Christmas Music Mix 2009

It's time once again for our incredibly awesome 2009 Christmas Mix!

If you're reading this on the blog, you should be able to use the embedded players below.

If you're reading this on a feed or Facebook or somesuch, use these links: Christmas 2009 (part 1), Christmas 2009 (part 2)

Civil War

(To make it a bigger picture, click the right femur of the character in the red shirt.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Smatmobile.

I loved the Smart car the very first time I saw one in Europe in the late 90s. I tend to like small, unusual vehicles of any kind , so it's pretty much made for people like me. I haven't owned a car since I moved to NYC, but if I did, this would be one I would consider. Although I should say I know nothing about the quality of the car, I just like the size and look of it. It may be crap, for all I know. (And in any case, I prefer motorcycles and scooters over cars.)

I think one of the most interesting things about the Smart car is, however, that it evokes anger in certain people. I have personally heard several say they would like to crush them or flip them over. I have felt similar hatred for SUVs, but it is because they are a kind of blight on the earth. They use more gas than necessary and so help to keep us dependent on Middle East oil, they tear the roads up faster because of their weight, they are a traffic hazard because you can't see around them, they contribute to traffic congestion because they take up so much more space, same with parking. Hating Smart cars, on the other hand, seems to be simply a symptom of the growing culture war in the U.S.

I think about this culture war all the time and can think of no reasonable end to it. Could be we are headed for another civil war. Progressives wouldn't have a chance in such a war, we don't already have stockpiles of weapons and we are less brutal by nature. If it comes to that, I guess we'll all move to a more civilized place and leave the country to the Glenn Becks. Perish the thought.

Christmas Covers - December 12

Jay & Silent Bob get in the holiday spirit on Art Adams's cover to the Clerks Holiday Special (1998).

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Holiday-related comic book cover. (Click on the image to get a larger version.)

Come back tomorrow, and every day this month, for a new Christmas cover.

Just 13 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

(2008: Eternal Romance #3)
(2007: Liberty Meadows #24)
(2006: Veronica #6)
(2005: Dell Movie Classic #725)
(2004: Treasure Chest vol. 23 #8)

(Polite Dissent's 2009 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(2009 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2009)