He's 1!

I wish I had more time to jot something down, but I just wanted you all to know that Swinebread Jr. is One-year-old today!

We had a birthday party this last weekend. It was so much fun. It was just family but everyone had a wonderful time especially Swinebread Jr.


Of course the party's theme was spiderman... except for the cake which was Looney Tunes.

Junior's headband says Taisho, which means big boss.

I just can't believe it's been a whole year!

Happy Birthday Oh son of mine.


-Swinebread

Jr. No-No's

I'm thinking that playing Axis & Allies is NOT something that I should do in my household.

Little Swinebread would have to play Germany all the time so he wouldn't deveolop some sort of complex... and that, in and of itself, would make him absolutely develop one.

Can you imagine him creating an atomic bomb and using it in this game?! *shiver*

I guess I'll have to stick with Arkham Horror and Samurai Swords (formally known as Shogun).

I've had board games on the mind lately... not that I have the time or opportunity to play them...


-Swinebread

What's been going on in blurbs.

I’ve sworn off Marvel Comics… well, at least the pamphlet kind. I refuse to pay 4 bucks for a single comic book. Considering their new pricing model now, it seems like the best thing to do. I’ve found myself really tempted by Marvel’s 70th Anniversary titles and the Marvel Pets but I held firm and it feels good. On the other hand, I’m more open to picking up Marvel trades and Hardcovers. My comic shop had a big sale a while ago with either 50% off or a straight price of 10 bucks on hardcovers.

Because of this I picked up
Annihilation: Countdown Volumes One & Two. Great, well written cosmic adventures
Annihilation Classic. I just adore all these cosmic characters especially Rocket Raccoon
Marvel Monsters. A collection of old and new Kaiju-ish stories featuring creatures from Marvel’s age of monsters. The Devil Dinosaur and Fin Fang Four stories rocked.
Marvel Westerns. A collection of old and new stories featuring characters from Marvel’s Western line. The Hurricane story is probably the best Superhero,Weird Western I’ve ever read.
Marvel Visionaries: John Buscema. His early stuff, plus a random smattering of latter stories.


Speaking of cosmic characters, I really enjoyed the Annihilation stuff so much that I went out and bought Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy trades. I got most of them used at Powell’s. (My new goal is to buy mostly used and/or "on sale" comic trades as much as possible) Reading this new Nova series has been great. I’m fan of the original Nova series from way back in the 1970s, but I have been really disappointed with how he’s been depicted since. This current series finally achieves the cosmic potential that the Nova character has always had but was always ignored.


No More My New Comics?
I kinda figured what was the point since I’ve cut down to 0-2 titles a week. I guess I could do a monthly My New Comics but I’ve since fallen out of practice of doing it… It’s just not as much fun with the same few title every month.


The wife and I just watched Dororo. It’s a live-action Japanese adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s manga of the same name. It’s pretty good with all kinds of traditional Japanese monsters and sengoku period swordplay. If you’re interested in fantasy samural stories check it out.


I did see Star Trek but never did a review. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I loved how the film brought back some of the humor of TOS. There were a few story problems especially a bunch of coinkydink stuff that I noticed after I left the theater, but all and all, a very fun film. The only thing I straight up just hated were the engine rooms… that stuff looked just like something out of MST3K. My fears for this film and the Star Trek Universe were unfounded. I’m glad I was wrong. Now Paramount, DO NOT PUT KHAN IN THE NEXT FILM. Try something new please.


Several months ago, YouTube pulled my Devo, Beautiful World, video. It lasted a little over a year.


I’ve been watching Showtime’s new show Nurse Jackie…. It’s very entertaining and Edie Falco’s character here is much more interesting than Carmella Soprano ever was. Some nurses have problems with the show but what’s getting me down is the tiredness I have for ER/hospital shows… couldn’t we have a program about park rangers or Travel agents or science fiction writers… basically the networks and cable stations are Lazy because it’s easy to find the drama in cop, law, and hospital shows.


