[funny] The secret of happiness is t…

[funny] Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs; ‘Oh, Shit’ Says Humanity’ …

“I believe I speak for the entire human race when I say, ‘Holy fuck,'” said Oceanographic Institute director Dr. James Aoki, noting that the dolphin has a cranial capacity 40 percent greater than that of humans. “That’s it for us monkeys.”

[comics] Steve Ditko’s Birthday! … fabulous Scans_Daily post celebrating Ditko’s 81st birthday … ‘You may recognize the name Ditko as the creator of many of your favorite comic characters such as… ah, the names escape me… Spider-something or other. Anyway, he’s a comics legend, an innovator, and he’s still making comics. I have cobbled a few of my personal favorite Ditko pieces, some not seen too often and others never to be reprinted elsewhere…’

[comics] Garry Trudeau Submits Doonesbury Cartoons Featuring Senator Obama Win … Trudeau: ‘Fivethirtyeight.com, the most respected of the polling analysts, is now giving McCain a 3.7% chance of winning (and that’s without factoring in the huge lead Obama’s taken in early voting), so I guess I like my odds. Still, we supplied our clients with a week of reruns, just in case.’

[comics] Alan Moore on the Shadow … early Alan Moore text piece from 1970 – another scanned rarity from the Glycon’s Livejournal … ‘Apparently Gibson (who, I might add was also a professional magician) had written the story, and all that was left was for S&S to find a suitable cover. The only one they could find however, with anything like a shadow featured on it showed an inscrutable oriental type cowering against a wall. The Shadow, it seems, was his own. (Damn clever these Chinese!) Unfortunately, Gibson’s story didn’t feature any orientals, so naturally rather than give S&S the trouble of finding a new cover, Gibson rewrote the whole thing. (Rumour has it that Gibson invented the Shadow at five o’clock while he was shaving).’

[comics] Sea-Monkeys Only $1.25! (more…)

[comics] Philip Bond does John Romita Snr …

[comics] Help me find my next favorite graphic novel. … great list of comics from Ask Metafilter … ‘All-star Superman just wrapped up and it was fantastic. Easily the best “new” comic I’ve read.’

[funny] Matt Webb’s 100 Head Cattle Drive 2008 … go help Matt achieve his dream …‘I like small plastic cows. I don’t know why. I haven’t owned any until today. For many years I have wanted a herd for my home. Perhaps 100 or so. Yes, 100 would do nicely. DO NOT ASK ME WHY. (I think it would be a neat thing.) … A promise: IF I GET 100 × SCHLEICH HOLSTEIN OR FLECKVIEH COWS, I WILL DONATE £500 TO A CHARITY CHOSEN BY MAJORITY VOTE.’

[life] An Affair To Remember … a sad and fascinating article discussing the emotional, moral and practical issues around older people having sex in care homes … ‘And his sputtering cell phone call reporting the scene he’d happened upon would have been funny, the manager said, if the consequences hadn’t been so serious. “He was going, ‘She had her mouth on my dad’s penis! And it’s not even clean!’ ” Bob’s son became determined to keep the two apart and asked the facility’s staff to ensure that they were never left alone together. After that, Dorothy stopped eating. She lost 21 pounds, was treated for depression, and was hospitalized for dehydration. When Bob was finally moved out of the facility in January, she sat in the window for weeks waiting for him. She doesn’t do that anymore, though: “Her Alzheimer’s is protecting her at this point,” says her doctor…’

[comics] Salman Rushdie: Comic Fan … ‘The Satanic Verses author owns oil paintings of Spider-Man and Wolverine, signed by Stan Lee. Also, he collected comic books as a kid, but, sadly, his father threw them away. “They’d be worth so much money now if he hadn’t done that. You know, 1950s and sixties Dell Comics, and Marvel; it would be worth a fortune,” he said.’

[funny] Next on BBC1: Armageddon …

[comics] The Trial of the Sober Dog … the comic strip from Nick Abadzis which is currently being published in the Times is also available online (the link above will send you to the first episode – the current one is here).

[comics] Barack Obama: The 50 facts you might not know … ‘He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics.’

[comics] Batman Sues Batman Over Batman … apparently there is a town in Turkey called Batman which is located on the Batman River in the Batman Province… ‘There is only one Batman in the world…’

[funny] Good / Bad / Meh Things To Say During Sex … ‘Madre Mio!’

[comics] Save The Squid: Hope …

[comics] 75 comics being made into films … they are really digging through the comic archives for film properties. The Hands of Shang-Chi: ‘This kung-fu crazy character emerged from Marvel comics at the height of the early 70s martial-arts boom and the stories incorporated Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu and Nayland Smith characters. Ang Lee is in the producer’s chair with Forbidden Kingdom stunt arranger Woo-ping Yuen set to direct, but most of the news on the project is pretty old.’ [via Robot Wisdom]

[comics] Fantastic collection of photos tagged Comic Book Hearings from Life Magazine in 1951 … sadly it doesn’t give any information on who is in the photos but I’m assuming it’s Tennessee senator Estes Kefauver’s Senate subcommittee hearing on juvenile delinquency and comic books. More from Life’s Archives: Frederick Wertham, Adam West on the set of Batman, Adam West and Bert Ward as Batman and Robin, Batman on the cover of Life.

[speccy] JSSpeccy: A ZX Spectrum emulator in Javascript … runs slowly but nicely implemented … ‘I’m really typecasting myself here. If there were an international “Person most likely to write a Spectrum emulator in Javascript” award, I’d have taken it for the last five years running. So here it is…’

[funny] lolgriffin … ‘I HAD A MEMBER DATABASE BUT I LOSTED IT’

[life] I Have Seen The Truth And It Doesn’t Make Any Sense [via] …

[funny] Hitler’s BNP membership gets leaked … ‘The neighbours are going to find out aren’t they?’

[comics] Love & Rockets Covers … collection of covers from the comic book… [via Mondo a-go-go]

[questions] Live Feed of Questions and Answers from text118118.com … fascinating real time look at what messages a text message Question and Answer service gets … ‘Q: How many seconds is it until christmas 2008? A: There are only 108,000 seconds before christmas. thx’

[news] Brighton and Hove Argus Headline Boards …‘King Alfred is Dead’ [via Qwghlm]

[comics] Batman R.I.P.? A Dozen Dark Knight Deaths …‘Batman is more than a character appearing in a comic book. He – as Bruce Wayne – is known to millions around the world as the hero of Gotham City. His movie has almost made a billion dollars this year. The value of Batman/Bruce Wayne to DC Comics and Warner Bros. is beyond measure. We’ll let you figure out what that means in terms of how “dead” Batman may be here, in the broad view.’

[blogs] A List of all BBC Blogs … surprisingly small list of blogs for such a large media operation.

[movies] Michael Caine reveals Italian Job ending … ‘The star says he would have saved them by “switching on the engine”, burning off petrol until it righted itself. “I crawl up, switch on the engine and stay there for four hours until all the petrol runs out,” he said. “The van bounces back up so we can all get out, but then the gold goes over…”‘