"I Look Straight into Linus' Weasel Eyes..."
March 11, 2009 9:56 PM Subscribe
Good grief!
posted by mazola at 10:08 PM on March 11, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by mazola at 10:08 PM on March 11, 2009 [1 favorite]
That was great.
posted by signalnine at 10:08 PM on March 11, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by signalnine at 10:08 PM on March 11, 2009 [1 favorite]
Wow Sally Brown got hot
posted by paisley henosis at 10:17 PM on March 11, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by paisley henosis at 10:17 PM on March 11, 2009 [2 favorites]
Does everything great have to be spoiled like this?
posted by evilcolonel at 10:31 PM on March 11, 2009
posted by evilcolonel at 10:31 PM on March 11, 2009
Frank Miller is already a parody of himself in his actual serious work, so why did he feel the need to do something like that?
posted by turgid dahlia at 10:32 PM on March 11, 2009
posted by turgid dahlia at 10:32 PM on March 11, 2009
It isn't by Frank Miller, it is a parody by an Arkansas graphic artist who goes by Ninjaink at DeviantArt.com. The stuff in his gallery is really good, though most of it is far more straightforward.
posted by LarryC at 11:01 PM on March 11, 2009
posted by LarryC at 11:01 PM on March 11, 2009
God damn brilliant.
posted by voltairemodern at 11:08 PM on March 11, 2009
posted by voltairemodern at 11:08 PM on March 11, 2009
Great. I would have loved to have seen another page with Lucy in it, but this alone was fantastic.
posted by Hactar at 11:11 PM on March 11, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by Hactar at 11:11 PM on March 11, 2009 [1 favorite]
It so easy to parody Frank Miller. Easy like breaking someone's wrist. Take their hand, knuckles to you, so they can look at their lifeline on their palm, and see how long it is; take their hand, bent fingers pointing to their elbows, and take their wrist, their hand facing toward them, and drop it. Vertically, let their own hand caress their aura, however far from their body it might be. Finger pointing away from you, at your foe's face... a firm grip is all it takes... effort... the bones and veins that run on the back the the hand: hold these vertical, take the wrist and push it toward the center of gravity of the earth. Shove the wrist down until celery snaps. Until you can see the world shimmer in pain in his eyes. There is a certain sound to listen for, a sound that indicates that their most precious bones and tendons are broken. A familiar sound... a distinctly human noise, but not a sound made by vocal chords, a percussion made by the human frame...
When you hear this noise, and see how the wrist bends, you will know that the world is black and white except for color that emphasizes elements that aren't necessarily important to the plot; when the muscles of the arm are twisted out of their natural order you will feel the misogyny and bad writing of Frank Miller except for "The Dark Knight" which was pretty good. As you wear a trench coat over your wife beater and your macho fantasies dies in a puddle of blood under a street light and nobody cares, you will realize that Frank Miller has nothing to do with reality at all.
...and when that bitch pulls the football from in front of your foot, you will know pain...
posted by fuq at 11:13 PM on March 11, 2009 [27 favorites]
When you hear this noise, and see how the wrist bends, you will know that the world is black and white except for color that emphasizes elements that aren't necessarily important to the plot; when the muscles of the arm are twisted out of their natural order you will feel the misogyny and bad writing of Frank Miller except for "The Dark Knight" which was pretty good. As you wear a trench coat over your wife beater and your macho fantasies dies in a puddle of blood under a street light and nobody cares, you will realize that Frank Miller has nothing to do with reality at all.
...and when that bitch pulls the football from in front of your foot, you will know pain...
posted by fuq at 11:13 PM on March 11, 2009 [27 favorites]
Skinny little Sally Brown. She grew up. She filled out.
posted by kyrademon at 11:22 PM on March 11, 2009 [11 favorites]
posted by kyrademon at 11:22 PM on March 11, 2009 [11 favorites]
That was surprisingly gore-free. I was expecting something like Snoopy eating someone's small intestines under the rain, which would have quickly turned from fun into disturbing, I think.
posted by Iosephus at 11:40 PM on March 11, 2009 [4 favorites]
posted by Iosephus at 11:40 PM on March 11, 2009 [4 favorites]
Actually, I liked this more than I remember my twelve-year old self liking Miller. Or than I remember liking Peanuts, at any age.
posted by darth_tedious at 11:58 PM on March 11, 2009
posted by darth_tedious at 11:58 PM on March 11, 2009
There is potential for brilliant parody here. There is already some great artwork.
posted by christhelongtimelurker at 12:13 AM on March 12, 2009
posted by christhelongtimelurker at 12:13 AM on March 12, 2009
Wow Sally Brown got hot
That must be an old picture. She's coming up on her 50th birthday.
