SIM Bing

Is it just me, or does using Bing Maps Bird's Eye View make you feel like you're playing a REALLY boring game of Sim City?

Just a thought,
~ Mark

Angelic Interpretation Part II

A long while back I posted a sketch I made interpreting my thought process about Angels and their appearances. This was another sketch from that same series which I finally was able to dig up and re-colorize. It's a Seraphim... An Angel with 6 wings. One pair to fly with and two pairs to cover their face and feet in the presence of God.

Again, my thought process regarding Angelic beings has been that they look absolutely NOTHING like anything we've imagined or illustrated over the years. A being which exists outside of our reality can't possibly resemble anything we can comprehend, so I tried to break myself from the norm of how we think we see things... It was a really fun experiment... Below is what I came up with:

It seems whenever my imagination runs wild, the images I create lean more on the disturbing side of the illustrative spectrum... I imagine you'd scream too if you were in the presence of God... No? Yes?

My eyes!
~ Mark

iLife?

... Sometimes I wonder where my head is at this late at night... Here's what I think of whenever Apple mentions iLife...

Nano!
~ Mark

Zombie Quotes

In recent light of all the Refrigerator Man work that's been going on, Kevin and I were brainstorming about one particular character who has a role in the potential comic... This character comes in many forms, but the core of his essence is the Undead... He's a Zombie. Or her? The nature of the zombie lead us to think about various catch zombie catch-phrases depending on a zombie's situation... Here's a few to kick start the discussion!

Brains for hire,
~ Mark

Homeless Zombie

- "Spare some brains?"
- "Noms for the poor? nom, nom, nom..."
- "Cardboard sign: 'No family to eat'."
- "Another sign: 'Won't eat for work'."

80's Zombie

- "Where's the brains??"

- "Bite you"

- "People-Juice, People-Juice, People-Juice!"

- "Da Brain, boss, Da Brain!"

Game-Show Host Zombie

- "Let's eat our next contestant."

- "Big Brains, no Whammies!"

- "I'd like to bite a vowel!"

- "Are you hearty as a fifth grader?

Adventure Has No Expiration Date

Cryptic Love Part III

 
Here's a little more Cryptic Love for ya'... These are starting to get incredibly hard to find... I did a "View Friendship" with like, 30 of my friends and the list read something like this:

March 10th, 2009 - Happy Birfday' cracka! 

March 10th, 2010 - HEY! It's your birthday! Eat more cake you fat horse!

March 10th, 2011 - Have fun celebrating the day your mother laid eyes on the fruits of her... Labor?

As you can see, my loyalty on the social network knows no bounds...

Anyway, here's what I was able to scrap up. These are odd. Also, AIDs seems to come up a lot in my history, this is like, the third time it's come up... Yikes.

-commence-

- <--- is smiling at you because it's mating season.

- I guess a little pedophilia never hurt anyone...

- You're kidding me. There's an entire DAY devoted to that awful color??

- Live quartz.......i know, I'm pretty sick at photo stuff

- Yeah, I was watching you think about me...

- Be brave my friend... don't make love to any strange typewriters...

- That wasn't a webcam at all!

- Dead Huskies… On steroids.

- I'm artistic.....in a Strawberry Shortcake type of way :(

- A Nun accidentally backs her car over a clown holding a baby seal in one hand and glass jar of penicillin for his dying crippled son in the other..............saddest face.....

- Hilary's stubble is great for backs and paint stripping!

- LOL! Eat what? A heaping bowl of your AIDS??

- Yotch reminds me of crotch.

- Gee man, you're really good at spotting phallus. You should switch careers.

- You got a pee pee in yo mouf!

- Our 2 peanut-butter-loving butts?

- Ha, you mean her Tuesday spanking...

- It's like super rug burn.

- Does this mean that I have to call you Pappy?

- It is if you have a winky!!

- Looks like he's spreading his Christmas spirit all over those parking garage walls...

-end-

The Chronicles of Refrigerator Man... teaser?

Seriously... This is happening!

Sooner or later,
~ Mark

So... Bored...

SIX AM COMICS

The year is 1993. I'm sitting in 5th grade math class and my mind is wandering a mile a minute. Next to me is my good friend, Chris. We've been buddies since the first grade and both shared an equal lack of interest in mathematics. On the other side of the desk arrangements is a boy named Kevin, who looks almost as though he's paying attention to the garble of numbers getting slapped on the projector's transparencies by Ms. Remmick. I think that's how you spelled her name. You'd think I'd remember the name of the teacher who gave me my first "D" on a report card… But then, I never cared much for useless details like spelling… Probably why I got the "D" in the first place. But what does spelling have to do with Math anyway? Can anyone really spell arithmetic of the top of their head? I'm distracted again… Just like I was that day in class. Which is why I didn't pay attention to the problems on the board, which is why I was utterly screwed in t-minus 5 minutes when she would assign a pop quiz which would ultimately begin my downward spiral into academic mediocrity.

