seems suicidally depressed and on the verge of a complete breakdown. At that point Detective Pazuzu starts to feel like she has slipped through time and sheβs in a scene from Medieval Europe.
Then she slips back to the present day only to slip into other historical periods before slipping back into the present. Detective Pazuzu decides to let Howard, Beverly, and their dog go while she seems very dizzy from what she is experiencing. As Detective Pazuzu decides to walk home, Beverly insists on following her because she suspects that something is really wrong with Detective Pazuzu. Howard reluctantly agrees.
The pair follows Detective Pazuzu with their dog in tow to the front door of her house without any incident. Beverly is still suspicious because Detective Pazuzu had opted to walk home instead of riding her motorcycle. Even though Howard wants to leave, Beverly decides to knock on the front door to see if Detective Pazuzu. At the same time Doctor Bong and Ian Whippingham arrive at the back of the house.
Beverly knocks on the front door and Detective Pazuzu answers wearing only panties and a t-shirt with a strange look on her face. Detective Pazuzu announces that she will become one with the Doucheblade. Meanwhile Doctor Bong and Ian Whippingham are watching things unfold through a window.
At that point Detective Pazuzuβs breasts suddenly so large that they literally rip her t-shirt off of her body so one gets to see her topless. Ian Whippingham blasts through a wall using a high-powered gun, which literally knocks Detective Pazuzu down to the floor. In the ensuing explosion, the bracelet slips off of Detective Pazuzuβs arm and it ends up on the arm of Howard. Howardβs hair suddenly grows long and he develops huge breasts that rip his shirt apart.
The bracelet on Howardβs arm morphs into the Doucheblade, which Howard wields while declaring that he has been a bad girl. He proves this by sticking the Doucheblade directly into Ian Whippinghamβs mouth. He then lifts the Doucheblade with Ian Whippinghamβs mouth still attached to it as a way of showing gratuitous violence.
After killing Ian Whippingham Howard turns to confront Doctor Bong, who tells Howard that he simply wanted him dead, not deformed and psychotic. Howard leaps at Doctor Bong, who quickly moves out of the way so Howard slams into a coffee table instead. Beverly manages to remove the Doucheblade from Howardβs hand, which results in Howard losing both the long hair and big breasts. Beverly points the Doucheblade at Doctor Bong and threatens to stab him herself if he doesnβt leave immediately.
Doctor Bong leaves the house and the Doucheblade reverts back into a simple bracelet. Suzi Pazuzu wakes up with no memory of what happened while Howard, who is now back to being a male rat is disoriented because he only remembers having very large breasts.
As Howard, Beverly, and Parsifal leave Detective Pazuzuβs house, Howard and Beverly remember the flyer that Beverly had pocketed at the beginning of this issue advertising the Boarding House of Mystery. The issue ends with the couple deciding to head to that boardinghouse in the hopes of finding a place to stay.
The Bottom Line: This issue had a few funny moments but itβs still a far cry from the best of the original 1970s Howard the Duck comic book series. I learned that this issue is a parody of a comic book series known as Witchblade, which is one that I have never read so Iβm not familiar with it. I have a feeling that I would have found this issue to be funnier had I read that other series first.
The funniest scene was when Howard gets ahold of the Doucheblade and he turns into a rat with long brown hair, giant breasts, and thick pink lips. That was definitely a sight to behold. Then there was the hilarious way that he killed Ian Whippingham, which definitely delved into dark comedy.
It was pretty cool seeing Tompkins make a cameo since he appeared in one of the earliest Howard the Duck stories. It was too bad that his cameo was very brief because it wouldβve been funny had he realized that the giant rat he interrogated was the same being he had previous met when Howard was in his original duck form.
Howard the Duck MAX #4
βBoarding House of Mysteryβ
June, 2002
Credits: Steve Gerber, writer; Phil Winslade, artist; Chris Chuckry, colors; Richars Starkings and Comicraft, letters; Stuart Moore, editor; Kelly Lamy, associate managing editor; Nanci Dakesian, managing editor; Joe Quesada, editor-in-chief; Bill Jemas, president
Synopsis: The story begins in what initially looks like a space station in outer space but the caption says that the place is known as βHeaven Node MV4211-E.β There is a meeting of a group of angels known as βThe Religion as Replacement for Thought Coalition of the Heavenly Host.β One cherub expresses the good news that moderate Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Hindu elements have been rooted out of this group and the last Buddhist abstractionist has been expelled as well.
