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Unknown artistSilver Age of Comic Books? (1956-1970)Pencil on paper Recently recovered art dating from around the Silver Age of Comics, these sketches show concept art of a previously unseen and unused superhero: The Book-Stellar and their sidekick/bookstore cat Cat-a-Log (following page). From the notes gathered, this was to be aContinue Reading

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There are few superheroes as ancient as The Man Made of Stone, for he has seen every shade the villains of evil can make bubble and boil from the depthless undying center of earth, from which all evil springs. It burns at 9,392° Fahrenheit, the earth’s core. It is fromContinue Reading

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I wish I was Vin DieselThe only bone I ever broke was a fucking toothVin diesel drove a car out of one skyscraper into anotherI’m so thin, my own family says I’ll float away in the windI bet Vin has never questioned how much of a man he is ToContinue Reading

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In part, our cellar is a well.When the ground swells, pregnant with ocean brineand rain, the water rises: murky and dustclotted,filtered through groundfloor pores. In part, I remembermy mother downstairs in the slow, slow, steady tide, I remember herwildness, brave and rockjawed in the face of her house, her house’sbetrayal.Continue Reading

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My mother worries onebone in her body like the windwarps a grain field. It is the glowingmetal rod in her left shin — the poetry dowsing rod. At night she sleeps stilland the rod points up to her blood-pumping heart, twice out, years longto work, still — and glows blueContinue Reading

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She struggles to breathe in the icy air,gulping trouble and guile from voicesnot her own. She has learned to skate betweendazzlers and blunderers on the gridlockedcity rink, ankles burning with intent andtentative discovery of the sweetspot for equipoise, remaining mostly upright,steering into a valiant glide, knowinga fall is imminent, inescapablewhenContinue Reading

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This day limps and whimpersin a sudden mob of jeers and taunts.Remorse muscles in, blockingthe tease of possible lightwith a fuggy pulse of wayward,gravel-blind, monstrous self-absorption. This is the end of the worldand only imps and devils are afoot,the wrecks beset by iron-hearted lootersstealing movement from the air, invitinga tepidContinue Reading

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There’s a story in this, girls,and it doesn’t have any wolves in it for now, though you never knowwhat might come down the lane, in Neverland, especially nearthat mermaid bog of old. Which is the gateway toThemyscira, truth be told, though no one ever seemsto want to know where theContinue Reading

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II. One way of looking at itSever the notion of quest from bloodand you get girls, leastways if the bloodis othered and the quest is sticky withswords and snares, beset with spitefulnymphs and pitiless trials, fool’s goldguarded by dragon-fire, the road toilluminant decency – or what passes as –marked byContinue Reading

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When I slam on the brakes,I plunge headlong intoa proverbial brick wall,nothing is the same. My figure sprawls on the groundstunned, unable to accessmy abilities. I submit my bodyto rigorous testingto locate my Achilles’ heel. All these testsand treatmentsdo not empower me,improve function. I am weak, curledin the fetal positionContinue Reading