Happy Festivus!


Get out your aluminum pole!

Make your list of grievances!

Prepare for the feats of strength!

Today is a Festivus for the rest of us!

22 years ago, the world, or at least the part of the world that was watching Seinfeld at the time, learned about Festivus, the joyous holiday created by Frank Constanza.  What many people did not realize at the time was that Festivus was a real holiday, albeit one celebrated by only one family.  The writer of the episode and the man usually credited with creating Festivus, Dan O’Keefe, first celebrated Festivus in 1966.  It was a holiday created by his father, the journalist Daniel O’Keefe and it was initially meant to celebrate the elder O’Keefe’s first date with his future wife, Deborah.

Of course, in the world of Seinfeld, it was created to celebrate Frank Costanza beating up another Christmas shopper.

Regardless of why you’re celebrating today, a Happy Festivus to all!

Get A Life — A “Ditch Life”


Ryan C.'s Four Color Apocalypse

Understand that what I’m about to say is being applied to an imprint that’s published Greg Stump’s Disillusioned Illusions and Gerald Jablonski’s Farmer Ned’s Comics Barn, so yeah — when I “call out” Amy Lockhart’s Ditch Life as the weirdest comic to come out under the Fantagraphics Underground label? That’s no small feat right there, and means that  Lockhart’s beaten out some utterly bizarre and well-nigh unclassifiable “opposition.”

At first glance, though, this pastel-hued artistic paean to what we’ll call, for lack of a more readily-available term, “stylish minimalism” only appears kind of weird — but the lack of any sort of descriptive blurb on the back (on the hardback, to be specific — this thing actually boasts some pretty nice production values), the bizarre character designs, the appearance of a fold-out “board game” titled “Females As Furniture” about 2/3 of the way through the book’s 104 pages —…

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