Another cherub reports that the madrassas on Earth have been successful in radicalizing enough people to be willing to fly airplanes into buildings with the promise that they will get 72 virgins in the afterlife. (This one is definitely a reference to the 9/11 terrorist attacks that took place in the previous year.) But these actions have resulted in a backlash from the secular forms of nationalism.
At that point the group receives a report that a powerful being known as Deuteronomy has escaped from where he was being held and is heading towards Earth. The chairman of the group gives the order to either capture or destroy Deuteronomy.
The story shifts fo Cleveland where Howard, Beverly, and their pit bull Parsifal arrive at the Boarding House of Mystery. They are greeted by the host, Cain, who already knew their names and what had recently happened to them even though he had never met them before. He introduces them to his brother, Abel, who has a rock embedded in his head.
Abel shows them to their rooms while they walk through the main part of the boarding house, which looks like something that came out of an M.C. Escher drawing.
They arrive to their room. As they settle in, Howard wishes that he could have a cigar and a cigar appears out of thin air. Howard and Beverly realize that this house can make their wishes come true. Howard has a lavish meal and a giant TV screen appear. Beverly makes a muscular human man appear out of thin air while Parsifal is shown with a giant bone in the background (although itβs not clear if the dog actually wishes for it or if Beverly wished it for him on his behalf). Then Howard, who has been in his current rat form since the end of the first issue of this series, wishes that he was a duck again and he regains his original form.
The action shifts back to Heaven where the Chairman and the cherub known as Thrasher discusses the escape of Deuteronomy. Thrasher reports that Deuteronomy is set to arrive on Earth soon.
Then the action goes back to the boarding house where it looks like Howard engaged in binge eating while Beverly took that muscular human man into the hallway where itβs implied that they had sex. Beverly wishes the man away since there isnβt enough room in the bed for the three of them.
Howard and Beverly attempt to go to sleep only to get interrupted by the sound of gunshots. They look outside and they see slain army guys and a bunch of bananas. They are greeted by a man with a machine gun who looks like Che Guevara, who spouts off anti-U.S. imperialism revolutionary dialogue. Then another gun toting man who looks like Osama bin Ladin shoots the Che Guevara lookalike. At this point a giant red demon appears, opens his mouth, and crunches down on the Osama bin Ladin lookalike.
A man who emerges out of a room thatβs marked βHellboozer.β He tells Howard and Beverly that Third World revolutionary types attack each other outside of his door each night and he has to use the red demon to get rid of them. Howard and Beverly briefly look at his very cluttered room that are full of small red demons but they decide to return to their own room.
They pass another room where they hear a hissing sound. Beverly fears that it is a gas leak and insists on entering the room and investigating it. After Beverly opens the door they see a man in a gas mask welcoming them to Anthrax Mystery Theater. They immediately leave the room.
Howard and Beverly decide to gather the dog and move out of the boarding house. They arrive at their room only to see it get occupied by others. They are a group of seven people known as the Interminable, who are seven beings who arenβt gods but they existed before humans created deities. They consist of Snoozy, Horny, Dicey, Ditzy, Mournful, Mopey, and Doc. Howard calls them the βSeven Dwarfs of Goth.β
Doc writes Beverly a prescription for Cipro and hands it to her. Beverly asks about their dog Parsifal, whom they had left behind in the room. Doc tells them that they hope that the dog didnβt run to the room across the hall.
Howard and Beverly go to the room across the hall and knock on the door. A giant creature named Ravel bursts through the door. Howard and Beverly duck to the floor just as they hear Ravelβs owner discipline her pet monster. Ravelβs owner, who looks like Cleopatra wearing an ancient Egyptian-inspired bikini, emerges out of her room. Ravelβs owner tells Howard and Beverly that they hadnβt seen their dog and she would never let Ravel eat other peopleβs pets. She suggests going to another room located down the hall.
Howard and Beverly arrive at room number 666, which has a sign indicating that it belongs to Splatter Gomorrah. They knock at the door and a man who looks like a bald skinhead punk rocker answers the door and tells them to fuck off. They ask if he had seen their dog. Splatter Gomorrah tells them that heβs working despite the fact that his two assistants had just quit. Howard and Beverly look around his very messy and cluttered room and they find Parsifal smoking a hookah next to a three-headed cat with each head smoking a cigarette. Beverly expresses outrage that Parsifal is now a drug addict while Splatter Gomorrah suddenly realizes that Howard is a talking duck.