Has anyone done Peanuts as they would look if they had aged?
posted by pracowity at 12:18 AM on March 12, 2009
That must be an old picture. She's coming up on her 50th birthday.
Has anyone done Peanuts as they would look if they had aged?
posted by pracowity at 12:18 AM on March 12, 2009
I have a hard time accepting Charlie Brown as quite such a noir character. I know the odds have been stacked against him from the start, but I just can't get behind his being so strong, or so dark. He's not hard, he's not mean, he's wishy-washy ol' Charlie Brown.
Even when he frowns, even when he's dead-serious, there's no capacity for rage or anger, just interminable frustration. Charlie Brown's always the butt of jokes, but never the type to turn them around; he's the ham, but never the joker. He's not the type to exact revenge, because he's accepted his lot in life as the heel.
He'd never take Linus to hell with him, he'd just talk about the circumstances.
Not too long ago, someone put together a series of Peanuts comics imagined in the style of Charles Bukowski. I'm less impressed by the Miller interpretation than by the Bukowski one.
posted by Graygorey at 12:25 AM on March 12, 2009 [5 favorites]
Even when he frowns, even when he's dead-serious, there's no capacity for rage or anger, just interminable frustration. Charlie Brown's always the butt of jokes, but never the type to turn them around; he's the ham, but never the joker. He's not the type to exact revenge, because he's accepted his lot in life as the heel.
He'd never take Linus to hell with him, he'd just talk about the circumstances.
Not too long ago, someone put together a series of Peanuts comics imagined in the style of Charles Bukowski. I'm less impressed by the Miller interpretation than by the Bukowski one.
posted by Graygorey at 12:25 AM on March 12, 2009 [5 favorites]
Even when he frowns, even when he's dead-serious, there's no capacity for rage or anger...
I'm not so sure....
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 12:44 AM on March 12, 2009 [3 favorites]
I'm not so sure....
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 12:44 AM on March 12, 2009 [3 favorites]
Requiem for a Red Baron
I
The silhouette of a lone figure wavers in the heat of a rust-red August evening. Still. Unnaturally still. This is not the stillness of great calm, though. Note the clenched fists. The rigid posture. This is the stillness of great tension. Of tightly focused energy.
The sun leans wearily on the rooftops, resting up for the final descent of a long, dirty day. The figure scans the skyline, a vast, saw-toothed affair stretching unevenly as far as the eye can see. It's an extravagant city, prosperous and vital, but with a decidedly lived-in look. At street level, the scene would seem chaotic, vibrant. From thirty stories up, feet sticking to the tar atop a weathered deco high-rise, the city is like the lone figure studying her: poised; waiting.
The figure turns slightly and crouches. This is a man. A man in form-fitting, yellow leather, with a black slash across the front, like an after image of lightning bursting from his chest. He peers down, now, straight down to the litter-strewn alleyway over 300 feet below. His is a formidable form. Not massive, but tall and lean and whipcord tight. On his haunches, he looks like a mutant alley cat stalking his prey in the urban jungle below. Feral. Eager.
He jumps.
His strangely rounded head is completely masked by a dark leather helmet, black goggles, and a long red scarf whipping behind him like a warm spray of blood. Beneath the scarf, he grits his perfect teeth. A single tear escapes from the corner of one eye as he plummets to the earth, accelerating at nearly nine point-eight miles per second per second. Despite the tear, he is not afraid – at least not of anything waiting below. And he has not surrendered himself to the darkness.
No. Never that.
II
Pig-Pen is a big man. Not athletic in any deliberate way, but strong as nature could make him. Pig-Pen is not an especially cruel man, but he is a cold man and a useful man, in the way that big, cold men are often useful to lesser men with the means to afford them. Today, he is making himself useful securing payment for an outstanding debt.
"Well, you damn well better find the money, Linus, or my friend here might just lose his temper." Pig-Pen's associate, Schroeder, speaks the words without a hint of irony, although the beneficiary of their attentions is already crumpled to the ground, blanketed in his own bloody vomit.
Schroeder pulls a Beretta from the well-used holster under his arm. He chambers a bullet, stands over the deadbeat, aims for the meat of the thigh.
"I can play a symphony with this thing."
A loud crash reverberates down the dank, cavernous alleyway, sending rats and pigeons scurrying for cover. Schroeder looks down at the gun in bewilderment: he hasn't pulled the trigger.
