How Roger Stern took five panels and 26 years to tell a story

The above panels are from Amazing Spider-Man #238, dated March 1983, written by Roger Stern and drawn by John Romita Jr, introducing an aspect of Aunt May's backstory that was quite literally NEVER AGAIN referred to...

...until last month's Amazing Spider-Man Family #7, written by Roger Stern and drawn by Val Semeiks:



Which not only explains that 26-year-old throwaway line, but also Aunt May's heart condition and her dedication to fostering the young Peter Parker!

Quote of the day

"If the people of Lesbos are so short-sighted as to turn their backs on Sappho, of what is greatest in their inheritance, then I can think of a country that is proud to take up that legacy. Just as we're proud of course to be temporary custodians, if not permanent custodians, of the Elgin Marbles."

Winding up the cold caller

Phone rings. "Have you ever had any accidents or injuries?", he asks. Gah...

"I did once have an elevator fall on me. weighing about 80 tons. I was just walking along, when someone cut the cable and it fell on me."

"Where was this?" he asks.

"Swansea." "So, was that quite a serious injury?" "It put me in a coma for two months. but then I got up and walked away."

"So... er... you must be a pretty strong man..."

"Well... not really!"

*CLICK* as he hangs up...

Results

All my predictions were wrong!!!

European Election predictions 2009

Tories will get over 30% of the vote. Everyone else under 20% - the small parties will have their vote split unevenly between them.

UKIP will, disappointingly for them, get fewer seats than last time - their attempt to capitalise on expenses-gate was only a short-lived success, partly undermined by their own expenses scandals on historical record.

The Greens will gain a seat or two because their anti-BNP tactical voting campaign has been (undeservedly) successful.

The Lib Dems aren't likely to make much progress; they're doing okay but the last Euro-election was at the height of their anti-Iraq-war movement exploitation madness and it'll be impossible for them to build on that, although the seats will probably shift around a bit to reflect the change in their support base.

The BNP will be lucky to get a single seat, I doubt it will happen (and hope it won't) but they won't get more than that (although it's not like we'd be the first country to elect a fascist into the European Parliament - in fact we may be the last!). A lot of the people who reckon they intend to vote BNP just aren't going to bother turning up to the polling station. The blitz of anti-BNP advertising was just a dogwhistle tactical wheeze by Labour...

No idea what will happen to the Labour vote, too many crazy things have happened in the past 48 hours but they will be in third if not fourth place.

Wilson Vs Boyle

Professor David Wilson writes about why he thinks Susan Boyle should pull out of the final of Britain's Got Talent.

Prof Wilson should shut his mouth, it's deeply unprofessional for him to be offering his self-declared "expert" opinion on a subject he is not familiar with (and he's clearly not familiar with her given that she gave the exact same "childish wiggle" when she came on for her first audition), in public. And what's more, Britain's Got Talent is a talent contest, not a social experiment as he seemingly interprets Big Brother to be.

Wilson's suggestion that she should pull out is actually the absolute worst advice he could possibly give her - completely unconstructive - if the "fragility" stories are true they would only make matters worse, and if she followed that advice she would regret it for the rest of her life.

It's high time the media stopped paying lip service to this quack.

Illegal file-sharing

BBC: "Seven million use illegal files."

The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property (SABIP) warned it may be hard to change attitudes.

The government says work must be done internationally to tackle the problem.

Intellectual Property Minister David Lammy said the report put into context the impact illegal downloads had on copyright industries and the UK economy as a whole.

But he added: "This is not an issue confined by national boundaries and I am sure that other [EU] member states and their copyright industries will find this report of use in the development of policy."

My feeling is that people in the UK feel a sense of entitlement to entertainment content because they already pay a television licence fee and most of the British entertainment industry is also heavily subsidised by the taxpayer.

If the government is serious about changing attitudes so the copyright holder is respected it must scrap the licence fee and allow the entertainment industry to flourish in the free market where the general public get to decide what they want to see (and therefore what gets made) rather than some unelected quango (aka Mark Thompson).