Chris and I are more interested in the cartoons I'm doodling in my notebook than we are anything else in the classroom. I imagine that's what caught Kevin's interest that day… But really, it was 18 years ago and like I said earlier, details bore me. Kevin has glasses. I do to, so I guess that means we share an equal bond. Thing is, I assume that his glasses combined with the fact he's supposedly paying attention in class equals a smart kid. Chris and I have the same thought process obviously because we both immediately form a friendly status with Kevin as the quizzes are being passed out. Do we care what kind of kid Kevin is? Not really, he's smart and he's nice, so odds are we'll be able to sneak some answers off of the sucker. The quizzes come around and we begin to furiously copy every number he jots down on his paper. We are so getting "A's" today. As it turns out, Kevin wasn't paying attention to Ms. Whatshername, he's daydreaming like a fiend. His eyes were as much following the numbers on the wall as they were experiencing Rapid Eye Movement. We all fail the quiz and I begin my journey to UMass-Lowell.

Thing is, that day I wasn't mad at Kevin for screwing us over… I was happy to discover that this nerdy kid in class was on the same wavelength as me… While my buddy Chris was a good guy, when it came to recess, he was all about football, and all I really wanted to do was pretend I was a werewolf. Wouldn't you know Kevin wanted to be a werewolf too and looked to me as a tutor in the ways of wolf-dom. That brotherhood of the wolf evolved into a wonderful friendship. See, when I cheated off of Kevin in class, I was aiming to get a couple of correct answers on a subject I was destined to fail at my entire life, and in turn I got something far more valuable than a one-time good grade… I gained a very important friendship which would last a lifetime. Time progressed from 5th grade and before you knew it, we were going on adventures in the woods, having sleepovers with scary movies and diet caffeine-free coca-cola, and most important of all, we were drawing pictures together in the backyard listening to KISS 108 FM (Mr. Boombastic was our song of choice when it came on).

Why was this most important? I'll tell you why. As we drew our silly pictures and went on our silly adventures in the woods, we evolved a rapidly budding creativity in our brains. A creativity which would mold our careers… Mold our lives. Being creative is hard when you're on your own. It helps to have a friend who allows you to expand on your own thoughts, who shares similar interests and lets you explore that part of your brain.

Middle School soon came… And boy were we the epitome of dorkiness. Unpopular, unfashionable, uncool. Which I'm grateful for to this day. While most kids were off ruining their lives in the name of popularity, we were just being ourselves. Joking around, drawing pictures and being kids. We soon met a whole group of people who were similarly outcasted from popularity. Funny thing is, at lunch time, we had the largest table in the cafeteria. We lived as kings at lunch time. Now this might seem unimportant, but it served a purpose. We had to stick together in Middle School, it was a jungle. There is nothing more cruel than a Middle Schooler. Kids are bullies, troublemakers… Douche-bags to put it lightly. Popularity is everything. If you don't have the right haircut, you get picked on. If you have braces, you get picked on. If you don't wear the right cloths, you get picked on. Girls laugh at you, guys throw things at you and teachers ignore it all. The more you get hassled, the more you sink into your own mind and become even more outcasted, more quiet. Kids go into Middle School with hope and good nature… They leave defeated and damaged. This is why our close-knit group of outcasts was so important. We were a reminder to each other that we were okay… That we were normal. Despite the fact that we were odd to the rest of the world (i.e. Middle School).

It was this situation which led Kevin and I to create our first creative venture… "Oddballs". It was our feeble attempt at a comic book. Kevin was the main artist in this endeavor. The comic starred our Middle School posse as a bunch of outcast kids with very exaggerated personalities who would find themselves in stupid little adventures… Oddballs: In Space, Oddballs: Stranded, etc… It was a stupid little comic, but it was our escape from normal life… And we had a blast working on it.

I'm going to skip forward a few years to High School. I'm still a big dork with dorky friends. I'm in Youth Group at my church and my good friend Edgell and I are sitting up front during a service. It's break time, time to mingle! Our Youth Leader, Dave, encourages us to meet visitors to the group and make them feel welcomed. See, while I was the lowest of the lows in High School, I was the most average of the averages in Youth Group. So Edgell and I take it upon ourselves to greet the new guy in the back… A chubby little guy wearing flannel named Dan. I've seen him around church, I know he's a normal guy… But I had never taken the time to get to know him. We start to talk to Dan, who turns out to not be as shy as we think he is… He's actually very easy to talk to… And he's freaking HILARIOUS. Dan and I began to hang out more… See, I was drawn to his deadpan sense of humor, I'd never known anyone to keep such a straight face while saying some of the most absurd things I'd ever heard… I began to learn more about Dan. When we first met, I thought that we couldn't be any more different… In the end, I discovered that we couldn't be any more alike. Maybe that's an insult to Dan, but I'm honestly quite flattered.

