I am a mature reader, damnit. Don't make me get all middle-school on your ass.

So, I've been reading Judd Winick's maxiseries Caper. You haven't heard of it? Or, you have heard of it but haven't been reading it?

You will. It's a damned good book, which had me hooked before I was halfway through the first issue.

But I digress.

I haven't cut for spoilers on this post because I'm not spoiling anything by discussing what had me saying "what the fuck?!" out loud when I read the most recent issue (#11 of 12) last night. Hopefully the mature topic won't offend anyone either. Because it's the mature content, the labeling of the comic as containing such, and the subsequent handling of said content inside the book, that I'm feeling the need to rant about.

Caper has been, from the very beginning, a clearly not-for-kids book. Yes, the violence and references to sex have been decidedly inappropriate for littl'uns. If Judd has been holding back to spare any squeamish readers, it hasn't been showing.

Until issue #11.

In which, when a naked man runs out of a building, and in the following panel stands cringing and (wholly ineffectually) trying to cover himself, you can see his bare genitals flapping about. Or... you sort of can. They appear to have been digitally obscured, as if I'm reading the comic through the lens of The Jerry Springer Show or COPS.

Which frankly, DC, I didn't think I was. And it's not like naked penis has never been shown in a DC "mature readers" title before -- hell, they were letting Mike Grell get away with it during his run on Green Arrow decades ago. (Well, it was the 80s, if not quite 20 years before present.) This is the twenty-first century. This is a mature readers title. This is a medium where naked women are not infrequently shown even in titles not designated "for mature readers," and in which there's entirely too much "camel toe" in some titles that bear the stamp of Comics Code approval.

I suspect that it was Judd's original intention, and probably artist Tom Fowler's as well, to show that swinging appendage in all its profound lack of glory. Which would mean somebody at DC editorial decided even their mature readers couldn't handle it. This is hardly the first time in recent months I've been frustrated by bewildering decisions on a DC editor's part that have diminished my enjoyment of a comic I read, but it is the first one that comes down to a matter of censorship as much as of respect (or lack thereof) for the fans.

Caper set its tone early: gory, blunt, no holds barred. (And dramatic and funny as hell.) The coy obscuring of one small area in two panels of Caper #11 interrupted that tone, threw me right out of the story I had been so divertingly immersed in, and will echo jangling through the remainder of the series -- as well as hang over any subsequent "mature readers" titles DC puts out.

Shame on you, DC.

Photoshop and I are old friends.

After many, many months, I have replaced one of my oldest icons, the one that's an actual photo of me, with an updated photo-of-me icon. That's it there, with me smirking over my shoulder, and the photo was taken less than two weeks ago -- the old, I'm-not-picking-my-nose-no-really photo was ten years old. (Though I look much the same now as I did then.) The new photo also shows off my new, Munch-ified (polarised lenses) glasses. And it retains the same "jack me" keyword, because sometimes I'm just twelve.

I also have a new default icon. Really, it was just a matter of time before the perversity of Batman #10 showed up in my icon set.



The only manipping involved there was taking the text from one of little Dick's speech bubbles in the preceding panel and adding a little bubble within the area shown in the icon to contain his affronted "Owoo!" -- well, and changing the eye-hurting orange background to green. Yes, this was the issue in which Bruce woke Dick by pulling him out of his bed, laying him over Bruce's knees, and gleefully spanked him. It's on scans_daily somewhere, in case you missed it. At some point I'll probably incorporate this icon into my "Delightful Crack" one, but for now Dick's four-star ass stands alone.

My Mandy icon (from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, formerly Grim & Evil), the previous default, is taking a vacation. You can still visit her here, though. Aww. So grim!


I also made icons for a couple of other people, but I'll let them show those off. Or hide them away in the back of a drawer.


A few weeks ago, Te wrote "But Yet So Irresistible," a story in which Bruce and Tim are kinky. Together. And also with the Batmobile.

What follows is not so much an illustration for that story, as inspired by it. I can certainly picture Tim doing this...

( Tim continues to be kinky. With Bruce. And also the Batmobile. )

With apologies to Jim Lee, who made doing that much easier.