I happened to see Vol 1 and 2 of the 1990s animated X-men show last month, so I snapped these DVDs right up. Despite the fact that we've got Gambit and Jubilee, instead of Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde) on the regular team, this is as close as we are ever gonna get to good adaptions of the comics. No extra features but that's OK because all the room on the disks went to ensuring the episodes are top quality.


But most of all I've been spending my time taking care of Swinebread Jr. Wow! It's been almost a year since he was born.


-Swinebread

Happy Father's Day

I so glad there is something wondeful to focus on this Sunday. Today is my first Father's Day! Little Swinebread Jr. is almost eleven months now and is absolutely into all kinds of mischief. Me and the misses have to watch him like a hawk.


-Swinebread

Sorry I've been absent from the blog but Swinebread Jr. has been pretty sick. There is so much I want to talk about and I haven't even been able to... I still need to post about the Stumptown Comics Fest. :(

Just when when I think my son is getting better, he relapses again. :(

Also, I wanna thank Dean Wormer for keep things going around here. :)


-Swinebread

There's No Business Like Josh Business

How can I do another post on Atomic Romance after my friend Josh died? It just seems pointless and extremely crass. Also, the sadness is just unbearable.

But I’ve been thinking a lot about Josh’s worldview since he passed and about what a considerate guy he was. Would Josh really want me to stop doing something others and I enjoy… …of course not. He would absolutely want me to continue with Atomic Romance. He was an actor after all (among other things) and the “show must go on” would actually be something he would tell me about this. Plus, Josh loved comic books and superheroes. I’ve realized that I’d be letting him down by not continuing.

How do I restart the wacky narrative that is Atomic Romance? How do I push passed the death of one the most important people in the world to me when all I want to do is keeping talking about him forever? I don’t want Josh Westhaver to be just a guest star or a couple of posts here on Atomic Romance. Well, that’s why I started the Memories of Joshua Westhaver. I want the discussion about how great he was to go on forever and it will. There are just too many memories from too many lives to let Josh go silently into the night.

On another note several people thanked me at the Remembrance Ceremony for my posts about Josh here on Atomic Romance and for starting the Memories of Joshua Westhaver blog. That warmed my heart. All I can say back is thank you for caring about Josh so much.

To get things restarted here with a little bit of joy, I thought I’d share something with you that many have been waiting for. I’ve been kinda weird about posting pictures of Swinebread Jr. on the net but I thought now was a good time for you all to see how much I’m truly blessed and what it is that has been keeping me and the wife going during these very sad days. I give you my son.


What a beautiful bundle of joy huh?

So it is with much tears for what we have all lost and with much hope from the children in our lives that Atomic Romance returns to it’s regularly scheduled blogging… only now it has a sister site dedicated to a great human being that I’ll miss for as long as I live.


-Swinebread

Warp Their Minds From the Beginning

We received lots of wonderful and useful gifts from friends and family for Swinebread Jr. but Dean Wormer really knows how get the programming going early. Thanks buddy!

My son will wear these loud and proud.

Cthulhu fhtagn!

-Swinebread

It Went So Quickly...

Swinebread Jr.'s grandma went back to Japan today. There was much crying. She's been such a big help to all three of us it just seems strange that she won't be here anymore. It was so special to have her here for the baby's birth but now she's gone. She'll only get to see him once a year at most.

We tried to give her as much time as possible with her grandson these last few days. She greatly appreciated that, but she made sure her face was turned away so we wouldn't see her tears as she held our son.



-Swinebread

Everybody Wants to See the Baby

We’ve been keeping Swinebread Jr. at home and away from the crowds. He’s been putting on a lot weight and he’s starting to look like a Rubenesque Cherub. We had a small medical scare yesterday but our little one is completely healthy and happy, so no worries.

It’s funny because the baby on this Alien Encounters cover almost looks like Swinebread Jr. I’ve observed that expression from him several times already. Hmmm… I wonder what he’s really seeing when he does his baby gawk.


-Swinebread

Aquaman Arrives

Rob!, the curator of the wonderful Aquaman Shrine, (and other outstanding blogs), sent me a gift for my newly born son… an Aquaman doll. Very cool of him indeed to do such a thing, apparently he has a tradition of sending out an Aquaman to all the families he knows that have been blessed with a new baby.