I soon discovered, that like me, Dan had a passion for drawing… And he was GOOD. I quickly discovered that I was actually… quite bad. I mean horridly bad… So bad that I was on the verge of going home and slapping my parents for encouraging my efforts at art. HE WAS SO GOOD! To this day, my own art style is the bastard child of his talent and stylization. He actually taught me a very valuable lesson in art… Less is more. Daniel, you are legend to me. I hope you know that.

But I digress… Dan and I shared a similar friendship to that of me and Kevin… Sleepovers, movies, sporadic goofiness that only he and myself found amusing at the time… But we differed artistically. He was on a whole different level, and quite frankly, I didn't want to draw around him out of embarrassment. So we exercised our creativity together in different ways… Typically it was through conversation, role-playing stupid scenarios, joking around, etc… But we discovered a far more amusing way to have fun… My dad's video camera. I'll never forget that fateful Saturday morning when we busted out that old camera, grabbed a few plastic swords and filmed the most embarrassing film ever created… It was titled: "Dan vs. Queenie"… Oh sweet Buddha it was bad. Another way I differed from Dan was that he was an improvisational master. I, on the other hand, did not fair too well in front of the camera… But that video, horrid as it was, turned out to be the cornerstone of our friendship. Almost every weekend he'd come over and we'd bust out the camera and film ourselves doing stupid things… We'd film First Person Shooters, movies about toys coming to life and attacking us, people with vacuums for heads, you name it, we embarrassed ourselves with it. We soon got to a point where we couldn't  satisfy our scripting needs with just a cameraman and an actor… We needed a cameraman and TWO actors! This of course led to that unholy merger of friendships…

I brought Kevin over to meet Dan.

It was glorious. They clicked instantly. It was movie magic as they played off of each other, improved some of the most bizarre scenarios and weaved their two very distinct styles of humor into GOLD.

What was golden, though, wasn't the films we were making… They were crap; Inside jokes that only we will ever really find amusing. What was golden was our chemistry. We were an unstoppable triad of creativity. But I need to be honest… I've always felt myself a third wheel in the group. Having little humor to contribute, I usually resorted to fake fist-fights when I was put on the spot… Or poop jokes. I typically go back and watch those videos and forward through my parts, cringing the whole time. I've always wondered why they didn't just hang out without me and film their own videos. Though that's probably because they didn't have a camera. What I'm getting at is that my friendship with those two has always been a great honor, a privilege. I wasn't as creative, or as talented as either of them, but they kept me around, included me, laughed at my stupid jokes and let me throw my fake punches on camera and never rubbed my nose in the bad humor… But I'm getting sidetracked.

The year is now 199… 9? 2000 maybe? And it's a defining moment in our lives (or maybe just my life?). The camera is out, we're striving for ideas, we don't know what to film. I do what I always do when I'm low on creativity: I point the camera at Dan and yell, "Action!". Dan's brain kicks into gear and these words come out of his mouth: "Today we'll be interviewing a man who lives in a fridge and hates cats"… And he proceeds to open the basement refrigerator and walk in. We run outside to the pool, which was the location of another refrigerator. I turn the camera on. Dan walks out of that fridge and walks over to Kevin, who is now sitting in a poolside recliner with a long black wig on and a pair of thick woman's sunglasses, complete with a white Hawaiian shirt. Dan walks over and begins to interview Kevin, who beings to act out an eccentric, awkward yet lovable character who allows Dan to interview him in his "Refrigerator Abode". They talk about a Barbara Walters interview which went sour and ruined the Refrigerator Man's life… It becomes a 10 minute long improvisational masterpiece climaxing with a chase scene between the reporter and the Fridge-Man traveling through common household appliances and ending with the fugitive popping out of an occupied toilet and being chased out of the house by the occupier. I couldn't pull this kind of stuff out of my butt if I tried!

