The Annotated Sons of God: Issue 2

Issue 2 “Some are neither born Nor Made”  

(Same “deadly virtue” theme as Issue 1 (a 3-story arc based on the deadly virtue Chastity/vice Lust))

This issue is really Stan’s Manifesto to the world: and he is quite tired of the status quo…

front Cover: One of the main images driving issue 2. It’s meant to be a big surprise as the leech-nuns are closing in on Stan and Dany, and it features unbelievable inking from 12 year old Jojo. The third letter in the title, “n”, is now changed into an Omega (but is it for Stan, or someone else..?) I love Jojo’s idea for a signature: “JP²”. Kind of an homage to Johnny Romita and Johnny Romita Jr (one of Jojo’s favorite artists!): Junior is sometimes JR Jr, or JR², but sometimes they also work together on a comic, then it’s like me and Jojo: JP and JP. (And yes, evil leech-monster nuns do wear pretty ruby slippers.)

front inner sleeve: we always liked when comic books do a brief recap on the front sleeve (or even the first page). It makes it a more fun kind of story-telling experience: the ominous “LAST TIME…” also we were happy to try all the new tools and tricks we could on photoshop: I believe we had a full version of photoshop at this time, or soon after this issue (a step up from “elements”, but not quite “CC” yet…)

Issue 2 page 1: evil leech monster nuns closing in, at various stages of transformation/morphing. The little purple velour bag with “the still warm heart” of Carl Bobson slowly leaking blood and melting snow, etc. I love the DuSable Bridge (although most people still call it the Michigan Ave. Bridge) and I love trying to transcribe screams and sound effects just the way I hear them in my head. This is also inspired by the last scene in Predator 2, when Danny Glover defeats the predator, then 10 more walk out and he says “OK, who’s next?”

(Incidentally, note the little joke with the wolf and the lamb on the coats…)

The credits:

Title: “Some are neither born nor made…” we’re talking about “heroes” here, and is Stan really a hero? Was he born a hero? Made a hero by circumstances? Noooo… “Heroes are made not born; love is destiny not faith, and you are forever not timeless.”

“Fabela et picturae” fabella (story, tale, anecdote, fable, play) picturae (pictures, paintings, images, word pictures)

Forgot to do a Disclaimer for this issue…

Page 2 Here’s the main image representing the craziness within: the nuns leaping into leviathan’s mouth to follow their sister. Eeech… shudder…

Page 3 panel 1 going for the archaic or british spellings makes it seem creepier and more evilly religious… also you can start to see a big hint about stan: instead of “DuSable”, it looks like it says “Diable”… the first of several more of these throughout the series…

Panel 2 I like the little leviathan eggs coming up to look at their daddy… each with different little baby eye colors

Panel 3 I like the idea that the leviathan laid millions of eggs, but they can’t be fertilized without a special biblical ritual. Stan and Dany watch it swim away as the little eye-eggs swim along behind it, trying to catch up

Page 4 Panel 1 Stan: always with the common-sense response: he’s the only normal one…

Panel 2 I like that Dany gets to be a scared little boy here

Panel 3 already the idea that God heads up a corporate entity, with all the corruption, evil and greed that image brings. And that God may have “created” the world, but then he abandoned us. Veni, Vidi, Vici, but this is a naughty (slightly crude, sorry…) variation “He saw, he came…”: the recurring theme: God fertilized the earth, like a salmon.

Panel 4 As you can probably tell, we took a liking to poor old Leviathan early on. I feel sorry for the “great beast”, who was really tooled on in the Bible in particularly cruel and sadistically officious ways. We think of him as a big creature who just wants to exist, like all the rest of us…

Panel 4 “Let’s get the Heaven out of here…” har-har… also note how the blood puddle around the heart in the purple velour bag keeps getting larger as he snow melts…

Page 5 Panel 1 Ok… so we were so sure, back then, that Google Glass was coming for everybody, was going to be in every home, on every sidewalk… this was the actual command you gave your google glass “OK Glass…” The idea was, how in the heck do superheroes get all their exploits recorded anyway? Well, in 2014, they probably recorded their triumphs like selfies… yes yes, Stan does look a little like Jon Hamm… but here we were really thinking of a different anti-hero… one with a chain-saw hand and a boomstick.

