The True Meaning of Thanksgiving by Isaac Sparrer

New story up on the NinjaPancakes.com Reader, "The True Meaning of Thanksgiving" by Isaac Sparrer.

Click here to read. Here's an excerpt:

"At some point we all got played into believing the stupid sob story of some stupid Puritans who were so damn annoying they got kicked out of their home country, sailed across the ocean to land they couldn't farm, but miraculously survived because of some friendly Natives (whom they later slaughtered). It is an irritating tale that proves Natural Selection is wrong, because these inbred morons who wore belt buckles on every damn garment passed their prudish seeds on to most Americans."

Daisy and Celia Hanes

More sketches from Zach for THEY ARE IDIOTS.


Here she is: Daisy Hanes. Isn't she adorable? Isn't she evil?


This is Celia Hanes, mother to Daisy, barista-extraordinaire.

CONCUSSIONS (or, Who Wants To Read a Short Story? Please?)

Anyone wanna read a short story...?

"Ten minutes to midnight on New Years Eve and I’m on my back staring up at the Union Station clock tower. It lurches over me at an obtuse angle, luminescent clock faces on all four sides and blue glowing letters pitch GO BY TRAIN. My head is a blunt throbbing pulp resting on my backpack in the bed of a pickup truck, and I watch my breath hang in the air.

"An elusive murmur, a fleeting wisp here then gone, tells me I’ve done this all before. Bad dreams, blackouts, déjà vu—I’m in their hunting grounds; but, I do remember some girl is inside Union Station buying me a train ticket to somewhere else.

"Begs the question, though: How’d I get back here at this?"

Concussions is about a young man named Jonas who repeatedly seeks out head trauma following an automobile accident on a past New Years Eve. Takes place in Portland OR, and Staunton VA in flashbacks.

Been a while since I wrote a story unattached to other projects I'm doing. I had fun writing it, at least as far as this incarnation of the story goes. Tried some new things, some ideas brought about from reading Ken Kesey and Junot Diaz recently. And I also think working with Drax and his prolific use of capitalization has weeded its way into my brain (a good thing dude!).

Read Concussions. Let me know what you think.

On Nabokov and Publishing Beyond the Grave

(illustration by Neal Fox as appeared in The Guardian)

A whole lot of fuss is being made about Vladimir Nabokov's final, unfinished novel, The Original of Laura, being published yesterday. Nabokov was a renowned perfectionist (not uncommon among genius writers), and prior to his death in 1977 commanded that any unfinished projects were to be destroyed. In other words: perfection, or fuck it.

A lot of folks in the literary world are pissed, as the above cartoon suggests. The executors of Vlad's literary estate didn't fulfill his requests, whatever their reasons were. Money was to be had, after all.

Personally, I don't care that much. I'll probably never read The Original Laura. Hell, I didn't even like Lolita. I did read Albert Camus' final novel though, The First Man, which he didn't complete before dying in a car crash. It wasn't great, completely different than The Stranger and The Fall, but it was obviously still a draft. Didn't mar or tarnish my image of him. In fact it humanized Camus even more.

Me? If I ever become a famed writer (ha!) and die with unfinished works, I say go ahead and publish the junk. Burn the money though.

Modern Loki and Odin

In writing an adaptation of Norse mythology, I've done a lot of thinking about the incarnations of Loki and Odin.

Loki: the embodiment of chaos; maniacal, calculating, manipulative, manic, vengeful, spiteful, unpredictable. The all-time-greatest con man. A snake charmer. A devious genius. Here are some familiar faces I've used for inspiration:







Odin: the embodiment of command; all-knowing, all-wise, the all-father. Lost an eye to gain sight towards the future, then lost wives and children willingly, with little fight. Eternally old, brooding, furious, honorable, principled, condescending, despondent, gray.

Lies Steven Spielberg Told Me

I just learned that velociraptors most likely looked NOTHING like they appeared in Jurassic Park. Top photo is how Stephen Spielberg and the late Michael Crichton portrayed them. Below photo is a more "realistic interpretation" based on "scientific facts" found by "paleontologists."

FEATHERS?! COLOR-CODING?! WHY DID THEY LIE TO ME?!

Just a reminder that story-tellers lie. Even if we're telling a story based on "facts" or "science" or "true events," we're going to lie. Why? Because it's more fun.

Though part of me just died from learning this (specifically the 9-year-old part of me), there is a plus side: now the velociraptor that still torments me in my sleep won't scare me, because, well, it looks like a fucking clown lizard.

Umbrella Academy: the Emo-iest Superheroes Ever

(yes, I've been on a comic book kick the last year. get off my back!)

Came across the Umbrella Academy in the library recently. Read the first volume, the Apocalypse Suite, which serves as an introduction to this new group of superheroes.

All in all, it's pretty fun. Brilliant artwork, vision, and tone. An interesting and unique world that it's set in. Bounces between light-hearted, silly, and unapologetically grotesque (there's a great half-page of a monkey named Pogo getting his brains squished out by the lethal chords of a violin that will stick with me forever). And also, rather ambitious writing.

But... it was created by Gerard Way, the front-man for the band My Chemical Romance. And that kinda bugs me. And it also explains much of the tone, and some of the holes...

I mostly hate superhero comics. Why? Because they are so fucking repetitive. And while the superheroes of Umbrella Academy do possess rather unique abilities and backgrounds, their personalities and roles are so predictably the children of other superhero groups like TMNT, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Justice League, and Watchmen. ESPECIALLY Watchmen. In fact, I could easily argue that Umbrella Academy is an emo version of Watchmen.

Still, I had fun reading it. And if the library has the next volume, I'll read that too. Won't pay for it though. Fuck that.

An Exploration of Ancient Icelandic Linguistics by Dylan Love

Got Dylan Love to write another funny little story for the NinjaPancakes.com Reader this month, "An Exploration of Ancient Icelandic Linguistics." Dylan shares what he thinks everyday life was like for the Icelandic people in the 12th and 13th centuries.

ENJOY!

If you'd like to contribute a one or two page story to the NinjaPancakes.com Reader, email me!

Abe and Daisy Sketches

Some more sketches from Zach for THEY ARE IDIOTS.

These are some ideas for Abe, Zombie union leader. Yes, he's a bit of a nod to Abe Vigoda, who just happens to look like a zombie these days because of his advanced age.



Some ideas for six-year-old Daisy, who is just full of surprises. Keeps close and dangerous company with beings beyond the living.


And of course another portrait of Seagram.

ThanksMything, Again

I shared this article last year around Thanksgiving time and I'd like to do so again. Just a reminder that although Thanksgiving is a nice, low-key holiday that brings families together, the myth and legends behinds its origins are clouded in bullshit and lies.

This Thanksgiving I'll be with my family, including my grandmother who immigrated to the States from a war-ravaged Europe in the late 1940s. This country doesn't romanticize and rationalize the shit she went through 60 years ago, so why does this country romanticize and ignore the shit that went down nearly 400 years ago at the so-called birth of a nation?


NATIVE BLOOD: the Truth Behind the Myth of `Thanksgiving Day'
By Mike Ely

It is a deep thing that people still celebrate the survival of the early colonists at Plymouth - by giving thanks to the Christian God who supposedly protected and championed the European invasion. The real meaning of all that, then and now, needs to be continually excavated. The myths and lies that surround the past are constantly draped over the horrors and tortures of our present.

Every schoolchild in the United States has been taught that the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony invited the local Indians to a major harvest feast after surviving their first bitter year in New England. But the real history of Thanksgiving is a story of the murder of indigenous people and the theft of their land by European colonialists-and of the ruthless ways of capitalism.