This film led to two sequels, transforming the Refrigerator Man into a murderer (Scream was all the rage during this time period) and the reporter into a determined cop. We put MAJOR effort into this film. We even got our hands on some primitive video-editing software and made this thing pure HOLLYWOOD. Our process was to start on a Friday afternoon, load ourselves up on sugar, and edit that sucker through the wee hours of the morning… Finishing when our bodies could no longer sustain themselves and we'd collapse in a pile of "Tasty-Cakes" wrappers and empty soda cans. The time of completion? Six AM. This time would become a legendary hour… We named our little production team "Six AM Productions". We produced one complete "Refrigerator Man" film just before we parted ways and went off to college. The summer of our college freshman years, we reunited and fine-tuned that film, adding a new intro and filming a trailer/music video and a blooper reel. It was our last hurrah before a long hiatus as we went our separate ways in college. During these college years, we all began to fine-tune our skills and find new passions… Kevin discovered, while at Keen State in NH, that he was an excellent writer and had a real talent for marketing. Dan, while at Flagler College in Florida, dabbled in music as he became a member of a Folk-Hop band named "DJ WHY and The Image… Featuring Dr. G". I attended the University of Massachusetts in Lowell and came to realize the wonders of Macromedia Flash. During my time at school I also developed an actual art style and fine-tuned the HECK out of it over the next 5 years. The three of us rarely talked during these years, not out of spite or a lack of interest, but we were living new lives, making new friends, discovering ourselves and becoming our own individual selves.

Of the three of us, Kevin and I stayed in touch the most. Talking on Instant Messenger, emailing, and occasionally meeting up. One time stuck out more than the others, however. We met up in our hometown of Derry, NH at Kevin's parents' house. That night we reverted to our middle school selves as we turned on the radio, busted out some pencils and paper and began doodling what we could. We began to discuss the next chapter in the Oddballs saga… Only this time we dropped the Middle School Posse and focused on our experiences with each other in High School. No more wacky adventures, just real life humorous situations. As we continued to bounce ideas off each other we created a comic named "Scholars". The premise was our High School experiences portrayed in a college setting, featuring ourselves as the respective characters of Stan (Kevin) and Jason (myself… Mark). As we evolved the scripts and sketched out the look and feel, we decided the best outlet for this comic would be the web, which was evolving at a RAPID pace. Before the night was over, we named our website… Six AM Comics. Named after our High School video productions. These comics didn't reach the online world until 2003/2004ish… When I finally purchased the domain name "6amcomics.com" and created a website with the help of a good friend in College.

Towards the end of our College experience, we got back in touch with Dan. It was as though nothing had changed since High School. We instantly began joking around again and being stupid. Even made a couple of videos… An abstract horror trilogy named "Lavament: A Tale of Darkness", "Roped In", and "Drain". The production value had obviously gotten much better since the primitive days of Refrigerator Man. Realizing we had that old spark still, Kevin and I asked Dan to be a part of Six AM Comics, and he was very quick to jump on board, contributing his own web comic named "Honestly". We began meeting up at a Starbucks in Beverly, Massachusetts to discuss the direction of the site… Which is when I first discovered the joys of the Mint Mocha-Chip Frapaccino… A rare delicacy which can no longer be served at Starbucks… This was also the beginning of my caffeine addiction (Oh the sacrifices I've made for the site).

I suppose the specifics from then to now aren't terribly necessary. We've gone through about 4 to 5 different variations of the site design, everything from Flash to HTML to content management systems, we've canceled comics, we've rebooted comics, we've re-imagined the purpose of the site, we've dabbled in video games, movies, film review, literati, blogs and gone through about seven hiatuses. I guess what I'm getting at is that Six AM isn't about comics. Really, it's not even about a website. Six AM is about a very unique and important friendship between three very different artists with a similar vision. To create, to entertain, and to have fun. Our goal isn't to be the best, it's not to be famous, or rich (although that wouldn't be so bad)… It's not even a stupid dream. It's an outlet for creativity and expression. For me, it's a passion, and although I go through times where I don't keep up with the site, or stay in touch with the fellas, I always end up coming back to it… To go deeper, I feel like it's always been a calling for us. We have a chemistry which you can't just recreate… Kevin and Dan are my family, we're brothers (whether they like it or not). Someday, I hope to bring others into our family, I hope we can be more than just a family… I hope we can be a community of artists and friends with similar chemistries, similar passions and visions with unique and different artistic talents working together to create something awesome. It's the only inevitable step left in the evolution of Six AM Comics.

But until then… I'm just happy to make art that someone out there can enjoy.
~ Mark

www.6amcomics.com

PG-MEN - Dr. Fluffles

I feel like the issue of physical deformities comes up a lot when dealing with the Marvel Universe... After all, a mass evolution caused by nuclear radiation is bound to cause a few extra limbs here and there, but the one thing I figured WOULDN'T occur from radiation would be the growth of extra hair. I would also think death to be the natural progression of genetic mutation... That just goes to show that I am not properly educated on the matter of genetics, and who better to teach me than the doctor turned big blue abomination... BEAST.

