Adam Rosenlund, the guy who drew this:

He’s pushing out rap & comic remixes over there, like Darkseid x Suge Knight or Biggie Smalls x MODOK. Go give it a look, bookmark it, and grab the RSS. It’s clever, and totally worth it. In his own words:

Destroy All Mics! is a visual mash-up of hip hop and comic icons. Sometimes the connections are merely physical in nature, some are derived from word play, and some draw loose paralells to the more dramatic stories found in each. That’s what these are all about. Suggestions are also welcome!

I got a link on io9 about my post on afro futurism. I’d have responded there, but I can’t comment or whatever, so I’ll just do it here. Hope those guys come through and find this!

Also, the OP says the essay refers to “alternate personas of the Wu-Tang Clan” when it only refers to one alternate persona of one member, the RZA, or Bobby Digital, who is an unusual guy even within his group. Just because he’s black doesn’t mean he’s not a NERD. If one displays nerdy tendencies, does the nerd identity supercede the racial identity? I think so. It’s obviously not a true dichotomy, but while it’s somewhat tenuous to identify certain behaviors as ‘racial,’ it seems universally easy to identify certain behaviors as ‘nerdy.’ Nerdiness, to me, is color-blind.

One more point I’d like to make, black Americans don’t “not have a past” just because their histories are soiled with the slave trade. They have a very distinct past, and an incredibly strong source of identity (adversity). They’re not building anything out of nothing, they’re building everything out of a ton.

-telor, io9

I only mentioned one member, which is a fair point, but I could’ve easily mentioned Ghostface, who flips from Tony Starks to Pretty Tony and back again with regularity. One’s a flamboyant superstar, the other a drug dealing psychopath. Method Man’s Johnny Blaze isn’t an accident, and ODB made a career out of flipping pseudonyms and gimmicks, though to be fair, all those gimmicks at least partially involved being high on PCP. RZA isn’t all that unusual in the Wu, I think. Even Inspectah Deck plays around with being more than he is at times.

Kanye’s Glow in the Dark tour is him speaking with aliens who believe he’s the greatest rapper alive. Pharrell/Chad/Shay’s N.E.R.D. stands for No one Ever Really Dies and pushes nerd chic, as well as being on top and better than everyone else. Black Star’s sophomore album was supposed to be called Blackstar Galactica. Cannibal Ox’s Cold Vein advanced the idea of poor blacks being pigeons, with phoenixes being the end result of life as a pigeon.

Yes, black people can be nerds. Only an idiot would deny that. However, in the context of what I’m talking about and the past seventy or so years of black history, it is fair to suggest that since these traits line up with the greater context, that they are representative of something more.

In a very real way, blacks don’t have a past, particularly in comparison to America at large. A lot of people can trace their pasts back to Sweden, or Britain, or the Lakota nation, or X province in China, or whatever. For most blacks, that isn’t an option. We can’t trace our lineage back X generations, or show off our family crest, or whatever.

No one really wants to say “I dunno,” when someone asks “Where’s your people from?” you know?

Obviously, there are exceptions. There’s that gene tracing thing that’ll give you a general area of where you’re from, but for the average man? Not an option. It’s a recent development, anyway.

I kind of feel that my point still stands.

Thanks to everybody who has read and linked it around. Tell your friends!

Linkblogging again today! I’m off tomorrow so I can put some work in then.

– I am flying out to San Francisco on Sunday and staying until Wednesday! I’m apartment hunting for my move there in May. It’s fun trying to guess at your take-home pay without knowing how much the gov’t is going to ream you for taxes!

– I finally got the out of print Mr Majestic TPB. I now own each TPB of his two solo series, which is kind of a weird feeling. It took me a while to realize how much of a big Wildstorm fan I am. Anyway, the book collects issues 1-6 and the Wildstorm Spotlight by Alan Moore and Carlos D’Anda. I think that the series went on for eight issues total, but what we’ve got here are six done-in-ones plus a special. From the back cover copy: “Mr. Majestic rearrangest he solar system, repairs a temporal anomaly, gains a son, halts an intergalactic prison break, and meets the Ultravixens.”

Also from the back cover copy: “Remember when superheroes could move planets?”

The first Maj series is kind of a precursor to All-Star Superman in theme, if not in quality. Both stories take these wild silver age tropes and, rather than looking at them ironically (“Ha ha why do you need an invisible plane”) they just take them at face value. Majestic can move planets. Why? Because. It’s a pretty light and warm book from what I remember, and the team of Joe Kelly, Brian Holguin, and Ed McGuinness is the perfect fit for it.

Another choice line: “What the @#$# is wrong with you?! I’m a freakin’ nun!”

Ah, Ladytron.

– I love Jim Lee’s new Batgirl design for All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder. (For color reference, see here.) It’s just all around awesome. The freckles visible under the bat-mask, the bats on the boots, and the big yellow bat-symbol work really, really well. I also love costume designs made up of just two colors for some reason, so that’s icing on the cake. I’m also really, really fond of Frank Miller’s dangly and busy way of drawing earrings. It’s funky and different. Also, is it me or is that a Daemonite head that Batgirl (who I’m assuming is Barb Gordon, if only because of the freckles and hair?) is standing on?

– 52 this week (#51, to be exact) was pretty good and paid off in all the expected ways. Buddy returning was a nice capstone to his story arc, though he now may be the most powerful thing in the DCU. I can’t imagine DC dropping the ball on that, so expect him to show up in Countdown. Also, I totally called the Mr. Mind in Skeets thing, just like 51% of the rest of the internet, but the payoff was so much better than I expected!

– Is anyone else reading and enjoying Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov’s Barracuda as much as I am? It is trashy and ugly and excellent. Barracuda has turned out to be a lot smarter than anyone ever gave him credit for and the series has been quite a ride so far. Be interesting to see where it goes!

– What’s it say about me when the most striking part of the first Outsiders trade is John Workman’s lettering? I love that man’s work. He’s got style and he’s unique.