I realize I'm probably a little late to the ball with today's article -- the puberty connection in the first film was pretty widely noted, and when, after writing the piece, I did a quick web search to see just how many people had emphasized the webbing/semen comparison, this review turned up -- but hopefully I took it far enough for it to still be an amusing piece. He's jizzing on people! As I write this the search terms spider-man and "jizzing on people" don't yield any Google results. Soon, they will.

Also, here's a digression I excised from the article but am still very much interested in addressing, so I put the question to you here: Are you aware of any comic book heroes whose actual spit constitutes one of their superpowers? I can think of a few villains, and there are characters who spit fire and energy beams and the like -- and the Fly used his spit to terrifyingly memorable effect -- but that's not what I mean. Granted, I have seen video game and cartoon characters whose loogies and even boogers are used for good -- the Toxic Avengers, for example -- but these characters are supposed to be gross. Any ideas here?

Anyway, Spider-Man is gross. ENJOY. Seeya next time!

P.S. As subtly noted in the previous article, my birthday is this coming Tuesday... so if you'd like to make me happy by buying stuff or making donations or sending presents that don't explode (ask me how!) or simply commenting or sending e-mails to that effect, feel free.

But first, a heads up! As mentioned in today's article, there's a new product in the Scary-Crayon store! Some of you may recall the Feaster Bunny, that wascally infant-munching wabbit that first appeared in our Easter Hot Flash chowing down on the baby Jesus and was later seen devouring the offspring of pregnant vegetables in ST@N's guest comic. Now, ladies, you can wear his sacreligious first outing on your crotch with the Feaster thong! HUZZAH!!!

As you see above, in addition to tacitly promoting cunnilingus and featuring blasphemous imagery, the Feaster thong also refers to an actual Biblical verse -- so if you figure that you're going to Hell anyway, you might as well go in wacky Scary-Crayon style! Only $10.99, kiddies.

But I digress -- the real reason we're here is for today's update, in which we plunge into The Infernal Realm of Paid Surveys. Oh, the article starts off normally enough, but then it quickly plunges into an epic quest of soul-searing damnation. All hope is lost for me, dear readers, but perhaps this tale of my adventure in darkness might supply you with the knowledge necessary to approach a light that I will never see. Read on -- read on! -- and take heed of my song.

And finally, a couple of plugs. Pop Arena has moved and is now settling in at its new domain, so y'all should definitely head over there with house -- er -- domain-warming presents! Greg's newest article is an actual interview with one of the Burger King kids of old, so he can actually boast of having true journalistic integrity now. Also, Shin of Twisted Kaiju Theater threw us a bone with a mention last week, so I'd like to return the favor! Apparently Shin's currently doing a crossover of sorts with the highly popular NYC-based Alien Loves Predator, so go check that out.

And that's all for now. Ja ne, minna-san!

Okay, I just kinda threw this together on a late night Friday whim, and you'll definitely hear about it again (as well as see images promoting it in the sidebar), but here it is -- the first ever Scary-Crayon online store! It's on Cafepress. So far there's not much there -- ten types of shirts, but they've all got the same basic design, which consists of this image --

-- centered on the front (6" x 6") and this image --

-- centered on the back (10" x 10"). Shirts are various prices, with the Ringer T and the Ash Grey T-Shirt being the cheapest items at $16.99 a pop and the Sweatshirt being the most expensive one at $23.99. Given that most of the stuff reviewed on the site costs less than a fiver, it seems expensive as hell to me, but only $2-3 of that would be going to support the site -- so if you just want to support SC, it'd probably be cheaper for you to click the Paypal donation image found at the end of every article and set your own amount. But if you want to support the site and get some nifty SC apparel out of the deal, now you can!

Anyway, whether you support us by donating via Paypal or buying shirts or sending encouraging e-mails or leaving comments or linking to us on your sites or weblogs or on forums or simply by visiting and enjoying our content (or not), thanks for visiting Scary-Crayon, minna-san -- we really appreciate it. Hopefully you'll continue to find the site to be mildly amusing and occasionally thought-provoking!

ADDENDUM: Two new items have been added to the store -- the even cheaper $11.99 Value Tee and the Scary-Crayon Dog T-Shirt! Sugoi!