You will not find a friendlier hero in the X-world than Dr. Hank McCoy, AKA Beast. When he first debuted as one of the original X-Men, he was an average man with a less than average appearance... Big feet and big hands. Like a bald gorilla... And you know something? Had this not changed, than Beast would be a perfectly acceptable addition to our newly found PG-MEN... But nooooo, Marvel had to go and make him all scary, which usually results in making him blue... e.g. Nightcrawler and Mystique. So they went and turned our big lovable Beast into a monstrosity! Sharp teeth, yellow feline eyes, claws, fur, devilish hair reminiscent of devil horns and pointy ears... And this is a man our children look up to! Not to mention he's practically a nudist now... Oh yeah, like a little blue speed-o is supposed to be appropriate. If you can't wear it to school, you shouldn't be allowed to wear it anywhere! Might I mention the speed-o blends in perfectly to his blue body, so he might as well be naked anyway!

So now we have a similar problem to that of Nightcrawler... However, it would be unoriginal to simply slap a paper bag over this character as well... Hence, now we have to get a little creative. The truth of the matter is, Beast is a scary man. He looks like he would eat a live puppy and chuckle while it still whimpered between his feral fangs. So you know what? If he's going to be a puppy-hater (not be confused with our first PG-MEN entry, Puppy), then we're just going to flat out make him a cat! He can now retain his blue, fluffy, nudist appearance and not be frightening to children... And what kid wouldn't want a blue kitty? It's like the opposite of Clifford the Big Red Dog!

Dr. Hank McCoy isn't much of a cute name either... It sounds Irish, which in itself isn't appropriate for children. So we're going to give him a new name... Dr. Fluffles! We're also going to up the cuteness by giving him an over-sized pair of glasses (like he thinks he's still a person) and a pencil in his ear... Aww, look at little Dr. Fluffles doing highly complex mathematics, he's like a little fluffy person! Now THAT is what the PG-MEN are all about! Teaching kids math and fighting crime in the cutest of fashions!

Knowledge is power!
~ Mark

There can be only one... Part II

A loooong while back I drew a picture of Walmart, Target and Kmart mascots fighting to the death in a Highlander fashion... Well I like the theme so much that I decided to do a much, MUCH different take on the Highlander franchise. I think this one's rather self-explanatory... As well as mildly unsettling. Or awesome.

Depends on how epic you consider conception,
~ Mark

Cryptic Love Part II

You know, for all the friends on facebook, I have a very limited amount of "old cryptic conversations"... So if you have any, you should send them to me: mark.marianelli@gmail.com and I'll post them in the next Cryptic Love post... Mmmm... In any case, here's part 2!

-commence-

- Underwear leopard print which I may or may not have, or the rug that I generally pose as a sailor on?

- you need another hit of lance.  Maybe you don't have water polo skills, but you've got water polo skilz?

- Eff that cat. It doesn't let me pee.

- i always knew there was something good under your shirt

- No ma'am, that was ALL me! ... with some help from the internet:-/

- Top on chocolate phones? Don't worry, I keeps it on the low bout y'all devil's dandruff while you double up on dat 2 for 1 sale for all my Tecatos, yeah, you know I be in with the toss ups on my interplanetary mission fo' dat makeup, quit ya' wiggin' whiles I Jack that Jelly for a Jab and keeps my Jag, yo. Keep it real Jolly Pop.

- michael w. smith has AIDS? what!?

- I will devour any giant you love.

- ... did... did you give me a gingerbread voodoo doll? ... for Easter?

- I like to call them "Practice Runs"...

- Don't worry, I'll make sure it's a NICE shady mexican...

- ... rocks... and your imagination... so pretty much anything you want...

- hm... i could go for a meatball i think...

- Frickin' heck yes Igloos with Burritos! Burrito Igloos!

- Their chub amuses me.

- psh, goober... you'd catch a cold.

- Aww, poor little Snow Asians…

- Nose-ferrah-taoew! Woohooah!

- You get your filthy hands off of that!!!!

- Well... you obviously don't smell your own farts enough...

- I wanna squeeze you from the inside

- HAHa Jacks naked!

- It's not gay if you pretend you're a woman... right?

- Nah, I just need to eat more apples and turn my cell phone off...

- Why was that wizard puppet naked?!

- AH! Uno plagues! Would you like flies with that??

- Psh, beats genital herpes.

- THAT position... clever boy.

- ahh ha... I get it. Like gay sex.

- mmm do-do bird blood......I'm thirsty!

- And how you gonna' kill Foxy Brown and stick her head on a pole like that?! That's Foxy Brown!! She'd've gone ape sh* on the whole planet!

- Is Nicki talking about poop?

- WtF? She sounds like Daphy Duck!

- ... or was it AIDS... crap, I think it was AIDS...

- mmm... come here boy. Daddy's got some chores for you...

- False alarm!.....it was just gas

- I don't care if you had your tubes tied! Life found a way!!

-end-

Hamster n' Doll

Yeah, there's no logic behind this drawing... I was doodling while watching TV with the Misses. Nuff' said y'all.

