for 10 August 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Re: Goofy and Pluto

What is the deal with Goofy
versus Pluto? A bunch of us
at Caltech figured this out
long ago. They are in fact
brothers. Goofy sold Pluto
into slavery in exchange for
the power of human speech.
(And evidently he was robbed
too, given the unsatisfactory
results.) Why else the hat
than to hide the surgical
scars?

Allen K.
Mouseketeer
Plutocrat
<aknaton@math.mit.edu>

I'll be the first to sign on
to a Free Pluto movement,
especially since, in
addition to Goofy's dog
being a slave, Pluto's
namesake planet is being sold
down the river.

Subject: Dog article

Excellent. One of the best
recent Suck essays. The
phrase "sniffing the
information-rich anus" had me
in stitches for some time.
This kind of quirky writing
about topics of complete
irrelevance is why I read
Suck. I hope this marks the
beginning of a good streak.

Bradley Messmer
<messmeb@rockvax.rockefeller.edu>

It does mark the beginning of
a good streak. Continue to
read, continue to learn,
continue to stitch.

Subject: Re: Man bites dog

I have to say you are right
on track with your learned
behavior theory of our love
for dogs (and repulsion to
dog barbecue).

I just spent two years
working and studying in
China. Three people (two
Chinese and one Korean) told
me a common childhood story:
They had a dog they
considered a loved pet, and
they came home one day to
find that Mom and Dad had
either eaten the dog or sold
it as meat.

The twentysomethings who
told me this certainly
regretted the fate of their
furry little pals, but their
parents apparently considered
these particular dogs as
high-grade, tasty, and
expensive-to-raise meat. I
don't know if this supports
Budiansky's theory or not,
but it does show a stark
difference between the
behavior of two generations.
The older one was born during
a time when pets were either
illegal or prohibitively
expensive, and the younger
one was exposed since
childhood to cute puppy
posters and Disney movies.
The fact that dog meat as a
delicacy still exists in
these cultures shows that old
cravings die hard. Maybe in
20 years we will know if the
canine species can pull off
another Darwinian conquest in
the Far East.

David Stone
<david_stone@hotmail.com>

From what I've heard, Falun
Gong is recruiting pooches to
its cause. This has led to an
interesting response from the
Chinese government, which,
though opposed to cooking and
eating dogs (on ideological
grounds), has no qualms about
sending them to Marxist
re-obedience camps or to
loading them into Long March
missiles to be fired over the
Straits of Taiwan.

Hello!

I was recently directed to a
bit of writing on your site,
and after having read it (it
was informative, though
highly smart-alecky), I felt I
should write to you about the
name you've chosen for your
organization, which has
irritated me every time I've
seen it since I initially got
online some years ago. What's
my beef? Read on.

Conventionally speaking, I
presume suck doesn't refer to
a baby being nourished by its
mother, but the act of
sucking a penis, dick, or
what have you. I guess that's
a job mainly reserved for
inferior women or fags,
right?

The implication seems to be
that there's something wrong
with people who do the
sucking. I'd suggest that all
Suck.com employees make this
clear to their spouses,
sexual partners, pets, etc.

The expression might be mean
if it weren't so juvenile,
but I guess it's in place now
and ain't going anywhere.
Just like "fuck you" demeans
an act of love (in spite of
the fact that fucking is all
most people are capable of
doing), the expression "suck"
cheapens sexual acts —
not to mention demeaning the
aforementioned women and
homosexuals.

In other words, suck is to
sex what nigger is to a black
person.

Sincerely,

Mike Hoffman
<mhoffmanartist@mindspring.com>

This might come as shocking
news, but you are a hilarious
person. Sure, most of your
friends think you're
humorless and sullen, but
they're very wrong, Mike.
Why, we bet every single word
out of your mouth is a source
of major amusement to those
around you — particularly
those who aren't your
friends!

Anyway, thanks for clarifying
the point that sucking is
reserved for those who wish
to be demeaned. We've never
wanted to suck so bad in all
our lives!