“You were expecting maybe…” Stan’s early catch-phrase again… but later, we started liking “Things is gonna get weird” even a little better as Stan’s catch-phrase. I think it kind of explained the whole dichotomy of the world we live in: everyone has to “behave” a certain way, follow the rules, etc… meanwhile the universe just outside of this safe-place is COMPLETELY INSANE… all around us: AAAgh!

Panel 2 This page gets at the source of poor little Dany’s horrible visions and nightmares. Stan jokes that he smells strongly of garlic. “The Church” appears at the homeless boy’s door in the guise of a catholic relief/social work organization. Somehow they got his name and found him to be a ripe victim. They promise him they can remove his evil nightmares if he keeps special wrapped crucifixes in the freezer and wears one every night.

Panel 3 In reality, these are DMSO soaked crucifixes that deliver LSD to the boy transdermally (“Delysid”, “Dr. Hoffman’s gift”). Does this church work for Carl Bobson, delivering innocent young boys for him to abuse sexually? Do they work for the Leech Nuns, preparing children for their great evil ritual? Stan dispatches the LSD crucifix calling it “Reliquiae ex brandea”, a loose synonym for “Third class relics”. Stan then makes a joke alluding to his prior experience with transdermal LSD (did he use LSD at concerts? Squirt people with LSD squirt-guns?) Transdermal absorption of LSD seems to be controversial, and there is disagreement if absorption through the skin works reliably, except when dissolved in DMSO which makes it transfer readily through the skin.

Page 6 Panel 1 as they walk off the DuSable bridge, we see Sons of God graffiti on the wall (the lamb with the Aramaic letters “Ax Hacx”). (If you look close, you’ll also see “Ax Hacx” in the puddle of blood. the conspiracy: they’re everywhere). “You’re probably wondering wht THAT was all about…” Stan is just funny to me… “You gotta give me my due…” I was always happy to put in any possible devil clues I could. He alludes to intra-demonic/supernatural territorial markings, messaging, etc. graffiti no one would ever notice, from one terrible religious subspecies to another. Like the Hebrew graffiti on the wall: Livyatan, and the cult who seems to worship him or aspire to use his power (the Hellmouth, portal back to chaos, etc.) to bring about the end of creation as we know it. “Back home to hell…” I love the idea that the evil were evil all along and belong there, no whiny sympathetic revisionist backstory crap.

Panel 2 “And God created the great sea monsters…” this is the whole thing: he created them, then to use and abuse and torture them? WTF? I love Leviathan retaining the power of “Uncreation” though, and Leviathan is one of my heroes in the book. The bas relief sculptures on the building here is take-off on the heroic artwork on the actual DuSable or Michigan Avenue bridgetower houses commemorating important events in Chicago history. Here it tells a mysterious tale involving God and the angels killing one of 2 leviathans to protect innocent women and babies. (bears often sneak their way into images on Sons of God also… not sure why…)

Page 7 Panel 1 “Johnny Law” is what we called the police (and reminds me of my old friend “Johnny Lough’s”) Stan is very savvy with the media, and calls them on his Google Glass. Whatever happened to our cool society where new technology was actually groundbreaking and challenging? (as opposed to “pacifying”?) Who could be opposed to having every second of everything filmed everywhere at once? What could go wrong with that? “5 minutes…” I actually tried to figure out how long it would take them to walk from the Michigan Ave bridge to AT&T plaza. (Not sure what JOjo wrote in the lower left hand corner here… I’ll have to ask him…)

Panel 2 “Old Sluggo” ie Leviathan (or the poor little tough guy in Nancy) also here is the beginning of a LONG string of recycling jokes… Chicago Daily Tribune was my go-to newspaper of choice here, and we see headlines already out, like the old cartoon gag where a newsboy announces the action immediately as it happens (meanwhile, some of the papers are antiques when it cost 2 cents). “Boy Escapes Evil Nuns”, “Hatchet Hero Mysterious Savior”. We see the police cars zipping by the opposite way (to the scene of the crime). We tried to get things like actual Chicago police car colors right, parking signs, bus signs, etc.