The man introduces himself as the journalist Splatter Gomorrah while bragging that Hunter S. Thompson worships his scrotum. Beverly remembers that he used to write a newspaper column called βI Hate You Allβ and he has been fired from nearly every local newspaper publication. Splatter Gomorrah says that he can use their help to replace the two assistants who recently quit. He is working on an expose of the popular television show host known as Iprah who mixes therapy, diet plans, and spirituality to the point where half of America is convinced that she is the voice of God. He wants to expose Iprah as a fraud and he intends to use Howard and Beverly to help him, even though they seem reluctant to go along with his idea.
The issue ends with the Chairman and Thrasher unsuccessfully trying to find Deuteronomy before he lands on Earth. Thrasher said that it looks like the computer data is indicating that Deuteronomy will arrive at at TV station in Cleveland by tomorrow afternoon.
The Bottom Line: This story was definitely very surreal, especially with the variety of very strange residents of that Boarding House of Mystery. I liked the page showing the full spread of the inside of the Boarding House of Mystery, which definitely invokes one of M.C. Escherβs surreal drawings. That art was probably the most memorable part of that issue.
Another highlight was when Howard was able to regain his original duck form thanks to the supernatural magic that was inherent in the Boardinghouse of Mystery. While it was amusing at times to see him in rat form, that joke got old after a while. Besides, the series is called Howard the Duck, not Howard the Rat, so it doesnβt make sense to keep him as a giant rat most of the time.
At times this story became too surreal for my taste. There was never any explanation as to why Cain invited Howard and Beverly to live in his boarding house or how he knew who they were even though he had never met them before. The fellow boardinghouse residents were unusual, strange, and eccentric but none of them were quite as memorable asβletβs sayβThe Kidney Lady.
This issue was originally published just months after both the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent anthrax mailings in New York City and Washington, DC. It definitely showed in this issue with an Islamic terrorist who resembled Osama bin Ladin and the Cipro reference. (Cipro is frequently used as the antidote to anthrax.)
I read online that this issue was a parody of two different comic book seriesβPreacher and House of Mystery. Unfortunately I have never read either series so I had to judge this issue on its own merits without any knowledge of the original source material. While there were a couple of funny bits (especially the scene where Parsifal the dog is smoking a hookah), this issue was a far cry from the best of Steve Gerberβs 1970s work on Howard the Duck. In fact I found it to be even less funny than the previous Howard the Duck MAX issue.
These issues were reprinted in Howard the Duck MAX graphic novel, which is now out of print but used copies can be found at Amazon and eBay.
Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 1 (1973-1977)
The Early Stories
Howard the Duck #1-3
Howard the Duck #4-5
Howard the Duck #6
Howard the Duck #7 andMarvel Treasury Edition #12: Howard the Duck
Howard the Duck #8
Howard the Duck #9-11
Howard the Duck #12-14
Howard the Duck King Size Annual #1 and Howard the Duck #15
Howard the Duck #16
Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 2 (1977-1979)
Howard the Duck #17-19
Howard the Duck #20-22
Howard the Duck #23-25
Howard the Duck #26-28
Howard the Duck #29-31
Howard the Duck Magazine #1
Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 3 (1979-1980)
Howard the Duck Magazine #2
Howard the Duck Magazine #3
Howard the Duck Magazine #4
Howard the Duck Magazine #5
Howard the Duck Magazine #6
Howard the Duck Magazine #7
Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 4Β (1980-1996)
Howard the Duck MagazineΒ #8
Howard the Duck MagazineΒ #9
Marvel Team-UpΒ #98 and Bizarre AdventuresΒ #34
Howard the DuckΒ #32-33
Sensational She-HulkΒ #14-17
Marvel Tales#237 and Spider-Man Team-UpΒ #5
Howard the Duck MAXΒ (2002)
Howard the Duck MAXΒ #1-2
Howard the Duck MAX #3-4
Howard the Duck MAX #5-6
This whole Coronavirus pandemic is surreal on a level that I havenβt seen since the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks back in 2001. Itβs one where you hear people talking about it frequently amongst each other. Itβs one where you see people literally frightened that they could be the next ones to die. Itβs one where U.S. society has been thrown out of whack.
Except the Coronavirus is making more things being thrown out of whack than 9/11 ever did. The primary elections in Maryland have now been moved to June and thereβs talk of doing the entire thing either online or via mail so people wonβt risk infecting each other at the ballot box. Tax Day have been moved from its traditional April 15 to July 15. More and more places have been closed. Shopping malls, theaters, libraries, schools, colleges, and universities are closed. Restaurants are only allowed to serve take-out meals. In nearby Washington, DC the National Zoo and the Smithsonian museums have all been closed down. Iβm now attending Sunday services via Zoom.
It has also exposed the limits of having a for-profit healthcare system like the United States. Right now there is an actual shortage of Coronavirus tests, which is outrageous. Countries like South Korea is testing a greater percentage of its citizens than the U.S.