Eek!
~ Mark

Cryptic Love

Earlier this week I spiraled downward into the addicting webs of Facebook... As I typically do. This particular time, however, I was feeling incredibly nostalgic... And the mighty FB has the perfect functionality for nostalgia... The "See Friendship" option. For anyone who doesn't know what this is, if you go to one of your friends' profiles, you'll see in the upper right an option to "See Friendship"... Clicking it will bring you to a page where you can view all of your interactions between one another from the very moment you became virtual buddies.

There was a time on Facebook where you didn't have the option to comment on wall posts. If someone wrote to you, you had to then go to their page and write back. It got us by for the time being and we never thought of it again after the comment feature came about. Well, this primitive form of communication has provided me endless hours... or minutes... of entertainment. As you read through your "friendship histories" you find some very cryptic posts which contain ZERO frame of reference due to the nature of posting back then... The following is a compilation of some of the gems I came across while reading through my friendships... Be my guest to try and figure out what the heck any of these meant...

- commence -

- Friggin a! A frickin' caveman can do you but I can't even get a fistful of that Greek dairyair without gettin' slapped with a half-broken wooly gimp hand!


- Yeah we smell like crabs


- Yes, her typography is just as good as yours. You should both write gay novels in the gay voice...


- Stop putting butts on my wall!......................... Las Vegas!


- Dude, we're EATING that blood this weekend...


- Hugh Grant have mercy on me... I have a Klondike Bar and a very awkward itch... what will he do for me.


- HEY LAY OFF! You know I like the way cloth tastes! THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT!


- Its red, silly buns...


- No no. That is us. We are ONE!!


- Haha. Opposite Action... like Prison.


- Indeed it was harsh V-Lo... I bet you wouldn't be so harsh if I slowly killed everything you love...


- Yeah... always... like they grew up together fighting Alien Kung-Fu Zombies... and yes, the aliens used kung-fu.


- Please don't make me type the word "poop" again, it makes me uncomfortable...


- I do not suckle on freaky Phildog, man-tete!


- Don't just stare at it.


- Michael W. Smith has AIDS?


- Hey we've all got our skeletons in the closets...........your skeleton just has dong shaped marks on its cheek bone from where he slapped you with it.


- Buy it, play it, and one day you will see glory. Dr. Mario compels you.


- Shut up! I had just eaten a pizza! THAT'S ALL!


- Shave that sh*t.


- WTF? Wow. Jeff getting a snowball in the crotch... What a night.


- Holy 70's Porno, Batman!!


- Oh, I gots EVERYTHING else... like a size 13 which fits comfortably in your big mouth, boy!


- Hot... but shame on you.


- YOU KILLED CARLOS!?!? NOOO


- Wait a minute, lemme see if I have this straight... BEST SEX EVER... is with... Jesus?

- end -

PG-MEN - Harlot

If there's anything more inappropriate than an X-Man, it's an X-Woman! Skimpy outfits, supermodel figures, sexual independence... And did I mention those dang skimpy outfits?? If I could think of one specific X-Woman that exists as the living embodiment of LUST and CONSEQUENCE, it's the infamous Rogue!

There's nothing terribly wrong with her mutant power... As a matter of fact, I'm going to allow this particular hero to keep her power come re-imagination time. What is truly deviant about this character is the way she flaunts that untouchable body of hers for all the young boys (and adult boys) to ogle after! Her mutant power is the ability to drain the life-force of anybody she comes into skin-on-skin contact with... Which I must say, is a devastating display of superpower. So what does she do? Naturally she wears skin tight outfits and CLEARLY spends hours in the morning making herself a knockout amongst other whorishly dressed women!

Now you tell me... If you had the ability to drain people's life simply by touching them, would you allow yourself to be the object of all living things' desire? An entire world full of people just ACHING to touch you only to come to a drastic realization that you're about to die because you couldn't control your urges... And she allows this to happen! Clearly she is not taking the proper precautions to prevent such a horrible tragedy... And for that, we must create a child-friendly PG-Man... er, woman.

For starters, I would compare this character to a "street walker"... Unclean and uncaring for the health and safety of others... She's like the "(name I shall not use) of Babylon", yet we hail her has a hero! Well that comes to a stop this day! No more skimpy outfits, no more tights... Heck, normal cloths aren't even enough to hold the tides of raging hormones and pre-pubescent lusts back. No, she clearly needs to go through some major extremes to keep this bio-hazard contained... Which is why we're decking her out in the finest of winter clothing. Snow-pants, scarves, heavier gloves, earmuffs... No sir, there will not be ONE inch of skin showing, nor will there be any chance of her well-carved body figure being portrayed in silhouettes. Sunglasses shall also be applied to keep her eyes (the gateway to the soul, which is clearly corrupted) to prevent those baby blues from teasing another man.