A howl from behind.
Schroeder spins, but the gun is yanked from his hand.
Behind him, Pig-Pen lies in a twisted heap – just another dust pile amidst the debris. Aside from the two limp bodies, Schroeder is alone.
Without a word, he breaks for the car, but an inhuman laughter rains down from above. The echoes overlap in a drunken chorus, devolving into a dull hysterical roar. Schroeder stops in his tracks. He is surrounded.
"Did you miss me, Schroeder?" A whisper from above. Almost unintelligible.
Schroeder turns and gapes up at the dark figure slashing through the air twenty feet above. Holding Schroeder's gun.
"It can't be you! You're dead!"
III
The Red Baron is three bites into his tuna melt, when Pig-Pen and Schroeder burst into the office. Pig-Pen wears a neck brace and tape over his nose. Schroeder is a mass of assorted lumps and bruises.
"What happened to you two? Jesus! – You're going to put me off my lunch!"
"We were ambushed, boss," says Pig-Pen.
"It was The Flying Ace, Baron."
The Red Baron pauses for an instant, then sets the sandwich gingerly on his plate. He picks up a paper napkin, dabs at the corners of his mouth, picks a bit of tuna from his teeth, swallows. Pig-Pen and Schroeder exchange nervous glances.
"The Flying Ace is demised."
"It was him, Baron," Schroeder insists. "It was The Ace. He-"
"He is no more. Allow me to refresh your memories: We discovered The Flying Ace's secret identity and we gunned him down in the street. I shot him, myself. Schroeder – you put two or three rounds into him.
"We went to the funeral, remember? Snoopy! Goddamned Snoopy, fer Christ sakes! Can you imagine that blockhead Charlie Brown raising a masked vigilante? Un-be-lievable."
The Red Baron picks up his sandwich.
"You can never count on family, boys. Remember I said that. Never in a million years would I have figured a Brown for a do-gooder. Although…"
He takes a bite.
"Sally always was good for a roll in the blankets. I'd do her again in a heartbeat. Real good!"
"I guess it must have been the other masked vigilante that flies around in a Sopwith Camel beating up on syndicate boys," Schroeder hisses.
The Red Baron hurls his plate, Frisbee-style, at Schroeder's head.
"Don't get fresh!"
Schroeder bats the plate aside, effortlessly. It shatters against the paneling behind them.
"It was him."
"Of course it wasn't him. It was some other clown dressed up like him."
The Red Baron pauses, thinking aloud.
"Of course, we never did find his Sopwith Camel…"
"I swear it was the same plane, Baron."
"Wait a minute- What if he left his plane to his blockhead master? Yeah… I want to know every damn thing there is to know about that little loser, pronto! Send Lucy. If anyone can shrink that planet-sized head, it's 'Doctor' Van Pelt. But tell her to drag Peppermint Patty along for muscle, just in case."
"He had a message for you, Baron."
"A message? Arrogant sumbitch!"
"He said, 'Tell The Red Baron I'll be seeing him.'"
"Sumbitch will be seeing me, alright! And that'll be the last thing he ever sees!"
IV
The World War I Flying Ace has heard enough. Silent as a ghost, he detaches from the shadows outside The Red Baron's window. He strides ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty paces, or more from The Bloody Red Baron's hideout where he has followed the Baron's henchmen to even up the score. The Flying Ace stops, then, and turns abruptly on his heel to face the cold brick wall. He fires up a strike anywhere match against the lightning bolt on his chest and sets it to the fuse dangling limply from the bundle of dynamite gripped tightly in his hand.
He lets the fuse burn down dangerously low as he watches the silhouettes in the window and then, for the first time in his short, miserable life, Charlie Brown throws a perfect strike.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:26 AM on March 12, 2009 [16 favorites]
I
The silhouette of a lone figure wavers in the heat of a rust-red August evening. Still. Unnaturally still. This is not the stillness of great calm, though. Note the clenched fists. The rigid posture. This is the stillness of great tension. Of tightly focused energy.
The sun leans wearily on the rooftops, resting up for the final descent of a long, dirty day. The figure scans the skyline, a vast, saw-toothed affair stretching unevenly as far as the eye can see. It's an extravagant city, prosperous and vital, but with a decidedly lived-in look. At street level, the scene would seem chaotic, vibrant. From thirty stories up, feet sticking to the tar atop a weathered deco high-rise, the city is like the lone figure studying her: poised; waiting.