Panel 3   More heretical giant intergalactic salmon background. Also more naughty reference to “Godspill” (“spilling his seed on the ground”) and that this is why the Milky Way is white (see videos of salmon fertilizing eggs). Wouldn’t our great-grandchildren be proud to know that the acronym “OMFG” was a tempest in a teapot, once, way back when…

So, more recycling bins: ehyeh asher in an unending circle of celestial salmons (I am who I am, I will be what I will be… etc.) the theme here is watery deaths/abandonment/catastrophe at sea, as we see horrible original newspaper accounts of the people dying in the Lusitania, the Titanic, and the Eastland.

Panel 4 Stan is a cynic, a skeptic (even though he has seen more hyperreal crazy shit than anyone could imagine…): here he explains how insane it is to take the Bible as the Bible. And how people extract an entire way of life, a lawbook, a code of behavior for all to follow or enforce, from an indirect ephemeral ghost-image; all derived from one blurry dot. So the tesseract recycle box is a meta-joke: don’t RE-cycle,  “Un-cycle” (whatever that represents to you…) and we’re throwing away/recycling things that seemed so important at the time: annals of Physics, black hole diagrams, Einstein’s theories being demonstrated in the real world; then, as he told president Roosevelt back in 1939, being turned into atom bombs, killing millions, and winning the Nobel Prize… yeah… recycle this shit…

Page 8 panel 1 the onslaught of recycle boxes continues, unabated: God is projected onto our lives, our society, with the characteristics of a 1950’s idealized American father from TV and the media: man created God in his own image. How in the name of Yaweh did THIS particular set of customs, clothing, language, censorship, hairstyles, everything… how did THIS become the default for the next 64 years?!! Only look at these guys: June and Ward Cleaver, Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, Eugene McCarthy, and J.R. “Bob” Dobbs. Every congressman, every political leader today must conform to these standards, or risk banishment. Ucchh.

Panel 2 when we expect to see God, HE is always Michelangelo’s angry God from the Sistine Chapel (Creation of the Sun and Moon). Stan further lays out his case against organized modern religion, heaven, and hell, and how these mammoth institutions use the cowing and intimidating and exclusion and organizing to foment ANY policy they wish, on whomever they wish, wherever, under the guise of God’s work, God’s will.

The green ($$) recycle bin also features cherubs from Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna”.  The newspaper samples reflect the folly of “Saving up for the future” (Banks failed anyway, squirrel cartoon, stock market crashes), or the “offer this suffering up for the poor souls in purgatory” mentality,  when people were told to get tattoos on their lateral chest skin telling medics what blood type they were in the case of nuclear Armageddon.

Panel 3 yet God-fearing Christians would lynch black people and bring their kids to see the aftermath: another name for religious groups might be “mob rule”, and the official reporting on even terrible public occurrences might not be trustworthy. “ An eye for an eye” (“lex talionis”) may be “Old Testament”, but it’s Dogma to the people in charge today: God’s Law.

The yellow recycle box features some Trinity symbols, which can be both very elaborate and disquieting (I mean creepy).

Panel 4 the theory of “my rightful place”; manifest destiny of white people in modern America. I have and I take because it is the natural order of things (if it involves perpetuating poverty, keeping anyone down…) I do what I have to to keep my station (“for my family, my legacy) We see the red (republican) recycle bin, recycling the Bush family/ the republican legacy, at any cost: and the red white and blue wheel of Karma… it goes around and…

Panel 5 … and around. Now we see the blue recycle bin of democratic promises and jargon, of Obama’s Kennedyesque and Lincolnesque quotes and symbolism. It all just goes around and around. Now the red white and blue wheel of karma is the red white and blue wheel of Captain America’s shield (or Obama’s campaign circle).

Here’s another one of my favorite recurring themes: “God the Father is on his way back here and he’s a gonna be pissed…!”