But nonetheless, all Suck
employees will be required to
explain to their spouses,
sexual partners, and pets
that there are negative
implications to the term
suck. And after we're done
fucking, we'll all get a huge
laugh imagining how awful it
must be to make love night
after night.

Demeaned and loving it,

Sucksters

Ink Blot

First, set the record
straight — most of the
"big-name artists who fueled
the speculator boom" didn't
go start up Image. I'm not
going to try to defend their
chicks-with-big-tits
adolescent crap that does the
traditional Marvel/DC
adolescent crap one better.
Yet I can't help but notice
that, somehow,
hack-work-for-hire isn't the
only available business model
anymore.

Many of these big-name
artists have been going out
and doing interesting art
under their own control that
doesn't pander to the fanboy
crowd. And there are a lot of
up-and-coming artists
following their example.

Yes, I'm an alternative
comics addict. So sue me.
Don't call me trendy; call me
a snob for being alternative
before it was cool.

I first started paying
attention to comics in the
mid 1980s, at the peak of the
black-and-white boom. The
idea that you could get
comics that weren't Disney or
sooperhero was appealing. Too
bad most people either don't
know or don't care. Blame
Marvel and DC and Disney, I
guess. Blame the distributors
even more. Blame the Comics
Code Authority, most of all.

Maybe someday the general
public will twig. Until then,
I won't worry how many copies
Superman sells.

<bruce@ugcs.caltech.edu>

First of all, let's not get
into a comics alterna-cred
pissing match, my friend,
because you will drown.

I notice you don't name any
of the artists you describe
— maybe because there
aren't any that fit your
description. Image's founders
include Todd "buy my new
Spider-Man #1 with its rare
alternate covers" McFarlane,
Jim "buy my new X-Men #1
with even more alternate covers"
Lee, and Rob "the lightbox is
my only friend" Liefeld; they
are precisely the big-name
artists who fueled the
speculator boom.

All sad, true, and amusingly
presented. Once, when writing
about one of the more heinous
Image spinoffs for a Major
Youth Culture Mag that shall
remain nameless, I wanted to
make the hook of the piece be
the moribundity of comics qua
comics — where the auteur
was clearly and openly
drawing and publishing (or,
as you say, paying
talentless, young sycophants
to draw) comics as a way of
selling dumb ideas to
Hollywood. I am relieved to
see that the TV show
allegedly forthcoming (which
ended up as the only hook of
the story) never aired. The
editor at said MYCM didn't
want this angle; he wanted
the story to explain "what
was so cool about these
comics." Nothing, of course.
They then edited a fact error
into the lead, paid me US$50
less than promised, and we
all lived happily ever after.

Hey, if Mallrats couldn't
save the comics industry,
it's hopeless.

Brian Doherty
<BMDoherty@aol.com>

Well put. You just summarized
every freelance writing gig
we've ever experienced, heard
of, discussed, or lost sleep
over. And to think of all the
copies of The Writer's
Market that get sold every
year to people aching for
such torture.

Speaking of which, where do
we find these talentless,
young sycophants?
We've got some very
important Bavarian
creme–filled doughnuts we
need delivered into our
hands.

The Shit

"Gary's Trajectory," A Wanderer in the Perfect City, Lawrence Weschler, Hungry Mind Press, 1998 The Parallax View, Alan J. Pakula, Paramount Pictures DVD, 1974 Rogues to Riches: The Trouble with Wall Street, Murray Teigh Bloom, Putnam,1971 Actual Air, David Berman, Open City Books, 1999 Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist, Peter Hall and Michael Bierut, editors, Princeton Architectural Press, 1998 Canary-wing parrots, Dolores Street, San Francisco Super Shitty to the Max, Hellacopters, Man's Ruin Records, 1998 Request magazine (any issue after June 1999) On the Road to Vietnam, Bob Hope, Cadet 4046 vinyl, 1964 The Flying Ballerina, Drums and Tuba, TEC Tones, 1998 Dino, Nick Tosches, Delta Alpha Publishing, 1999 The Soft Bulletin, The Flaming Lips, WEA/Warner Brothers, 1999 Big Red soda