The figure turns slightly and crouches. This is a man. A man in form-fitting, yellow leather, with a black slash across the front, like an after image of lightning bursting from his chest. He peers down, now, straight down to the litter-strewn alleyway over 300 feet below. His is a formidable form. Not massive, but tall and lean and whipcord tight. On his haunches, he looks like a mutant alley cat stalking his prey in the urban jungle below. Feral. Eager.
He jumps.
His strangely rounded head is completely masked by a dark leather helmet, black goggles, and a long red scarf whipping behind him like a warm spray of blood. Beneath the scarf, he grits his perfect teeth. A single tear escapes from the corner of one eye as he plummets to the earth, accelerating at nearly nine point-eight miles per second per second. Despite the tear, he is not afraid – at least not of anything waiting below. And he has not surrendered himself to the darkness.
No. Never that.
II
Pig-Pen is a big man. Not athletic in any deliberate way, but strong as nature could make him. Pig-Pen is not an especially cruel man, but he is a cold man and a useful man, in the way that big, cold men are often useful to lesser men with the means to afford them. Today, he is making himself useful securing payment for an outstanding debt.
"Well, you damn well better find the money, Linus, or my friend here might just lose his temper." Pig-Pen's associate, Schroeder, speaks the words without a hint of irony, although the beneficiary of their attentions is already crumpled to the ground, blanketed in his own bloody vomit.
Schroeder pulls a Beretta from the well-used holster under his arm. He chambers a bullet, stands over the deadbeat, aims for the meat of the thigh.
"I can play a symphony with this thing."
A loud crash reverberates down the dank, cavernous alleyway, sending rats and pigeons scurrying for cover. Schroeder looks down at the gun in bewilderment: he hasn't pulled the trigger.
A howl from behind.
Schroeder spins, but the gun is yanked from his hand.
Behind him, Pig-Pen lies in a twisted heap – just another dust pile amidst the debris. Aside from the two limp bodies, Schroeder is alone.
Without a word, he breaks for the car, but an inhuman laughter rains down from above. The echoes overlap in a drunken chorus, devolving into a dull hysterical roar. Schroeder stops in his tracks. He is surrounded.
"Did you miss me, Schroeder?" A whisper from above. Almost unintelligible.
Schroeder turns and gapes up at the dark figure slashing through the air twenty feet above. Holding Schroeder's gun.
"It can't be you! You're dead!"
III
The Red Baron is three bites into his tuna melt, when Pig-Pen and Schroeder burst into the office. Pig-Pen wears a neck brace and tape over his nose. Schroeder is a mass of assorted lumps and bruises.
"What happened to you two? Jesus! – You're going to put me off my lunch!"
"We were ambushed, boss," says Pig-Pen.
"It was The Flying Ace, Baron."
The Red Baron pauses for an instant, then sets the sandwich gingerly on his plate. He picks up a paper napkin, dabs at the corners of his mouth, picks a bit of tuna from his teeth, swallows. Pig-Pen and Schroeder exchange nervous glances.
"The Flying Ace is demised."
"It was him, Baron," Schroeder insists. "It was The Ace. He-"
"He is no more. Allow me to refresh your memories: We discovered The Flying Ace's secret identity and we gunned him down in the street. I shot him, myself. Schroeder – you put two or three rounds into him.
"We went to the funeral, remember? Snoopy! Goddamned Snoopy, fer Christ sakes! Can you imagine that blockhead Charlie Brown raising a masked vigilante? Un-be-lievable."
The Red Baron picks up his sandwich.
"You can never count on family, boys. Remember I said that. Never in a million years would I have figured a Brown for a do-gooder. Although…"
He takes a bite.
"Sally always was good for a roll in the blankets. I'd do her again in a heartbeat. Real good!"
"I guess it must have been the other masked vigilante that flies around in a Sopwith Camel beating up on syndicate boys," Schroeder hisses.
The Red Baron hurls his plate, Frisbee-style, at Schroeder's head.
"Don't get fresh!"
Schroeder bats the plate aside, effortlessly. It shatters against the paneling behind them.
"It was him."
"Of course it wasn't him. It was some other clown dressed up like him."
The Red Baron pauses, thinking aloud.
"Of course, we never did find his Sopwith Camel…"
"I swear it was the same plane, Baron."
"Wait a minute- What if he left his plane to his blockhead master? Yeah… I want to know every damn thing there is to know about that little loser, pronto! Send Lucy. If anyone can shrink that planet-sized head, it's 'Doctor' Van Pelt. But tell her to drag Peppermint Patty along for muscle, just in case."