Panel 6 I’ve been crestfallen, since the 1990’s, to see how people in the public/political spheres just keep repeating patently false claims, over and over, baldly lying, in the media: and if they do it long enough and indignantly enough, it starts to fly as manufactured truth. There’s no such thing as global warming; cigarettes aren’t poisonous, otherwise how could we sell them? I made up this slogan too “Re-cycle Re-ligion” based on all the advertising slogans I’ve seen on recycle posters. And a general theme of the book is “One man’s garbage…”

This version of the Daoist wheel is the Korean tricolor Taeguk. (and no symbol is safe from our satire here… not even “Have a Nice Day”)

Page 9 yes, the first box, the orange box, IS based on “The Architects of Fear”, from the famous twilight zone episode… yes, a guy named Alan Moore recycled this episode for his own graphic novel. So I’m re-recycling it? The scarecrow circle is from the final narration: “Scarecrows and magic and other fatal fears do not bring people closer together. There is no magic substitute for soft caring and hard work, for self-respect and mutual love. If we can learn this from the mistake these frightened men made, then their mistake will not have been merely grotesque, it would at least have been a lesson. A lesson, at last, to be learned.” So I’m basically making fun of myself again here, recycling rehashed now-hackneyed graphic novel themes: “reuse, repackage, recirculate!”

But here’s the new part: maybe the Bible was just an earlier pop-culture touchstone: an easy read, a cliff-notes of actual deep philosophical and ethical thought…? Nahhhhh!

Black coffin/recycling box: mandatory soylent green joke: recycle dead people… as lunch!

Purple box: my favorite unending consumer directive: lather-rinse-repeat-lather-rinse… the idea here is that the Bible’s facile good and evil stories are the equivalent of Marmaduke comics (or Aqua Teen Hunger Force) dumbed down Pablum for the masses. (wait, does that now include second-generation criticisms like Watchmen or 3^rd generation like Sons of God…?)

the white coffin box is the opposite of the black one, “Recycle Life!” aww… it’s a Christogram: HIS… (and “Spread the word to end the word”… some people use words some people hate, some people hate people who use words they hate, some people hate people who are described by hateful words… words words words)

Aqua Teen Hunger Force fans will of course recognize the famous quid pro quo here: the communication breakdown regarding a plague of snakes: “When you say snakes, all I hear is Easter Bunny, Easter Bunny, Easter Bunny…”

The green recycle bin is more recycled comics  about Chicago: from the original dark knight, a black gentleman/hero from the old Pittsburgh Courier, (very different from the one so popular today in movies) tackling a Chicago gangster, to an old Jack Kirby comic about a real life mass murderer in Chicago, to some crappy pretentious Chicago-based meta-comic about religiosity… the recycle symbol is small, but it says “eat, excrete, return to soil, grow…” and the caption is about the never ending circuit of “moral ideas”: Rehash, retread, regurgitate” lame used-up ideas, over and over. History repeats itself, we all think we’re thinking these things for the first time, blab la bla… aren’t we so smart…

The brown coffin/recycle bin is Jesus, alpha and omega, his life summed up in a catchy corporate slogan: “returned, released, reborn…”

Page 10 panel 1a  they’ve arrived at Millennial Park; our garbage truck from issue 1 has also arrived.

 Panel 1 b  Before it can take trash, Stan pulls out a 1611 Holy Bible from the garbage (with little blurbs like “From God’s mouth to your ears” instead of “from your mouth to God’s ears…”) again with the “One man’s garbage…” analogy.

Panel 2a   Stan throws out the pedophile priest’s heart in the velour bag, into the garbage. If you look closely at the garbage in the truck, you might find Felix the Cat: this is a tribute to Todd MacFarlane who worked Felix into so many of his comics (e.g. the early spider man series)

Panel 2b i.e. this whole pseudo religious ritualistic crap is all just garbage (including all the comics and movies and satires like this one)

Panel 3 now we turn our attention to the news and the media, parasitizing the unfortunate victims and the self-important users. Much like the pedophile priest; or the leaders of Society; or of organized religion; We used all real Chicago news trucks, stations and logos. The pink recycle box is of course taken from the famous bible quote “To everything turn turn turn…” like the entire universe…

Page 11 Panel 1 Charlie Sheen was shamelessly splashed everywhere around this time: even on sports talk radio… and Sandy Hook: I heard a Sandy Hook story on NPR EVERY SINGLE DAY for over one year out! Literally one full year… disgusting. And when it wasn’t Sandy Hook, it was George Zimmerman…

Panel 2 by the way, this was before Ron Burgundy 2

Panel 3  another devil clue-joke . the fourth estate is the media. Lighting a candle and reading the bible before bedtime are foreshadowing… 

The Bean must be included in all Chicago stories: it’s the laaaaohwww.

