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Secret Origin Of A Super-Villain

1 Aug

August 1, 2011

Think over the top bad guys and evil geniuses exist only in comic books? Think again.

Johnathan T. Pinney first came to the public’s attention in 2008. He had been arrested for biting a police officer. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be enough to get noticed by the nationwide press, but at his trial he had a few demands. 

There was more but that gives you the idea. I direct your attention to the third paragraph. This man has been found fit to stand trial.

He claimed he “embraces evil” and wanted to wear a cape for his trial. At the hearing, he “fingered his beard while sitting at the defense table.” Personally, I would have said he fingered his beard diabolically while sitting at the table. That’s the way to write an article.

As you might expect, things didn’t go so well for him. That was the last we heard from Mr. Pinney until this article from this past July:


This guy needs a comic book name. Too bad Doctor Doom is already taken. (BTW- Dr. Doom isn’t a doctor. He never finished his degree. Victor von Doom dropped out of college and it was all the accursed Reed Richard’s fault.)

He wants his own nation. Can this get any better?

Yes it can. 

Doctor Mayhem has thought this one through. He wants his own country. Not just any country, but one with an adequate water supply, and he has given thought to the issue of “native pest control,” by which I assume he means any native population. He is clearly an evil scientist since he refers to the “stimulation of volcanic activity” which I take to mean that he will soon develop a secret lair inside an active volcano. And he seems to know many hidden secrets since he demands access to Area 51. Can he be forging an alliance with hostile aliens, like the Skrulls? The diplomatic immunity and fifty billion dollars are just icing on the cake. And the money, I’m sure, will go a long way in financing the creation of a race of Atomic Supermen with which to rule the world.

This man is too dangerous to go free. Surely he is also too dangerous to remain in the general prison population. If he has gone public with his demands, I can only assume that he has already amassed his henchmen and goons and will soon escape the prison via an inter-dimensional tunnel, or at the very least a hot air balloon like Gene Hackman in Superman II.

I urge the authorities to take this man seriously. He needs to be imprisoned in The Phantom Zone, ASAP.

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The Saturday Comics: Pete the Tramp

30 Jul

July 30, 2011

The World English Dictionary defines a tramp as “a person who travels about on foot, usually with no permanent home, living by begging or doing casual work.” They can be easily distinguished from bums or hobos as a bum is “a disreputable loafer or idler” and a hobo is “a migratory worker, especially an unskilled laborer.” OK, maybe it isn’t that easy to distinguish them after all. I think if you find one hopping a train it is a tramp, walking along with all his possessions tied in a handkerchief on the end of a stick it is a hobo, and sleeping on a park bench it is a bum. It is kind of like Big Foot. Spot one in the Pacific Northwest and he’s called a Sasquatch, spot one in South and he’s a Skunk ape. But tramp, hobo, or Sasquatch, whatever you call them, they probably won’t smell very good.

Which brings us to Pete The Tramp.

Pete the Tramp was a comic strip by Clarence D. Russell. It began in 1932 and ran for more than three decades. Howard Eugene Wilson, in the Harvard Educational Review, described the strip’s title character as “a hobo with a gentleman’s instincts.”

Wait- Pete the Tramp was a hobo? I give up.

From the wonderful resource Toonopedia.com:

Pete was like most fictional tramps of the time in that he moved around a lot, was always looking for a handout, did an occasional odd job when he couldn’t avoid it, and was generally disreputable. But he didn’t resemble the worst of them, i.e., wasn’t violent or a sneak thief—except the latter, but not very often and never for anything of great value. Pete was often seen in the company of a small yellow dog of indeterminate breed, whom he addressed as Boy. Under the name Pete’s Pup, the dog was the star of the Sunday page’s topper during the first couple of years. Pete’s strip was popular during the Depression and still maintained reasonable circulation after that period’s end made his situation less excusable.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Pete the Tramp. 

Snorky was another Pete The Tramp Topper.

Before you go, this little nugget of information came from where most stinky little nuggets come from, wikipedia: The Further Adventures of Pete the Tramp (1944) was a live-action stag film which stole Russell’s character and put him in an erotic situation.

You can’t see me but I am shaking my head in disbelief.

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