Welcome to JoshElder.com, the clearinghouse for all things Elder. Which includes stuff like Mail Order Ninja and the various articles on pop culture and commerce that I’ve written over the years. So stay tuned for previews of upcoming books, commentary on old ones and regular doses of my nigh-legendary wit and wisdom.
And I also must apologize for the rather shabby web design. The site is definitely a work in progress, but work is indeed progressing.

So I hope you enjoy your visit to my little corner of the Internet, and I hope to see you back here again soon.

Today I pick up my brand new business cards which proudly proclaim that I, Josh Elder, have been “Certified Awesome by the American Awesomeness Association.” Seriously, they say that. I figure I can get away with it because I write humorous kids books, but I think they might come back to bite me when I start shopping around my psychological thriller.

Ah well, what can you do? Anyway, this afternoon I’m off to Evanston to pick up the latest Sunday paper bearing the Mail Order Ninja comic strip and then it’s back to the city for an appearance at the Abraham Lincoln Elementary School book fair. It should be a blast and hopefully I’ll sell quite a few books as well.

So I got lost on my way to the Book Fair.  Luckily I had anticipated this and allotted an extra 30 minutes into my travel schedule.  I arrived with about 10 seconds to spare.

The book fair itself went extraordinarily well.  I sold 25 books and got to meet with a ton of kids who had read the first book and couldn’t wait to get started on vol. 2 (Some of them were so enthusiastic that they started reading it right there in the hallway.).  I had a great time and hopefully will get to do it all over again next year.

Now if I could just repeat this performance at every school in the city, I’d really be in business…

I was already well on my way, what with the Superman tattoo, extensive action figure collection and being a professional comic book writer and all.

But now I have glasses, too. Thankfully they look really good on me — less Clark Kent and more Stephen Colbert.

And today marks the beginning of real, daily content here on the site. I’ve got a lot of cool stuff to talk about so be prepared.

Michael Jackson is insane, but he’s also incredibly wealthy. This means means that instead of living an alley with a tinfoil hat to keep out the government/alien/Zionist mind control rays he builds theme parks in his back yard, collects famous medical oddities and even builds a 50-ft tall robotic version of himself that fires lasers from its eyes.

Normally this would qualify him as the awesomest man to ever walk the earth, but then there’s the whole pederast thing. That really hurts him in the rankings. But still… A GIANT ROBOT THAT FIRES FRICKIN’ LASER BEAMS FROM ITS EYES!!!

And you just know that Paris Hilton and Richard Branson are going to have to have one of their own now too…

I spent pretty much all day today mulling over the whole Robo-Jacko thing until finally coming to the following conclusion: Michael Jackson wants to be a supervillain.

The robot is just the final step in a long journey from being the King of Pop to becoming the would-be king of the world. A twisted genius ostracized from normal society due to his freakish deformities and deviant lifestyle choices, he fits the profile perfectly. Plus he already has the extravagant villainous lair (Neverland Ranch), extensive connections with various Middle Eastern governments, and a fanatically loyal minion to handle all his brute work (Bubbles the chimp).

Seriously, he should be fighting James Bond at this point — or at least Austin Powers. Though the battle I really want to see is him against Prince. Prince is already halfway to being a superhero as it is. He’s got the heroic-sounding name, his own iconic symbol and a guitar that could easily be modified into a flamethrower or general purpose sonic weapon.

Super Prince vs. Robo-Jacko… I totally have to write this up as a short story now…

Sarah, my wonderful and beautiful girlfriend of nearly two years, will be celebrating her birthday today in grand style. First, dinner at the Grand Lux cafe here in downtown Chicago and then cake, ice cream, cookies and presents!

All arranged by me — officially making me the Best Boyfriend Ever. Or it would have if I didn’t totally forget her birthday last year…

As someone with strong libertarian leanings, I’m generally wary of the State using its coercive power in the name of “the public good.” Which is why, for instance, I support the right of bars and restaurants to allow smoking in their establishments even though I myself am not a smoker — Freedom of Assembly and all that.

Still, there are times when the State has a legitimate need to exercise its authority in order to protect the life and liberty of others. This is one such case (Hat Tip: Reason):

PHOENIX - Behind the county hospital’s tall cinderblock walls, a 27-year-old tuberculosis patient sits in a jail cell equipped with a ventilation system that keeps germs from escaping.

Robert Daniels has been locked up indefinitely, perhaps for the rest of his life, since last July. But he has not been charged with a crime. Instead, he suffers from an extensively drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis, or XDR-TB. It is considered virtually untreatable.

County health authorities obtained a court order to lock him up as a danger to the public because he failed to take precautions to avoid infecting others. Specifically, he said he did not heed doctors’ instructions to wear a mask in public.