Whatβs even worse is that the Coronavirus has arrived at the same time as the usual cold and allergy season. Itβs the time of the year where I start to feel under the weather because itβs usually due to either a cold or allergies from all of that pollen thatβs in the air right now. In past years if I sneezed or coughed or felt tired, I can at least write it off to cold or allergies. Now I have to literally research all of the symptoms of the Coronavirus to make sure that itβs not the Coronavirus and itβs making me crazy. I hate having to keep that illness in the back of my mind.
Iβm doing everything possible to make sure that I donβt catch the Coronavirus. Iβm staying indoors as much as possible while practicing social distancing from other people when Iβm out. I also count 20 seconds as I wash my hands plus I still have my half-filled large bottle of hand sanitizer thatβs leftover from the days when I owned a pet hedgehog named Spike. (He passed away before I was able to use up the entire bottle.)
Iβm also doing everything possible to ensure that if I somehow managed to catch it (Iβve read that you can have the Coronavirus without displaying any symptoms but youβre still a carrier) that I donβt spread it to someone else. Until recently I was helping a friend from my church with organizing her papers and teaching her how to use both her computer and smartphone. The work has been intermittent because my friend has long struggled with Lyme disease. More recently she is dealing with a thyroid issue and there were times when she had to cancel our planned get-togethers because of her thyroid was acting up on that day. On top of it, she is dealing with the recent death of a very close friend whom she told me that she loved like a brother. Iβve decided to suspend all further work with her because, with her recent health issues, her immune system isnβt operating at full capacity. I simply donβt want to risk exposing her to the Coronavirus
But I have to admit that Iβm tired of all this. Iβm tired of having a new reason for not having a steady income. (I recently was rehired by the Census Bureau for working on the upcoming 2020 Census only to have training get postponed due to the Coronavirus.) Iβm tired of being paranoid that feeling a scratchy throat or sneezing makes me paranoid that it might be the Coronavirus. Iβm tired of seeing so many places close down and so many events get cancelled because of the Coronavirus.
Itβs been pretty rough for me over the last couple of months. My mother died last month and my housemate moved out soon afterwards so I lost a source of income. Then I found out that I was named a beneficiary of my motherβs life insurance policy so I have some more financial stability for the time being. And then the Coronavirus had to come to stress me out even further.
Even though Iβm home alone most of the time, I try to make an effort to step outside at least once a day, even if itβs only for less than an hour. Itβs not only because I like to get exposed to some fresh air and sunshine. Itβs also something that I learned about myself in recent years: I canβt stay indoors for too long or else it begins to affect me mentally. I learned this in the aftermath of my divorce. There were days when I didnβt bother with stepping outside. The first day I indoors I was okay. But by the second or third day I would feel like I was being imprisoned and the walls were moving in on me. Itβs a horrible feeling to have.
Once again I feel totally overwhelmed by something thatβs beyond my control. Unlike my divorce, frequent bouts of unemployment and underemployment, and my motherβs death, this Coronavirus is something that really deadly. While I currently donβt know anyone who has the Coronavirus at the moment, itβs only a matter of time before that changes and itβll end up affecting me on a personal level.
Hereβs the thing. In the United States, some of us will get the Coronavirus. Many of us who get that virus will end up dead. In the meantime, with so much of society being literally put on hold, and with this shitty for-profit healthcare system we have (which many Americans canβt even afford), we are now sitting ducks for this Coronavirus. We are basically sitting at home waiting for the disease to strike us (if it really spreads rapidly) while hoping and praying that we wonβt end up among the dead. Itβs a horrible situation to be in.
Al Qaeda wrongly assumed that flying airplanes into buildings on 9/11 was going to end the United States as a society. They should have focused on germ warfare instead. As the Coronavirus is showing, itβs a disease that is doing a far greater job of upending American society than what Al Qaeda did back in 2001.
Is Donald Trump the second 9/11?
Over 100,000 vinyl records are being digitized for anyone to listen online.
Japanese artist creates the coolest balloon animals ever.
Sometimes it is not worth the effort to look up someone from your past online.
Mexican sound library discovers the first (and possibly the only) voice recording of Frida Kahlo.
Wood artist carves fallen logs into adorable forest animals crawling out of trees.
Privatization is at the core of fascism.
Lies, damned lies, and recycling.
Meet the Mole People living beneath the Las Vegas Strip.
Giving the art world hell since 1985: An interview with the Guerrilla Girls.
The weird origins of 12 nursery rhymes have many rethinking their childhood.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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