Interview Meme

Ok... got this from uniquecrash5 who I was able to get to ask me 5 questions....
Oh and if *YOU* yeah- you there... want me to ask you 5 questions, just comment to this post asking me to 'interview you' and I'll respond with my 5 questions for you...


The five questions and answers:

1.What's your favourite single comic storyline or graphic novel of all time, and why?
Oh glad you started with a tough question. To me this is very hard as I have a ‘favorite’ story for each character that I like… so there’s like a Favorite Batman story, a favorite Lex Luthor story, a favorite Legion story, etc. So to think of which story is better then ALL the others is tough. In fact I finished 2-4 on Saturday, but still had to wait to figure out THIS question before posting my answers.
It was also tough because I think there have been a lot of great Hulk ‘moments’ but you asked for a storyline which to me means something that happens over the course of 2 or more issues. I also thought of cheating a bit by mentioning stuff that I loved but that HADN’T made it to the #1 spot…
Lastly, for excuses, I wanted to check a storyline to see if it was “GOOD!” but sadly I don’t have all the issues, so while I still think the story is very good I’m not going to go ‘best’ with it.
I want to go with a dark horse candidate… As that’s how I roll, I always like choosing something that others wouldn’t.
So Marvel Man/ Miracle Man 1-16 by Alan Moore.
I *loved* as a kid Captain Marvel- aka the Big Red Cheese and his family ( Mary, Jr., Uncle and the Lieutenant Marvels), so as an ‘adult’( I picked up Miracle Man in college) I really got into Miracle Man aka Marvel Man. I loved this series not only because it took interesting takes on the Marvel Mythos… Like ‘what’s the deal with the bodies?’ but I really loved it because of Miracle Kid aka Johnny Bates. Yes, I know the series was perhaps about Michael Morgan- but to me a hero is sometimes only as good as his villain and Kid Miracle was an excellent villain.
Again going with the Marvel family… while reading about Bates/ Kid Miracle, it made me wonder why Freddy would EVER change back into normal form considering as Captain Marvel Jr. besides having superpowers, he’d stop being lame. I just thought it was a natural for someone who had a magical word to stay powerful….
I also love this series because it has an end; there was a beginning, middle and end to Miracle Man’s story. Granted Gaiman continued the story with his Silver Age (and I would LOVE to read the end of his series when he’s allowed by the court to publish it.), but Moore knew at the beginning where it was going.
I’m really tired of the endless Superman, Batman and other heroes endless stories. I sometimes wish that DC or Marvel would only publish a hero IF they get a really good story idea about the character from a writer up front. Are there really enough decent Superman stories for him to have 48 comics a year… I don’t think so.
I think Moore was at the top of his form with this title and this really is my favorite title of his.

However… we’ll have to see how 100 bullets ends in a few years. THAT could end up being one of the best maxi series around. Granted I got burnt out abit recently, but he’s only around 60 so still time to fix it up.


2. How do you know Adj, anyhoo?

She, Kel( if you know Kel) and I played in a DC Comics play by email roleplaying game. While Adj. We both ended up GM’ing the other one in various games. As you might guess I found Adj. to be interesting, and have good taste. So I like checking out her live journal and checking out the LJs of those she calls ‘friend’- like yours and your wife’s.

3. Favourite RPG character of all time, along with a favourite anecdote about them?

This is another tough one. I’m sometimes surprised at how much time I’ve spent roleplaying as all my real life/ table top games ended in some pain and anger. Guess I’m a glutton for punishment or I really liked my characters. Most of my stories are ‘war stories’ about how my character got screwed by the GM or my fellow players.