"He had a message for you, Baron."
"A message? Arrogant sumbitch!"
"He said, 'Tell The Red Baron I'll be seeing him.'"
"Sumbitch will be seeing me, alright! And that'll be the last thing he ever sees!"
IV
The World War I Flying Ace has heard enough. Silent as a ghost, he detaches from the shadows outside The Red Baron's window. He strides ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty paces, or more from The Bloody Red Baron's hideout where he has followed the Baron's henchmen to even up the score. The Flying Ace stops, then, and turns abruptly on his heel to face the cold brick wall. He fires up a strike anywhere match against the lightning bolt on his chest and sets it to the fuse dangling limply from the bundle of dynamite gripped tightly in his hand.
He lets the fuse burn down dangerously low as he watches the silhouettes in the window and then, for the first time in his short, miserable life, Charlie Brown throws a perfect strike.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:26 AM on March 12, 2009 [16 favorites]
I wanted to hate this, but I didn't. Thanks for posting it.
posted by marxchivist at 3:19 AM on March 12, 2009
posted by marxchivist at 3:19 AM on March 12, 2009
Weapon Brown did it first, and better.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:22 AM on March 12, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:22 AM on March 12, 2009 [1 favorite]
The original arc, A Peanut Scorned, tracked Chuck "Weapon" Brown and his dog Snoop as they crossed the ravaged landscape of post-World War IV earth looking for Chuck's kidnapped girlfriend. Along the way he encounters gritty adult versions of the entire Peanuts cast.
Gonna have to respectfully disagree with you on the better part...
posted by cavalier at 5:02 AM on March 12, 2009
Gonna have to respectfully disagree with you on the better part...
posted by cavalier at 5:02 AM on March 12, 2009
I must remember to use 'runaway freight train full of concrete fists' more often.
posted by echo target at 6:28 AM on March 12, 2009
posted by echo target at 6:28 AM on March 12, 2009
Miller's Sin City narrative is very hard to do. He does most of it hand lettered, in the margins of an illustration, a sentence or two at a time. You don't get to do paragraphs, except maybe one or two splash pages every other issue. He'll sometimes go for five or six pages at a stretch without any dialog. The efficiency of his narrative is pretty impressive - he shows more than he tells. Most of the time, the narration is to reinforce the tone of the action and the mood of the character, not tell the story. You could remove all the lettering from Sin City, especially the first series, and still figure out what's going on.
What the above snarkers are doing is modernizing the hard-boiled detective genre with edgier dialog and imagery - which isn't Miller's exclusive hallmark, but a tool he enjoys using. (See Ronin and Martha Washington for examples of his work where he doesn't go hard-boiled.)
Bearing in mind how tough it is to nail down the visual and narrative tone of Sin City, this parody is genius... except Linus is Charlie Brown's catcher, not the batter! The batter is always unseen, except for his or her effect, much like World War II the Cat, the Red Baron, or any adult.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:32 AM on March 12, 2009 [5 favorites]
What the above snarkers are doing is modernizing the hard-boiled detective genre with edgier dialog and imagery - which isn't Miller's exclusive hallmark, but a tool he enjoys using. (See Ronin and Martha Washington for examples of his work where he doesn't go hard-boiled.)
Bearing in mind how tough it is to nail down the visual and narrative tone of Sin City, this parody is genius... except Linus is Charlie Brown's catcher, not the batter! The batter is always unseen, except for his or her effect, much like World War II the Cat, the Red Baron, or any adult.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:32 AM on March 12, 2009 [5 favorites]
just so y'all know, I talked to Zack, he's going to do the movie...
posted by HuronBob at 7:30 AM on March 12, 2009 [3 favorites]
posted by HuronBob at 7:30 AM on March 12, 2009 [3 favorites]
The thread with the anime versions is still open, ya know.
posted by hermitosis at 8:04 AM on March 12, 2009
posted by hermitosis at 8:04 AM on March 12, 2009
So I guess I should have posted this two days ago. Ah well.
posted by GuyZero at 9:47 AM on March 12, 2009
posted by GuyZero at 9:47 AM on March 12, 2009
Brilliant find. Thanks, LarryC.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:43 AM on March 12, 2009
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:43 AM on March 12, 2009
Frank Miller's writing can be summed up in two words: Overwrought and Underthought.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:10 AM on March 12, 2009
posted by Sys Rq at 11:10 AM on March 12, 2009
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