What's that? She's still too sexy? Well fine. It's time for extreme measures! If that puffy outfit isn't going to be enough, than we're just going to flat out put a sign on her... "FILTHY". Oh yeah, nobody's going near her now. Nobody decent at least... Which is who the PG-Men cater to... The pure of heart! "But Mark, why would any villain go near her now and be defeated?"... Well that's a good question. My answer to this is simple... What villain DOESN'T run from the good guy? Huh?

Now as for that name. ROGUE. The dictionary defines it as such: An unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person; a scoundrel or rascal. Oh, that sums her up alright... Deceitful temptress that she is. But then, most people associate the name Rogue with something cool, akin to a renegade or a loner. I, however, refuse to allow a generation of children to grow up overlooking obvious seduction because a name sounded cool... She will be named exactly what she is... HARLOT. Now we all know what we're getting! The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem... I think our new hero is the perfect example of facing your imperfections and bettering one's self.

Let the cleansing begin!
~ Mark

Son'Uva: Boneyard Finisher

I struggled with an idea for devastating your opponent using the elements from the "Boneyard"... Again, my one-track mind thought, "impaled on bones!"... But as I've said before, I've done that a lot already. So I went back to ye olde drawing board and came up with something which took a lot more time than I was planning on putting into this... So you better love it! I slave over an overheated MacBook all day long for you people!

Criss Cross'll make ya, CLICK CLICK:

Yeah, he got boned,
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

PG-MEN - Evening-Stroller

Ay Dios Mio! Where do I begin with this abomination... Talk about a difficult task. I attempt to make the comic book world a better place for the innocent children of the world and I am forced to clean up the act of a teleporting demon named Nightcrawler!

Very well... Let us begin with the obvious. His appearance. Sadly one cannot change the physical appearance of another and maintain a non-bigotry example while exclaiming "it offends me!" through the streets... However I can't exactly allow a blue demon to parade around the pages of a children's comic book saving the day and inspiring love for such a creature... Sure, the comics portray Nightcrawler as a man of Christian faith, but in my eyes all I see is hypocrisy and deception! So let's just avoid the controversy and put a paper bag over his head, shall we? And just for promotion's sake, we'll commission Shaw's to provide the bag! Free advertising! Now he's helping the community AND covering up his demonic nature. Though there is that tail of his... vile hell-spawn appendage that it is, I'm sure it's a useful commodity for fighting crime... Let's just chop the end of it off so he looks more like a blue monkey with a bag on his head. Now he shouldn't be so scary.

I'm also iffy about that mutant power of his... Teleportation. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't traveling through the deepest pits of Hell to get to his final destination... But that's what he does and that's how he does it... So he doesn't get to teleport anymore. But fear not! He can still get to where he needs to go in the quickest of fashions... Via cab! That's right, our little blue friend now has the ability to hail a cab no matter where he is! Free of charge and always available! ... And we all know that cab driver will get you where you need to go quickly... No matter how many pedestrians he has to mow over (but we won't show that part for PG purposes). Plus I imagine he can always just tell his cab driver "To the villain's secret lair!" and that'll save time on all the detective work, am I right? Yeah. I'm pretty right.

Last but not least is that terrifying name of his. Nightcrawler. The mere mention of it makes me feel like I'm being molested by a centipede while sleep. Truth is, that name never really made much sense for a teleporting demon in the first place. He's not really crawling anywhere, he's teleporting! I figure the least we can do is tone down the intensity of the falsehood to this much more pleasant sounding name... Evening-Stroller! Beware, criminals, he's going to stroll right up and ruin your evening!

Eh, I work with what I've got,
~ Mark

PG-MEN - HUG

Who doesn't love the French! Well, besides America I'd have to say villains world-wide... Which is why even the slippery frogs of the Cajun swamps need a protector... And that protector is the poker-faced sweet-talker known as Gambit.

Now you might ask, "Hey, what's not kid-friendly about Gambit? He's so dag-gone charming!"... Well to this I say, what IS appropriate about this card-wielding brawler?? Let's begin with his roots, shall we? Gambit was a thief, a crook, a liar... And if there's anything politics has taught me it's that you ARE what you WERE. Sure, we may forgive him in our hearts, but in our minds, we know exactly what kind of a man Gambit is. He's a deceiver! Why his name alone stands for a chess move early in the game in which the player sacrifices minor pieces in order to obtain an advantageous position! I.e. This is a man who will sacrifice the little people to get ahead! Which is why the FIRST thing we're going to do with this wretched little Frenchie is change that horrible name! Why associate him with deceit when you can associate him with trust? Children need to trust SOMEONE in the world, so rather than given them a symbol of lies, let's give them a symbol of affection... Gambit shall now be known as "HUG".