First things first -- apparently the site was down for an unknown period of time yesterday evening. It didn't have anything to do with me, and I don't know what caused it, but whatever was the problem has been fixed now. Still, my apologies.

So I was at the store today when, as I stood in line at the register, I saw a sign asking me to donate money to help out the victims of Hurricane Katrina. That in itself wasn't surprising or offensive -- after all, I guess they need money, and the same sort of thing happened when the tsunami hit late last year -- but what did kinda irritate me was that this particular plea included a list of exactly what supplies could be purchased with the donated funds. Why? Well, according to the sign, for $5 the organization in question could afford to buy shampoo and toothpaste. For one child. For one day.

Read that again. What the fuck?! Consider that one can find entire bottles of shampoo and tubes of toothpaste at dollar stores across America -- so what the hell are they doing? Yes, these people have lost their homes and possibly members of their family, but is giving them luxury bathroom products really going to improve the situation? I'm not even sure why they'd include that information in the first place. On the one hand, I could see it guilt-tripping people into giving more money -- because apparently $5 and $10 donations can't buy shit -- but in my case it made me not want to give them a single red cent because these organizations obviously don't know how to shop around. And you'd think they could get a discount on this shit!

I remember seeing similar stuff last year too, though -- if I remember correctly, $5 could pay for a 4" x 3" box of nails to help build new homes for the tsunami victims. I sure hope those were some fucking great nails.

Hey, folks! In today's Scary-Crayon book review, we take a look at Walter Mosley's Futureland, a collection of science fiction stories in which racial conflict and racism are pervasive and inescapable. It's a difficult book to review -- it was a difficult book to read -- and I know that I say this every time an article takes a serious turn, but this is probably the most serious piece on the site. Hopefully the tone of the review and the ideas expressed therein won't turn you off to reading SC in the future!

On a side note, I kind of like having articles like this on the site. I mean, sites that deal exclusively in wacky and apparently pointless humor are cool, but I kinda like being able to point to articles like this when SC's detractors call the site a waste of space or berate me for wasting time recording Beatles song parodies and writing creepy poems about wanting to photograph pretty girls. I also like the apparent contradiction that the presence of these articles presents! On one hand, we've got admittedly juvenile humor and cutesy drawings of Wolverine giving Nightcrawler a handjob (WARNING: don't click that link if you're at work); on the other, we've got discussions concerning the meanings of racial descriptors and thorough book reviews. Scary-Crayon is an enigma.

Anyway, like I said in the review, I'm not sure what to make of Futureland. So whether you've read it or not, if you've got any possible interpretations, anything to say about the subject matter, etc., feel free to comment. And that's all for now -- ja!

Yep, it's here -- the third and final installment of Scary-Crayon's Tales of Seduction by U-Jin review. I know that some of you out there have been waiting eagerly for this one, so I hope you enjoy it. But how could you not, with Toyama no Benbei? He's the greatest rapist ever.

Also, I don't know how often y'all check the SC blog independently of the other content, but I'm hoping to start posting to it more often regarding things in pop culture that I find to be worthy of comment -- the last two entries, for example, addressed the Billboard Music Awards and an actual television show that consisted of a group of people eating dinner. So if you find my commentary to be at all amusing, I advice you to bookmark the blog's RSS feed. Incidentally, that would also keep you up to date regarding the site's more substantial updates! Definitely an advantageous thing to do if you like 'em crayon stuff.

Finally, another pic of Ej Ojo Rojo's Penelope Cruz. So hot.

So I was flipping through the channels tonight when I came across a show that consisted of a group of people sitting around a table while eating dinner. I fucking kid you not. Nor did they start hurling food at each other or do anything that would've made the show remotely engaging -- they did stand up a few times and make goofy faces at each other like the assholes they'd have to be to think that their eating dinner was an interesting enough premise to carry a television show -- they just fucking sat there and ate dinner.

Somewhere, I thought, people are so fucking bored, and have so little to do in their lives, that they are, at this very moment, sitting on their couches watching other people eat dinner on TV. Amazing.

I turned off the television in disgust and went upstairs to read a book.