Up here in Maine, people drove cars up into the park to light up the ice rink.

p.s. it’s pretty easy to tell which parts of these pages I inked: jojo’s inking was already professional level when he was 12… (e.g. see Stan vs the McCormick ice rink behind him…)

page 12 panel 1 (I could always color, though…)

I made up another pretty good quote here: “Anyone can walk on water… if it’s cold enough outside.” This is Stan competing with his brother, Jesse. In Stan’s own way…

Panel 3 Stan can’t have the Sons of God find out where he is “Live” on TV, or they would come get him. So he requires the press to do a time delay (so he can escape to his safe/shielded area (Dunning Insane Asylum)  by the way, I love how we bent all the buildings reflections to fit in the Bean. More next-level inking by Jojo.

Back inner sleeve  In the background are all the other things that should be recycled in this context: “recycle proselytism, fundamentalism, belief systems, ways of life, etc.” I can’t remember all of them that got covered up.

Here are the collected recycle boxes. One is changed here: I redid the lime-green images, cravenly redrawing the original Crumb-style cartoon with my own lame carrot/outhouse designs (I still distrust humanure).

Back Cover  “Ars Jojo, literrae ioannis” art jojo, words (or letters) by John (misspelled ioannis)

This is an old Beanie and Cecil joke. After getting walloped and mangled by Dishonest John (as the Blue Beetle), Cecil used to look at the camera and ask “Do you think there’s too much violence on TV these days? Or on cartoons? Etc.

The joke here is the irony of having the hyper-violent nun be the censor, all the while enumerating specifically a list of vicious, violent things: I would never want a little child to read this list of things they can’t read! (and the list shows the bad thoughts, obsessions and intentions of the list’s makers and censors and senators, etc.) This is of course, the text of the famous 1954 Comics Code Criteria:

Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice, or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals.

If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity.

Policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority.

Criminals shall not be presented so as to be rendered glamorous or to occupy a position which creates a desire for emulation.

In every instance good shall triumph over evil and the criminal punished for his misdeeds.

Scenes of excessive violence shall be prohibited. Scenes of brutal torture, excessive and unnecessary knife and gunplay, physical agony, gory and gruesome crime shall be eliminated.

No comic magazine shall use the words "horror" or "terror" in its title.

All scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, masochism shall not be permitted.

All lurid, unsavory, gruesome illustrations shall be eliminated.

Inclusion of stories dealing with evil shall be used or shall be published only where the intent is to illustrate a moral issue and in no case shall evil be presented alluringly, nor so as to injure the sensibilities of the reader.

Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism are prohibited.

Profanity, obscenity, smut, vulgarity, or words or symbols which have acquired undesirable meanings are forbidden.

Nudity in any form is prohibited, as is indecent or undue exposure.

Suggestive and salacious illustration or suggestive posture is unacceptable.

Females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities.

Illicit sex relations are neither to be hinted at nor portrayed. Rape scenes as well as sexual abnormalities are unacceptable.

Seduction and rape shall never be shown or suggested.

Sex perversion or any inference to same is strictly forbidden.

Nudity with meretricious purpose and salacious postures shall not be permitted in the advertising of any product; clothed figures shall never be presented in such a way as to be offensive or contrary to good taste or morals.