I sympathize with Mr. Daniels, but he poses a clear and present danger to his fellow citizens — a danger he was unwilling to take even modest measures to ameliorate. He really didn’t leave the authorities with any other choice except to lock him away for life or until a cure can be found.

Storm Shadow is getting his own series — and Larry Hama is writing it! This is very, very good news. Even a cursory glance at Mail Order Ninja reveals the profound creative influence Hama’s ninja creations had on me.

And now I’ve got a whole new series of ninja adventures I can rip off — I mean, pay homage to…

Mocking the insanity of old Jimmy Olsen comics is old hat in the comic blogosphere (and one day I’m going to have to post those panels of Jimmy admitting to using LSD and crossdressing to seduce a mobster) but this is a whole new kind ‘o insanity right here. A quick summary by the man, the myth, the legend — Chris Sims:

In yet another effort to make the Gospel relevant to the young people comes the Manga Bible.

You think you know what’s in the Bible? Think again!

Siku’s provocative, edgy style brings a whole new dimension to the most important book in history.

The Manga Bible launches in February 2007, when the New Testament is published in two different formats: Raw and Extreme. Siku is currently hard at work on the Old Testament, and the full Bible will be released later in 2007.

Not that I’m opposed to spreading the Good News, but really — “Raw” and “Extreme” editions? Is this thing going to get advertised on ESPN2? Though I personally can’t wait for the manga-fied Samson battle sequences (”Apocalypse Jawbone Thrust!”), but I will be very, very upset if we get any upskirt shots of Mary Magdalene.

Check out this thread on Newsarama that discusses the pitfalls of the Original Graphic Novel format.

Like Cloonan, Lewis considers smaller installments, somewhere between the monthly comic and serialized manga: “So my idea to Oni was to split Sharknife Double Z into 3 installments. Self-contained Peng-size comics to be released probably tri-monthly until the whole story is done, then collected into the ‘complete’ Double Z book (probably with a bonus story). Not that astronomical of a suggestion, I think, since that’s how most comics operate, anyway.”

Seeing Lewis’ LiveJournal entry, Cloonan revisits the subject, writing, “The whole format of the OGN — 150 someodd page books with no previous solitication in smaller form — is totally backwards and I think we’re going to see a lot of artists (myself included) trading in the longer format for monthly or quarterly books.”

Speaking as an OGN creator myself, I completely agree with the sentiments expressed by Cloonan and Lewis. Scroll down to the comments to see my take on the importance of exposure and frequency to the health of an ongoing series — as well as my ideas on the auteur method as opposed to the studio system.

So yeah, this looks pretty darn awesome. And now I can’t wait to see the 2.0 armor ‘ol Tony will sport for most of the movie.

…and yet totally awesome. Some guy on LiveJournal tries to create segregated fictional universes based on Sienfeld and the various television shows it’s crossed over with. It’s quite possibly the nerdiest thing I’ve ever seen, and believe me, that’s saying a lot.

Some sample text:

Continuity 1: Our continuity. This includes me and everyone reading this, C1 Larry David, C1 Jerry Seinfeld, etc. Here it is acknowledged that C2, C3, and C4 are entirely based in fiction.

Continuity 2: The continuity of Curb Your Enthusiasm. In this continuity, there exists a C2 Larry David, C2 Ted Danson, C2 David Schwimmer, et cetera. Additionally, it also includes figures such as Cheryl, C2 Larry’s fictional wife, and Jeff Greene, C2 Larry’s fictional manager, neither of which appear outside of Continuity 2. I would also argue that the Wanda that appears in Continuity 2 is not supposed to be the same as C1 Wanda Sykes, but a totally different person with the same name and a similar comedic style. For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to her as C2 Wanda, but this is not to make a distinction between the two as there is none to be made. Continuity 2 is entirely fictional in C1.

Continuity 3: The continuity of Seinfeld. This includes C3 Jerry Seinfeld, C3 Corbin Bernsen, C3 George Steinbrenner, et cetera. Continuity 3 is entirely fictional in C1 and C2.

Continuity 4: The continuity of Mad About You, Make Room For Daddy, Dick Van Dyke, Lucy Desi Comedy Hour, I Love Lucy, C4 George Reeve (with super powers), and, purely speculatively, C4 Clark Kent (C4 Superman). Though a C4 Kramer exists, he is not the same as C3 Kramer, and basically totally unrelated to the Kenny Kramer of C1, name aside. C4 George Reeve may have been murdered by Superman in C4, despite C1 George Reeve committing suicide. Continuity 4 is entirely fictional in Continuity 1, 2, and 3.

Courtesy of Collegehumor.com

And a sad thing is… I’d totally go see pretty much all of them.