Thanks so much Rob! It’s very much appreciated. I’ll make sure Swinebread Jr. has this gift as part of his collection when he’s old enough. As you can see from the picture Aquaman made it out to Oregon just fine, but I had Dr. Gumby check him out just to be on the safe side. ☺ The SO really likes the doll too. She’s not very familiar with American superheroes but she thinks Aquaman is cute. Heh, heh all the girls say that don’t they.

Make sure you stop by Rob!’s blogs for really fantastic comic book memories and info. His stuff is so good in fact, that he’ll be published in Back issue Magazine soon.

Hat’s Off Rob! Much gratitude from Atomic Romance.

Aquaman forever!



-Swinebread

Manga-ized

My brother-in-law's girlfriend drew a picture of my family in honor of the birth of Swinebread Jr. and sent it to us from Japan. Isn't it great? It doesn't look like us and it looks exactly like us at the same time, amazing.


-Swinebread

My New Comics... The Birth of My Son Edition

This week’s best cover is Ambush Bug: Year None #1.


You might come to the conclusion that I’m a hardcore freak. How could I possibly even pick up my comics right after my son was born right? Well, it wasn’t like that… really! My wife demanded salad rolls from one of our favorite Vietnamese restaurants and what ever my wife that just gave birth wants, she gets. This restaurant just happens to be across the street from the comic book store. So I thought, what the hell and swung by to get this week’s small stack. I do wonder though, if this was her unconscious way of allowing me to get my weekly dose of comics? she’s the greatest. Ambush Bug comes out the same week as the birth of my son. It doesn’t get any better than that…

…OK, maybe I am a hardcore freak…

She-Hulk #31, Marvel Comics.

Fall of Cthulhu #14, Boom Studios. Now we know why the Harlot was so pissed off.

Pistolfist #1, Bluewater Comics. Revolutionary War Superheroic action.

Black Summer #6, Avatar. The explosive end.

Ambush Bug: Year None #1, DC Comics. The return of the thought balloon, and other zanyness. I’ve sure got a new appreciation of Buggy’s relationship with his son, Cheeks the Toy Wonder. nyuck, nyuck, nyuck!



-Swinebread

Birth

It’s awfully hard to describe what I’m feeling. The birth of my son has been such an epiphany of joy. Of course it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to bring him into the world and I felt so terrible that my wife had to go through such pain, but now she’s doing great and we’re so happy with our beautiful son.

The events began at about 12:30 AM on the 22nd when my SO woke me up with word that her water had broke. Half in a sleepy daze, I ran around the house making sure we had everything, which we did of course because my wife had packed the week before. So, it was off to the hospital with a cool breeze on a warm summer night.

They triaged my wife first before they moved us to a birthing room where her contractions slowly increased throughout the day. Since we were both at the maternity ward we had to activate our backup plan and have my sister’s husband (Snabulus) pick up my mother-in-law. That’s right; mom was actually on a plane over the Pacific Ocean when my SO’s water broke. Hence Snab was kind enough to bring her straight to the hospital. We were worried that she wouldn’t make it but she did.

My Dad also stopped by, and I could tell his head was in the clouds because he was about to be a grandpa again. He can be a little clueless sometimes though, because he wanted to have one of those hospital chats, while my wife was having spasms of pain. So eventually, I led him out to the waiting area, which worked out well because Snab came back to the hospital with my teenage niece in tow. She kept Dad entertained for a while until he went home to get some sleep as he had worked the nightshift.

The pain got so bad for my wife later in the day that she opted for an epidural. She found some relief for a time and was actually able to talk to her mother that had flown all the way from Japan. My niece decided to stay for the birth and I tasked her with taking pictures, as I knew that my wife would need me when the time came to push.

My wife practiced pushing several times but our son just wasn’t quite low enough until about 7:30 P.M. The Doc had stated earlier that he thought the baby would arrive by sundown. He would be right. When the really hard pushing began we all cheered my wife on but she was in such pain and the epidural wasn’t doing anything by that point. The Doc and the nurse had to instruct her how to push properly so she wouldn’t get too tired and also so she wouldn’t blow out all the blood vessels in her face.

