Ramblings of a Paper Man

Static was WILDLY popular in Brazil (a country where the population is over 50% black) and we had re-runs for YEARS on open television. Everyone who was a kid in the 2000s knew and loved him. As a result, every single Brazilian Con has a LOT of static cosplayers!

So, a couple of years ago, Comic Con Experience (the biggest con in Brazil, which is actually also the biggest con in the world!) invited one of Static’s creator Denys Cowan as one of the guests of honor.

Now. Thousands of people attend his panel. And cosplayers went NUTS because they could show their Static cosplay to the creator himself! What none of us expected was Debts Cowan’s reaction:

He cried on stage.

He had never seen Static cosplayers - especially not so many of them! And he had no idea the show was popular here! No one ever told him his character was so beloved! Years and years of reruns and he had no idea! He obviously created the character with his experiences and his community (Black North Americans) in mind. Still, he accidentally touched a whole other community of black people who could see themselves on the screen as a superhero!

Anyway he is a lovely person and one of the best, most memorable guests we had. And I think this is a nice reminder that your art might touch people you can’t even imagine would when creating it.

I'm not trying to say that Bea was a good person, because she wasn't. She cheated on Carl and probably would have given Donut away in the end, no matter how much it hurt. But look at her song:

"Good girl, good girl, you're a good girl, my princess.

You're like a root beer float. Oh yes, oh yes.

I'd take it all back and never let you win. I wouldn't do it all over again.

I love you. I love you. I'm sorry, my princess.

All eyes on me.

All eyes on me."

It's so...sad. And fucked up. Bea loves Donut, she says so and calls her a good girl as a term of endearment, and she's saying she'd never have made her a show cat if she'd known it meant her mother would force her to sell Donut. She's telling her cat she wishes they could both just be free. All of the shows are what Bea's MOTHER wanted, not what Bea wanted. Bea wanted to sing to her and dance with her and cuddle with her cat. Then when everything happens she thinks Donut is dead and it *breaks* her. She treats Ferdinand like he's Donut just because she knows him and he has a vague connection to Donut. She just cries about her cat. This is what it would have been like for her if she'd given Donut away, but worse, because the guilt of knowing that she was going to sell Donut but she thinks Donut has died...it is crushing her. Look at how she changes the lyrics to the song:

"Good boy, good boy, you’re a good boy, Ferdinand. You’re no Gravy Boat. Oh no, oh no. I’d take it all back and let you in. I’d do it all over again. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Ferdinand. I should have let you in.”

That and her words to her mother and the small hints of Carl being emotionally distant and dealing with nightmares from his childhood paint a picture of a household of broken people whose baggage fit together, not in a healthy way but in a comforting way.

1) the part if the yard that I was not ready to convert to flower bed yet: scattered micro clover over the grass. That’s it. I needed about 1 lb to cover … probably 3-400 sq ft and I probably over did it. Look, get a pound of clover, scatter. Done. If it’s not enough clover for your tastes, get more next spring.

2) I planted salt/drought hardy plants next to the road (Minnesota). I add 1-3 per year as needed. But one of those planting years was 6-7 wild strawberries evenly spaced. They filled in the spare space the very next season. But they fill in, so don’t plant if you don’t enjoy cutting back.

3) i used my weed whacker to cut down a wide swath of grass (2-3ft x 12) and planted native prairie mix (.5-1lb). This is expensive stuff. Thus the small initial planting. But they self seed. So they are slowly starting to take over the grass/clover mix.

I went from no bugs to bug party in 1 growing season. I have spent less than $200 and only that much because I am a plant nerd and have bought other things that are natives that I have since moved to other parts of the yard.

Not kidding. BUG PARTY!!

Can confirm, Jarnathan (the aarakocra, or “birdman” as some people here call him) was all practical effects! His face was an animatronic mask, his feet were articulated high-heel shoes, and he had three fully-functional talon-like fingers on each hand too!

The directors Daley and Goldstein could have made him entirely CG, but they instead went to Legacy Effects, who specialize in prosthetics and animatronics and puppeteering, because they REALLY wanted Jarnathan to look and feel authentic.

According to the artbook, the wings on him were a backpack, a self-contained mechanism that weighed around 60 pounds. The wings extended open to about ten or eleven feet!

But they DIDN’T. And instead of humans with pointy ear or boring GCI, we got this:

LOOK AT THIS MASTERPIECE IN MAKE UP AND PROP MAKING!!

By the way, the head makeup artist and designer for this movie is Joel Harlow, who, among many other things, was also responsible for this masterpiece.