SPIDER-MAN IS GROSS.

Look out — here comes the Spider-Man! And come he does, spewing semen all over NYC and its citizens. In this article, we examine the evidence for and implications of the disturbing reality that Spider-Man is gross.  (9/30/05)

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!

BEWARE THE SURVEY BEAST.

Lacking employment and lacking funds, young Wesley braved the infernal realm of paid surveys to make some money for Scary-Crayon. Succeed he did — but at what cost? The paid survey path is paved with terror.  (9/27/05)

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.

WELCOME TO FUTURELAND.

It’s time for another Scary-Crayon book review! Step into Walter Mosley’s Futureland, a collection of sci-fi tales that deal with race in the immediate future. There’s quite a bit of serious commentary in this one, too.  (9/22/05)

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!

Tales of Seduction by U-Jin, Part 3!

In the final installment of our Tales of Seduction by U-Jin review, we see a love quadrangle involving two workers, their boss, and his daughter — and the return of Toyama no Benbei! I wouldn’t read it at work, though.  (9/19/05)

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.

Okay, apparently I’ve never paid much attention to these things before — did everyone else know that these awards are based on sales??? I just watched them present an award for the bestselling male artist in some category, as if that isn’t its own reward! Seriously, fuck that — they should give an award to the artists who didn’t sell shit, so then maybe those guys could get a little exposure and recognition too. Fucking popularity contest.

Oh, and who knows more about blood, sweat, and tears than the Osbournes? Probably some starving old musician playing NYC’s subway terminals who’s devoted his life to his craft and never came close to achieving the fame your husband garnered from biting the heads off of live bats on stage. Fuck you too, Sharon.

BATMAN’S DAD WAS AN ASSHOLE.

Everyone’s always pretended that Thomas Wayne was a great man — but, in truth, the guy was an asshole. He beat his son; he beat his wife; he tried to beat those crooks but they shot him first. He got what he deserved. (9/13/05)

Hey folks — not a lot to add tonight, but the title of the article says it all: Thomas Wayne was an asshole. My list is hardly exhaustive, so feel free to add any other reasons you come up with. Ja ne.

CHOCOLATE COVERED CRICKETS.

That’s right, folks — courtesy of Fluker Farm, Scary-Crayon delves further into the realm of distastefulness to review chocolate covered crickets. Wanna know the nutritional value of a single oven-roasted cricket? Read on.  (9/8/05)

Greetings, crayon fans! It’s time for another Foodstuffs review — this one of Fluker Farm’s Chocolate Covered Crickets. I think this review turned out a lot better than I expected, mostly because of the luck of the draw — I’ve seen, broken apart, and eaten chocolate covered crickets before, but none of them were quite as hideously photogenic as the candy used for this piece. Squeamish readers beware.

Also, as you’ll see, there’s a URL on the button — that’ll take you to the Fluker Farm website, where you can see that they’ve got a host of bug-related wares for fishing, feed, and whatever the hell else people do that requires the use of living and/or dead insects. Feel free to poke around the site even if you’re not in the market for crickets and mealworms, though, as some of the stuff on there is downright weird — not the least of which being that, if the photos on the staff page are legit, at least two of the women working for the company are pretty damned hot. There’s also shit like geckos with sunglasses and humanoid lizard creatures playing poker. Yep.

Seeya next time, minna-san. 🙂

A Crayon Haiku #33!

It’s been a while, but the wait is over — Scary-Crayon’s longest running featurette returns from summer vacation with A Crayon Haiku #33! Here, we meet “Geneshaft”‘s Mir Lotus: “The person with perfect DNA.”  (9/5/05)

So I’m back. Can’t say the trip went all that well — and I’m bloody exhausted and will probably need a few more days to recover, ugh — but eh, it’s done and it’s left me with some more things to think about, so that’s good I guess. Anyway, you’re not here to read about my exploits — you’re here for SCARY-CRAYON WACKINESS — so let’s get on with that! Today’s quick update marks the return of a SC featurette that’s been awol for the summer: A Crayon Haiku #33. Gotta love that wacky Japan.

Fun fact: The very first Crayon Haiku was one of SC’s debut pieces back on January 25, 2004! Someday knowing that tidbit is going to win someone a nice chunk of cash in Jeopardy’s “Obscure Entertainment Websites” category. Hell, it might even be the answer to a Daily Double. 😉

And for those of you who didn’t get enough of the immortal Penelope Cruz in our writeup of El Ojo Rojo, here’s another pic. There’s more where that came from! Ja!