When we were about halfway through the pushing, my mother-in-law was overcome with emotion and walked over and said something in Japanese to her daughter with tears in her eyes. Her feelings were so mixed because here was her only daughter writhing in the worst pain imaginable and yet her grandson was being born.

By this time of night, I was actually having mild auditory and visual hallucinations because I was so tired but when my wife gave a huge final push and I heard my son’s loud cry, all my tiredness went away and tears welled up in my eyes as they placed him all bloody and gooey on my wife’s chest. My wife was now a Mom and I was now a Dad. Amazing.

My niece was snapping pictures like crazy and she got a good one of me cutting the cord. Somehow all these nurses showed up out of nowhere and began weighing and cleaning my tiny little boy and also attending to my wife. He was so blue but he began to turn pink right away. He was (is) so perfect and cute too. I couldn’t wait to hold him and when I did my brain exploded… …when it reassembled itself, I just wasn’t the same person. My niece got a shot of that moment too.

Finally, when I was able to remember who I was, I returned to my wife just as they had removed the rest of the placenta and cleaned her up. We brought the baby over to suckle and my wife was so happy to finally be able to see her boy because she didn’t have her glasses on before.

Eventually we made our way to another room and collapsed from exhaustion. Ready to spend the rest of our lives caring for our little one.

It’s so strange, in the days since our son’s arrival because having him around seems like the most natural thing, like he’s always been with us. It’s a surreal and wonderful feeling all in one. I also realized that for a moment I knew what it felt like to be superhuman (sort of), because when I saw the birth of my son and held him in my arms for the first time I realized that my wife and I together had created life. That life being the little one we now live and breathe for.



-Swinebread

The Amazing Super-Baby

Just a quick post to let you all know he's here! The Amazing Swinebread Jr. Super-baby is really here!

He's healthy and so is his mom!

He was born at 8:30 P.M. on July 22nd.

more to come soon.


-Swinebread

Return of the Bug

In honor of Ambush Bug’s triumphant return to comics this week, I dug up this old DC house add from 1986. It’s for buggy’s second miniseries Son of Ambush Bug.

And nope, my son isn't here yet but I sure have been talking to my wife's belly to coax him out. I know it will be this week though.

I can see it now: "well son, you were born the same week Ambush Bug: Year None came out and ah.. the Dark Knight busted box-office records..."

Memory through pop-culture... *gulp*

I don't know if I'm gonna laugh or cry this week... ...yeah, yeah I know, it's both...


-Swinebread

Comic Book Baby Blues

First off, let me apologize for not responding to all of your comments and for not posting comments to all of your blogs. I’ve been a tad busy getting ready for our new baby. He can come at any time now and the wife and I have been getting our last few things done that we need to, like going berry picking for the last time in a good long while. Hopefully I’ll get one good sweep or two by everybody’s blogs before I’m outta’ the loop for period of time.

I’ve been having some weird thoughts about comics that I thought I’d share.



The Memin Pinguin thing got me thinking about my Spirit Archives. I’ve got volumes one through ten only. I just haven’t been able to justify, as married man, the expense of a 50-dollar book every few months. Sadly it’s volume eleven when things are supposed to get really good for the Spirit title. One through ten are kinda “meh.” I really love the spirit comics (volume 2) from my time reading the reprints published by Kitchen Sink Press. They were great because they were regular sized comics that had new cover art by Eisner and had black and white interiors, which I enjoy more than the color versions. When DC announced that they were publishing collections of the Spirit I was pretty happy but I would have preferred an affordable set of trades.