I think my favorite table top character was Lu, an alien student of the force, for the Star Wars RPG. One of my best friends was running a pre-Star Wars Star Wars RPG… This was in the long time before Episode 1. The game took place about 10 years before Star Wars, so we were suppose to be the people that the young rebels would look up to. I had tried several characters including a robot [who was more heroic then his owners] and a 1950’s space hero [complete with fishbowl helmet and ovaltine] until I hit on Lu. I designed him with all sorts of weird wacky stuff to make him chock full of fun … and my gamemaster allowed everything. Like Mr. Bones [enemy of Infinity Inc.] his skin and internal organs were invisible… but my reasoning for Lu, was his people were more forced tuned, and thus anyone who could see force auras would see his skin. I did a good write up of his home world and had them a peace like matriarchal society (even though we never went to his homeworld). One of the things that I was the most proud of was his weapons. I decided if one could make flubber( old Disney movie as the remake hadn’t come out yet) why not a clear solid weapon out of them… so the GM let me make flass- chucks- flubber/glass nun chucks. They were a great weapon because they would store kinetic energy.

My favorite moment was, the ship was getting attached by storm troopers, Lu defended himself and rolled a PERFECT hit. It was so perfect it broke the storm trooper’s helmet and killed him. My character got a ‘bad force’ pip for killing someone in battle. I liked this as out of character I was impressed by my character’s flass chucks and what damage the GM would let me get away with; and also glad because I got to roleplay my character getting upset that he killed someone. I especially liked it as there was a jedi student in the game, that didn’t give a darn about earning dark side points- so I liked playing in front of them, my character being aware that he did a bad thing and trying to come to terms with it.

4. What can be done to fix the American political system?

Two things need to be done; one is to make sure we have an ‘honest’ voting system and the second is to change the ‘winner take all’ of the current political system.

I mention the honest voting system first, because I’m one of those ‘left wing loons’ who believe that Ohio was stolen via electronic voting machines in the 2004 election. If you went by the exit polls, Kerry won the state; however according to the machines, W. won. We weren’t able to perform a re-count on the electronic voting machines, even if Kerry had wanted to, because the company that made them didn’t make them keep track of those things. The maker of the machines also claimed that the software was a ‘corporate secret’ so nobody else was able to check their code to make sure it didn’t cheat… and oh yeah, the president of the company said he’d do everything in his power to get W. re elected.

And personally I dislike the fact that even though Gore got 51% of the popular vote, he and the democrats got NOTHING because of our current system. I’d either like to go back to the old ways… where the person with the second most amounts of votes became vice president… or get a parliamentary system like Canada… so that the democrats could’ve picked up more of the senate in 2000.
A friend has pointed out that the parliamentary system would be almost as bad… so I suggest that perhaps a voter ranking system, an instant run off, would the best ‘instant fix’ to the U.S. voting system. Basically under an instant run off, you would rate how you like each candidate, and then if none of the candidates get 51% of the vote; you get rid of the LEAST popular candidate and distribute their votes to their second pick. This allows lesser candidates a chance to run without being considered ‘spoilers’. This would mean that more candidates had a chance to run and show the Democrats and Republicans that the people want more then two political party (something that our second president John Adams was very afraid of)
They have a website to further illustrate the instant run off voting at - http://www.instantrunoff.com/
It should also be mentioned that using the demo- they prove that with instant voting run off in Fl. In 2000- Gore would’ve won.

However that said, the biggest problem is that in order to overhaul the system you need help from the people who got in power BECAUSE of the current system. What democrat is going to become president and then change things to make it harder for them to win a second term…? Currently only politicians are the only ones with the power to change the system, and they have no real impetus to do so.

5. What question do you wish I'd asked you?
At first I thought this was a cheat… I don’t have a fifth so I’ll put the burden on Drew, but then I realized that it was indeed an interesting question- but one that I can’t answer. See one of the reasons I wanted someone somewhat random to ask me questions is the hopes that they would ask me something that I might not put on my blog but would none the less tell people more about ME.
I liked the questions you asked me… about gaming, politics and comics… several things that have played important roles in my life. I currently work part time in a gaming store and the manager is my friend who gm’ed the Star Wars rpg I spoke of.. And we often talk these days about politics and what's wrong with America....