Elfsar Comics & Toys Blog

Okay first and foremost, I totally swiped this from Robert’s Blog (which you should be checking out)  Anyway, at Elfsar Comics & Toys, Jack Layton – NDP (New Democrats Party) Leader arranged to speak in front of a big truck with his NDP promotional photo. This big truck was parked right out front of Elfsar Comics and Toys so we had front row seats to watch, listen and snicker at the media whores around Mr. Layton as he lashed out at the current Canadian government and whatever political agenda he had planned.

As you can see it was quite a large mass of media people, some of which were part of the local news (they were at the back) and the main prime spots were the National news.  After the media blast, some of the local news came into the store and talked to us afterwards.  I had a bit to say about it too as I was not to happy having my customers separated from entering my store for over an hour and my business being .

Here is the jest of what was said…  “If those who are trying to rise to power seem to be okay with breaking City Laws, then what do you think they would do if they actually got power?  Was it too much to ask for someone to possess the foresight (and courtesy) to give advance warning that this was going to take place?  Did nobody think that they may not want to piss off the local small businesses in the area?  Or that the people that own/operate said business are potential valuable voters?

As a business owner, I was most unimpressed with the total disregard of the impact they had on my establishment.  Does this reflect on what would happen if they did get power?  To me it sure does.  To me, running the county is like running the most important business (paid by the people for the people). If this is the kind of treatment I can expect then I guess I am not ready to embrace change …at least not for the NDP way.”

FAIL.

Big thanks to  CKNW, who in the aftermath gave Omar and I a quick interview about what had just happened. Maybe they used it, maybe they didn’t but at least we got the chance to vent about how disappointed we were about the lack of respect there is for small business.

More on Jack Layton’s little press conference on Yaletown here:
http://www.cknw.com/Channels/Reg/NewsLocal/Story.aspx?ID=1027385

Check out the photo we got after Robert from BTS called up Reed Richards and Nick Fury to let him borrow a gun that revealed Jacks true identity, I think this explains it all…
We present SKRULLY JACK! Embrace Change is happening.  Here and now! Just look at this photo!  Evidence! Proof! …

Brad Meltzer’s new novel, The Book of Lies, due out next week, was the impetus for a USA Today story this week on the origin of Superman, which Meltzer ties to the death of Mitchell Siegel, Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel’s father, in a Cleveland robbery in 1932.  Although Siegel himself never mentioned in interviews that his father died in a robbery, Meltzer notes the motivation for a character whose first depiction, from 1933, shows him rescuing a man being robbed.  Meltzer also told USA Today of a letter to the editor in the Cleveland Plain Dealer the day after the robbery from A.L. Luther, denouncing the need for vigilantes, which Meltzer thinks may have been the inspiration for Superman villain Lex Luthor.

The USA Today article does a nice job of tracing the history of the discovery of this piece of Siegel’s history, which first appeared in 2004 in Gerard Jones’ Men of Tomorrow. Writer David Colton also cites Marc Tyler Nobleman and Ross MacDonald’s Boys of Steel:  The Creators of Superman, which concluded that Siegel’s father died of a heart attack during the robbery.

Colton concludes his article with the sordid history of Siegel and Shuster’s battle for the rights to their character, including a great anecdote from Jerry Robinson about the star-studded party held to celebrate the settlement in which DC agreed to pay the character’s creators an annuity and credit them for Superman’s creation.  That battle for a share of the immense revenues derived from Superman over the years continues  (see http://www.elfsar.betweenthestaples.com/2008/03/31/great-scott-dc-no-longer-has-the-rights-to-superman/)