Speaking of hugs, there's enough aggression out there aimed at our European brothers of feminine love, so why make their champion a man who can truly embody the good nature of the French... They need a man who leads by action, not cheesy accents and card talk... You know what? Let's just eliminate words from the equation altogether and give the French a clean slate. Let's show off the French in a positive light, by making "HUG" a true symbol of France... He is now a MIME! Now, consider the compromise I've made here on your behalf, America... Gambit also had the unique ability to "charm" anyone he spoke to, he was trustworthy (all the better to betray you with, my dear)... Well now he doesn't need something as atheistic as "charm" or "luck", he can use mere gestures to make you think he's behind a glass wall, or busy pulling on some rope. Who's going to shoot at a man who is CLEARLY behind an invisible bullet-proof wall??

Oh, come now, I haven't forgotten Gambit's REAL power. He has the ability to fill any object with kinetic energy, making whatever he touches an explosive weapon of destruction... CLEARLY a PG-MAN is not prone to violence... Nor would he use such objects as "Playing Cards"... Playing cards are an analogy for all things sinful! Poker games, a game of lies, cigars, drinking and gambling. What kind of hero gives children the impression these things are acceptable?? So away with those playing cards! You get UNO. A game the WHOLE family can enjoy. They're colorful cards as well, so they're bound to tantalize our youth into paying attention to this wholesome individual. And to go along with the "mime" theme... He doesn't ACTUALLY charge them with energy, he just makes you THINK he's doing so. He's so dang clever, that HUG!

So let us all support our European defender of justice and truly... VIVE LA FRANCE!

Maercie boque!
~ Mark

Spiders...

With my parents moving to the grand state of Texas, there's just one thing I can't get out of my head...

Shhh,
~ Mark

PG-MEN - Eye-Boogies

One cannot completely re-imagine the world's most famous group of superheroes without first analyzing their leader... No, not Professor X. I mean the team leader, the one who rides with his troops into battle and sets a true example... The ever brown-nosing CYCLOPS.

Well, let me tell you, there are ALL kinds of issues going on with the leadership in this group. Let's begin, shall we? And I'm just going to jump into this issue without a parachute and without sugar-coating it... Why does the leader ALWAYS have to be white! And not like, "Oh, I'm Italian and my skin is olive but just light enough to get me the respect my dad says I deserve!", no, no, no, I mean white white. Anglo-Saxon, SPF 500, Elmer's Glue, pasty, Water Polo-playing white! Yeah, we have a multi-cultural lineup of heroes, everything from Thunderbird (dead, might I add) to Luke Cage (but really, does anyone read his comics? He's not even an X-Man), but none of them LEAD. Not one! So you know what? Cyclops is Black now. Racism is not kid-friendly.

And speaking of Cyclops, his powers are LETHAL. Lasers? The comics portray his eye-blast as being more like a punch to the face, which I'm sorry, is terribly inaccurate. If I shot you with a laser beam, you wouldn't get knocked back, you'd have a hole in your stomach. You'd catch a brief glimpse of your seared intestines dangling out of the cavity in your belly just before the lights go black and you die in a pile of your own ash. So I think it's safe to say lasers are CLEARLY out of the question. I mean, your kids are going to grow up in the future when lasers are more commonly used (along with flying cars and hover boards) and they're going to put their hands in it because, "Hey, Cyclops's EYES can handle laser beams, why not my fingers?", and them BAM! No more fingers! Then your kids have to go to special schools and they're going to THINK that's going to be awesome because the X-Men attend a "School for the Gifted" and they're going to hop on that short bus and find out all it is is a bunch of handicapped kids with no superpowers and they're going to be so upset and so depressed by it that they're ultimately just going to take a laser to their head and end it all!

So our modified, kid-friendly PG-MEN are going to have a leader who shoots the BEST THING IN THE WORLD out of his eyes... JELL-O! What, that's not enough to put fear into the enemy? Fine. It'll be LIME JELL-O. Blech. I'd go with lemon, but then we're getting into the PG-13 territory... Lemon flavored anything is nasty.

Now the only thing that's needing some improvement is the name. Cyclops. He is named after a horrendous creature in Greek Mythology which was known for eating people. I'm sorry, but cannibalism and fear is NOT the PG Hero's way! Nor is Greek Mythology... We're Christians, our heroes will not associate themselves with the monsters of the gods. PLUS he doesn't technically have ONE eye, he has two eyes, now he's just a liar. What kind of example would this leader be setting with false truths?? No, no... He needs a name which can easily be related to his super-powers... EYE-BOOGIES. Because he shoots green goop from his eyes. And hey, kids love things that are gross! Eye Boogies are the perfect substitute! Oh! And think of the marketing we can start with this, candy that resembles their favorite PG-MAN!

But we probably won't go the marketing route, money is the root of all evil, and PG-Men FIGHT evil, they don't endorse it.

Now eat your JELL-O!
~ Mark