From Wikipedia: The Comics Magazine Association of America (CMAA) was formed in September 1954 in response to a widespread public concern over gory and horrific comic-book content.[1] It named New York Magistrate Charles F. Murphy, 44, a specialist in juvenile delinquency, to head the organization and devise a self-policing "code of ethics and standards" for the industry.[1] He established the Comics Code Authority (CCA), basing its code upon the largely unenforced code drafted by the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers in 1948, which in turn had been modeled loosely after the 1930 Hollywood Production Code.[2] This code banned graphic depictions of violence and gore in crime and horror comics, as well as the sexual innuendo of what aficionados refer to as "good girl art". Fredric Wertham's 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent had rallied opposition to this type of material in comics, arguing that it was harmful to the children who made up a large segment of the comic book audience. The Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency hearings in 1954, which focused specifically on comic books, had many publishers concerned about government regulation, prompting them to form a self-regulatory body instead.

More references, Issue 2:

Page 7 panel 3 Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_that_I_Am (Ehyeh asher ehyeh literally translates as "I Am Who I Am." The ancient Hebrew of Exodus 3:14 lacks a future tense such as modern English has, yet a few translations render this name as "I Will Be What I Will Be," given the context of Yahweh's promising to be with his people through their future troubles.[1] Both the literal present tense "I Am" and the future tense "I will be" have given rise to many attendant theological and mystical implications in Jewish tradition. However, in most English Bibles, in particular the King James Version, the phrase is rendered as I am that I am.)

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/eastland-disaster-killed-more-passengers-titanic-and-lusitania-why-has-it-been-forgotten-180953146/One of the greatest inland waterways disasters in the history of the United States took place in the Chicago River, Chicago, Ill., July 24, 1915, when the steamship Eastland capsized with a loss of near 850 lives.

http://galleries.apps.chicagotribune.com/chi-0720-eastland-disaster-pictures-pg/ even more heartbreaking when you see actual photos of the people who died and think of their lives…

page 7 panel 4 einstein’s letter to Roosevelt about a nuclear bomb http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/18-chain-reaction-from-einstein-to-the-atomic-bomb

Page 8 Panel3 "Only one eye for one eye"[1], also known as "An eye for an eye", or the law of retaliation, is the principle that a person who has injured another person is to be penalized to a similar degree, or in softer interpretations, the victim receives the [estimated] value of the injury in compensation.[2] The intent behind the principle was to restrict compensation to the value of the loss.[1]

The principle is sometimes referred using the Latin term lex talionis or the law of talion. The English word talion (from the Latin talio[1]) means a retaliation authorized by law, in which the punishment corresponds in kind and degree to the injury.

Page 10 panel 2a http://www.cbr.com/comic-book-legends-revealed-289/

Page 11 panel 2 https://jmcpherson.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/mottos-for-journalism/  so funny: gotta put these in here:

“Roy Peter Clarke at the Poynter Institute on Monday called for entries for a six-word motto for contemporary journalism. He got the idea from a similar contest for a new American motto, proposed by Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics, and a friend of Dubner’s (The winner of that one, by the way: “Our worst critics prefer to stay.”)

Going for quantity over quality, I fired off 14 entries. This morning Clarke announced the top 10 and runners-up from among the hundreds submitted (suggesting he touched a nerve among journalists and journalism educators), and I found my name on the list five times. Some suggestions were better than any of mine, however (including Clarke’s own “Feed the watchdog, euthenize the lapdog”–which he was persuaded by popular demand to include among the finalists–and “Last one out, turn off the lights,” “Need more Knight, less Ridder” and “See no evil, write no story”). My other favorites include Ryan Kelly’s “Dirty commie latte-sipping liberal scum,” Ken Fuson’s “Doing more with less since 1690” and “We’re sorry about all the trees,”  and Lois Collins’ “We won’t bore you with context.” I’ll list them all here:

Top Ten Picks:

Doing more with less since 1690. Ken Fuson, Des Moines Register

We’ll always have Paris … or Britney — Jim McPherson, Whitworth University

It’s how I change the world. — Nick Escobar, The Elgin (Ill.) CourierNews

Get it right, write it tight. — Margaret McDonald, McDonald Wordsmith Communications

They’ll miss us when we’re gone. — Scott Powers, Patrick McGeehan, Matthew Jones, John Davenport

