Steak



Special thanks goes to Rachel Ray, without her this steak would not have been possible. This steak goes well with a nice Jim Beam on the rocks, then again everything is good with Jim! Here's a tip for thoes interested on how I made this sucker, brown on each side and place in oven on 450 until you feel like the meat may give you a heart attack.

Any one keeping up with Heroes?



This show is probably the only thing keeping me alive before they bring back 24. Oh no... the two are on the same night, well come January if you don't hear back from me it is safe to assume that I've died of an aneurysm. Gotta love the fact that there's two Asian characters on the show that aren't villians! We'll get more into that idea later.

Comics!

So last week we talked about the origin of comics. This week we'll focus on the beginning of comics popularity with The Golden Age.


The Golden Age of comics begain rougly in the 1930s and lasted to about the early 1950s. It probably best represented with this classic comic book:




The Golden Age gave birth to the idea of Superheroes, people with extraordinary powers fighting crime and sticking up for the little guy. You can thank Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for the idea, these two bad boys created Superman!.

You see folks before the Golden Age, heroes in comic books were either historical figures or vigilantes. Which brings us to this guy...




Last week I showed you this character, his name is Wing and he's Chinese American... hopefully. Well he's not a superhero or vigilante, he's more of a side kick. You see he was the assistant for the classic hero The Crimson Avenger. Like Kato to the Green Hornet, Wing played servant to The Avenger. After a hard day of cleaning after the millionaire playboy he would get into thoes yellow pj's and fight crime. I wish I had better pictures, but the character was pretty much an amalga of all the Asian stereotypes developed: yellow skin, big teeth, and super slanted eyes. I say hopefully he's Chinese American because the creators of the comic never gave him a proper back story. Then again, they never give the sidekick a good back story. At any rate, keep Wing's description in mind because the history of the Golden Age doesn't get better for Asians and Asian Americans. Next week we'll dive deeper into this idea and I'll you show some surprises! Until then have a Happy Ween!

Drinking All Week Long

What a long and terrible week... crap its only Wednesday! Aaah God, say can we start that Revelations deal already... you know the one with the Seven Signs and 12 Headed Dragons. Oh well, maybe next year. I would like to thank the big G for hooking up my beloved Bears with another glorious win! Looks like I to have sacrifice my first born child; will they settle for a couple of knuckle children?

Comics of the past!
Okay, so last week we talked about the beginning of comic books through the medium of comic strips. However, some would contend that the strips are not the actual origin of Comics.

*Gasp! What Tomfoolery is This?*

Obviously, great art works from Ugh the Cave Man to Leonardo can be considered as the forebearers of comic books. By that I mean that the art of past was able to give image to the unimaginable, for instance:



This image of God giving birth to man by Michelangelo, it may not look like a comic book. However, it is a clear representation of how the artists of the past were giving presence to charaters only found in words and vague descriptions.

Okay, enough art where are all the word bubbles, plot, and action

Well here you go kids:












The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck

The picture above is an excerpt from what many consider to be the great-grandfathers of comic books. It was created in 1837 and distributed to the masses, it is said that this old story was the first Comic published in America. Rodolphe Töpffer was the creator of this piece of work, but thanks to the black market Oldbuck was bootlegged and passed around like Prado Bags. Töpffer's work featured a story and had captions underneath each cartoon. A fairly new medium at the time and highly popular.

Same idea here people; prove that it is man's intention to share the images and thoughts of his mind. Comic books aren't too far from that, from Wolverine to Harvey Pekar, the desire to display the unimaginable is made tangible. Wow that rhymes.

I know... I know... so what do Asians have to do with this. Hold your horses Charlie, next week I'll be discussing the Golden Age of Comic books and we'll get to the bottom of this whole Asian/Asian American Comic book deal. Here's just a glimps of what you'll see:




Have a good week and lets hope Fire and Brimstone rain from the sky!

Feel free to declare me a Genius or an Idiot by writing a comment

Labor of Love




GAT-X105E Strike Noir HG 1/144

I bought this waste of plastic on Sunday, because the Chicago Bears dominated over the Bills. I'm not much of a football person, but with enough Whiskey Sours you can convince me to drink Coke II laced with bleach. 4 days of laborious work to make this model worthy of at least 1+ otaku points. Either way, I'm still single and hobbies just make up for it.

Let's Get to the Comics

In a small cave, poor Ugh found himself bored with all the hunting and gathering.

"Wha' am a I gonna do", said Ugh despairingly.

As he warmed himself by the fire he began to play with the ashes that lined his cave floor. His simple play became a dance and soon he noticed that the ashes began to leave marks on the walls of the cave. Intrigued by the lines and scrawls, he bagan to draw figures and shapes. Soon the scribbles took form and he began to draw the many animals he saw on his hunting trips. And thus begot the birth of comic books....

Wow... what a heart warming story, let me go ahead and choke on my tears!

Okay, the same crappy story can be applied to anything: art, writing, and even porno. But really folks, comic books started small, in the form of comic strips. These small sequences of drawings began to appear in the early 20th century and appeared in various magazines and newspapers.

Here is an example of an early comic strip: Hogan's Alley featuring the lead character The Yellow Kid



No, don't get any mixed signals, the Yellow Kid does not represent the oppression of Asians by the MAN. Simply, he was a kid who wore yellow and had zany adventures. Don't quote me on the yellow/zany part... I've actually never read the comic strip.

But I can say that the comic strips began to increase in popularity, simply because it was cheap and one did not need the gift of reading to understand the story. It wouldn't be long before whole collections of these strips would be gathered into books and distributed to the masses. These simple books would be one the very beginnings of comic books... or is it?

Well ladies and gents, I'm just going to let you chew on that for a while. Next week we will visit this idea of the birth comic books and later we'll get deeper into the heart of Asians/Asian Americans in the comic book game!

Until then spend this weekend watching the movie Cobra and compare that with the movie Commando. I'll be expecting a paper on Monday!

I'm no expert on this whole thing... feel free to prove me wrong by posting a comment

Let's give a warm welcome to me, Benhur B. Calaguas, the star of this wonderful blog entitled Plight of Benhur Calaguas. As many of you know blogs provide a way to immortalize yourself, so that future civilzations can ridcule and lable the human race inferior. Well at least we had Justin Timberlake.

To get all the perverts squared away here are my stats:


Age: 24
Weight: 167lbs
Height: 5'6"
Occupation: Computer Engineer
Eduation: Bachelor Degree in Computer Science @ DePaul University
Interests:
Anything Nintendo
Music
Science
Sports
Up to the minute News
Anmials

However, the purpose of this blog is to record and reflect on my two favorite interests: Comic Books and Asian/Asian American Media.

My time is limited, so don't expect a post every freaking day. You the very few who probably found my blog while Googling porn and asian.

But the next post will be about:

The birth of Comic Books and the Scourge of the East, Asian Villians.