Stuff and Moonshine

That was either the most believable old-age makeup or the best casting* I’ve ever seen.

Also, the background criminal career of Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man continues!

*ETA— it was two different actors— props to Kyle Clements and Tom Fitzpatrick for making me think I was watching the same guy six decades apart.

Yesterday copper badge was asked this on Tumblr:



I added a response, but there was a character limit, so I want to make my own post and LJ still strikes me as a better location for a wall o'text:

I was curious enough to take a quick Google, and first off, Wikipedia claims Tony Stark's mother's maiden name was Maria Collins Carbonell, except in the Ultimates where she was Maria Cerrera.
Searching "Maria Carbonell" turns up several real-life individuals named María Carbonell, all of whom appear to be in or from Spanish-speaking countries. I then tried searching "Collins Carbonell," and got someone in Chile named "(Firstname) Carbonell Collins." I leave out her first name because I worry that I'm being a bit stalker-y, looking up all these people.

So, we've got a possible Spanish or S. American connection, even with the middle name “Collins.” Is there a cannon backstory for how Howard and Maria met? I assume that in the movie universe at least it was after WWII, as Howard Stark appears to be single during the events of Captain America. The Carbonells could have been a Spanish family opposed to Franco, but the "Collins" part of the name makes me guess a Latin American connection: I can see Cold-War Howard Stark doing business in South America, both for its own sake and to guard US trade interests, and I think it would be completely plausible for a wealthy family there to have a 19th-century trader or gold prospector named Collins in the family background.

copperbadge points out that Stan Lee originally wrote Tony as coming from a privileged background, which at the time would not likely have been Italian-American; but AFAIK, up until, say, the Cuban Revolution, American reaction to an industrialist marrying a (wealthy, light-skinned) Latin American bride would have been something like "ooh, she's so exotic and sophisticated."

Andrew: If they get rid of the black boots with white trim maybe it won't be so bad.

Me: ... Is this about Wonder Woman's new costume?

Andrew: Yes. The boots are supposed to be red. And they'd just got her to a place where I really liked the writing -- she was back to being the Wonder Woman who can talk to people, who engages...

Me: So do you think they were scared that she's not "gritty" enough, and they tried to make up for it by putting her in dark colours? Wonder Woman should not fear primary colours! Or, wait -- do you think this is one of these "Oh, she's from *ancient* times, and they didn't have any bright colours back then?" Because I know every few years historians try to tell the general public that the Parthenon was actually brightly-painted, and it never seems to get through....

Dreamt that someone told me theengineer had died unexpectedly. I trust that this is not, in fact, the case.

Andrew had to download the new Comixology app, which is currently irritating him by not allowing him to actually buy comics (to do that you have to go to the actual comixology website, then go back into the app, hit "restore" and the new comic should appear.) He is also continuing to enjoy the hell out of the Robert E. Howard Facebook group (it sounds like he's kind of being the unofficial moderator -- i.e., when the official moderator posts a screed against J.K. Rowlings, he tries to divert the subsequent discussion into something a bit more positive.)

His doctor's appointment had to be rescheduled -- I need to figure out a new date -- *not* May 10th, which is what our doctor suggested, as that's the Friends of the Merril's Pulp Show.

Sewed various silly things -- a turban for my mother to wear with her Regency ball gown; tetrahedron-shaped pads (Andrew calls them "lolas") for my 1950s missile-cone bra; and another attempt on the Vionnet handkerchief gown, this one tacked together from four matching square scarves from the Dollarama.

So - Joss proves once again he can write for large ensemble casts. Everyone got their moment (or several) but the standouts for me were: Black Widow being a particularly Whedonesque sort of femme fatale; Bruce Banner as a rumpled genius professor whose laid-back manner belies the creature everyone keeps waiting to spring out; Agent *Phil* Coulson - oh, Phil, this was your finest hour.

Also liked: Loki's maniacal grin; Cap finally hearing a pop-culture reference he gets; Black Widow's interrogation technique; "You know, last time I was in Germany and a man was standing over a crowd, he and I ended up coming to a disagreement."

Stay through the credits - I mean *all* the credits.

Moebius (Jean Giraud) drawing on a graphics tablet in 2009, before a live audience, by the looks of it.

Did more backgrounds yesterday. This story is going to involve a lot of wallpaper patterns.

Need to knuckle down and start finalizing the figures tonight.

Have decided to try writing/drawing another comic, this one based on an idea I had a few years ago for a noir-thriller-pastiche. Will try and make it a series of short stories to avoid the running-out-of-steam mid-epic problems I had with Personal Information. I'm also going to give the characters faces with this one. I may do it greyscale, not to make it look "old" but so if I decide to publish in book format I won't face the costs of colour printing (or alternately, it will work on b&w e-readers.)

The big thing with anything period is all the research, and a visual medium doubles the work - you have to look up at least a half-dozen details every time a character walks into a new room. I spent all this morning trying to learn enough about mid-century hair dyes to decide if the opening scene I envisioned will even work. Once I get the main character through that, I have to take her into a diner, which should be easier to find visuals for, as it's a pretty archetypal location.

In keeping with this, I finally caved and got that book of 1920s-40s crime scene photos I first saw last year; not so much for the actual crime details (which are probably too gruesome to draw, unless I want to lose 99% of my readers, and their lunches, right away) but for the locations - since in theory the police weren't supposed to touch the scene before taking the photo, these should be pretty accurate portrayals of a cross-section of American homes of the time*. Also, the photos of suspects and victims should give me a roster of unglamourized faces to draw from.

Meanwhile, I now know something about the following topics not directly related to my plot:

Shirley Polykoff, legendary ad writer (supposedly one of the characters on Mad Men is based on her)

Murray's Pomade, formulated in 1925 and still in business.

The Blackburn cult.

The Beebo Brinker Chronicles - 1950s lesbian pulp-fiction in which not everybody ends tragically!



*The camera angles tend to be pointed towards the floor, however.

Why was I not aware of Travis Pitts before? I am so envious of this guy's talent!