Feed the lapdog, euthanize the watchdog — Roy Peter Clark

Who, what, when, where, why, Web — Greg Phillips, The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer

Facts, schmacts … how is my hair? — Kathy Sweeney, anchor/investigative reporter, Heartland News

Dirty commie latte-sipping liberal scum — Ryan Kelly, Christopher Newport University

Please stop griping, now start typing. — Jeff Unger, University of Illinois

Honorable Mentions:

We’re sorry about all the trees — Ken Fuson

We checked: Our mother still loves us — Ken Fuson

Stop the presses! Oh, you did. — Jim McPherson

Information you can trust until tomorrow — Jim McPherson

No news is not good news — J. David Knepper and Leah Etling

Black and white, but not green enough — Robert Timmons

How many inches is the truth? — Casey Bartels

Got stry – will txt u asap — Lynn McMahon

Seek the truth, not the money — Angele’ Anderfuren

Not tonight, dear. I’m on deadline — Christopher Ortiz

We don’t make this shit up — Deb Sutton

Writers’ block is on Fleet Street — Anand Raj

Dead wood floats. So can we — Ray Martinez

A journalist’s work is never done — Randy Rogers

If we go, who will know? — Steve Riley

History’s first version, updated every minute — Rebecca Jones

Five Double You and One Age (Quinque Bi Tu Et Unum Aetas) — Sebastian Moraga

We break stuff. Like the news — Ryan Kelly

Critical thinking? We outsourced to India — Dennis Alchemist

It beats working for a living — Jim Naughton

Speak truth to power, or else — Peter Gates

Journalistic bias? There’s no stinking bias! — Tim Owens

Journalism lives where the truth lies — Daneja Kirkland

But this IS my day job! — Mike Gruss

We won’t bore you with context — Lois M. Collins

News now: We’ll fix it later — Lois M. Collins

Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy! No, seriously. Accuracy! — Tim Schulte

Every silver lining has a cloud — David Vossbrink

Must be readable on the crapper! — Michael Sweeney

Eye on the ball; ear on the ground — Peter Dannenberg

Mainstream media: We’re your grandfather’s blog — Jim McPherson

Filling the space between the ads — Jim McPherson

Write the truth between the lines — Lynn McMahon

Ding dong, the print is dead — Russel Nichols

There’s a period key. Use it. — Dan Close

Journalism: Sizing down, so bottom’s up! — Matthew Cate

Pyramids to blogosphere, and everywhere in between — Bill West

Incidentally, my other suggestions were:

“Buns of steel exercise plan: Interactivity.”

“Front page scoop, inside page correction.”

“Untruth, injustice and the American fray.”

“Tracking down YouTube’s best for you”

“Spanning the country for campaign gaffes.”

“Don’t hate us because we’re dutiful.”

“Poll says we should shut up.”

“Sobriety is for news, not journalists.”

“Telling you what to think about.” (for the agenda setting scholars)

Back cover  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredric_Wertham interesting Frederic wertham bio, especially regarding later critical evaluations of his work:

Among the criticisms leveled at Seduction of the Innocent are that Wertham used a non-representative sample of young people who were already mentally troubled, that he misrepresented stories from colleagues as being his own, and that Wertham manipulated statements from adolescents by deliberately neglecting some passages while rephrasing others such that they better suited his thesis.

 “In 2013, scholar Carol Tilley reexamined Wertham's personal archives and concluded that he had skewed his data to make it appear as if comic books were more harmful. Tilley claimed that Wertham "played fast and loose with the data he gathered on comics".[11] This work was the first to confirm that Wertham willfully distorted the data used to indict comic books as a cause of juvenile delinquency.

In 2014, documentary filmmaker Robert A. Emmons Jr. produced the documentary Diagram for Delinquents, which details the complicated and controversial history of Fredric Wertham and comic books in the 1940s and 1950s.[12] The film's goal is to create a more complex picture of Wertham than has previously been depicted in comic book documentaries.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority awesome article about the comics code!

Disclaimer: I am fully aware of just how Zimsky this is: writing down all these sources and inspirations and references for… well, for posterity. Theyah!