Regardless, I was quite shocked by how grotesque Ebony White was depicted in the early Spirit stuff. I knew he was pretty stereotyped from the later adventures I’d read in the Kitchen Sink Comics but man, the stuff in early Volumes is really ugly. I kept buying though, hoping I’d get the Spirit I knew (which I discovered later was post WWII). Where was P’Gell, Sand Saref and the Octopus? Where was the deft skill with which Eisner had crafted the Spirit stories? We’ll for the most part it’s not in the volumes I have. I’ve been considering selling these books for a long time, but now with a kid on the way maybe I really need to get rid of them. The problem is that the first 2 volumes are autographed by Eisner himself made out to me. These are the two that have the worst depictions of Ebony. *Sigh*… I wish… I wish would have had him sign my copies of the Kitchen Sink Spirit Comics instead…

In a similar vein, I was reading the latest issue AC Comics Mystery Men with a story about the Hood. He was smashing up a Japanese saboteur ring. The story was quite ridiculous with the saboteurs disguising themselves as cowboys while wearing suicide bomb vests. But it got me thinking… I’m gonna have a biracial child. He’ll be half Japanese. Obviously, I wouldn’t let him see this at a young age, but should I chuck out all my comics that cover WWII? Should I throw out my All-Stars Squadron comics, my Invaders comics and Captain America comics? What kind of affect could this have on him? Seeing big strong American Superheroes beating the shit out of Japanese villains might screw with his head right? I like superheroes a lot, and WWII is a big part of the superhero mystique. So, I’m a little at a loss of what to do. I’m probably overacting but I’m worried that my collection of Usagi Yojimbo books ain't gonna be enough to counteract any harm that may be done.

Just some thoughts I'm having...


-Swinebread

Toys for a Tot

I don’t want to turn this into the Swinebread Jr.’s blog, this is Atomic Romance after all, but where my pending son’s life intersects with pop culture and comics, I’ll happily post away. I might start another blog if I feel the need to talk extensively about my upcoming fatherhood. Anyway, here are a couple of fun shots.

The first is a shelf of toys from SB jr’s room. Don’t worry it’s up high where he won’t be able to get his hands on anything for years to come and we’ve got other age appropriate toys.


From left to right: Baby Bugs cloth book, Ultraman, Spiderman bank, Totoro, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Owly, some random rabbit behind him, Peter Rabbit, another random rabbit (in back), Mr. Usaji [portmanteau of the words usagi (うさぎ?), (rabbit), and jii-chan (じいちゃん?) (grandpa)] He’s a supporting character on Domokun’s NHK show, Nyan-mage the Edo Wonderland mascot cat. Plus there’s a little hippy Volkswagen Bug in front.

The prevalence of bunny rabbits is due to Mrs. Swinebread. She likes rabbits quite a bit. I think Easter is her favorite American holiday based on Rabbit imagery alone.

Looks like I’ll need to pick up a plush Smurf, Godzilla, Vulcan, and Cthulhu to round this set out properly. Heh heh…


This second pic is an image of Swinebread Jr.’s new kid-sized rocking chair. It’s currently occupied by the Wolf-man, the bride of Frankenstein, and a Tribble.


-Swinebread

Born to the Comic Books

I’ve just read Conan: Born On the Battlefield and I have to say I’m very impressed. I’ve always been interested in the rain soaked landscaped of Cimmeria, (maybe because I’m an Oregonian?) and Conan’s boyhood. This volume provides all that and more in spades. Plus, Greg Ruth’s art is a gift that just keeps on a giving. He’s got an amazing watercolor style that captures both the moody nature of the barbarian’s homeland and the thrill of combat. Here we have the literal birth of a heroic icon and his formative years as a boy and teenager. I recommend this volume, and in fact, I highly recommend Born on the Battlefield to women. If you’ve been looking for an “in” on the whole Conan phenomenon, this is a great place to start, partially because it’s really the beginning of Conan’s story and because this trade is just that good.


You can see from these two frames just how wonderful the art is. It’s hard to imagine what Conan the baby could really look like but Greg Ruth pulled it off superbly. Here, Conan is a newborn but you can still see his power and willfulness that becomes so memorable in his adult adventures.

When I read Born On the Battlefield and took in this image of baby Conan, I came to a decision to reveal something to all of you, my blogger friends, that’s going to drastically change my life in ways that I can’t even imagine yet. My SO is pregnant and in just a few weeks she will give birth to our son. It’s an amazing thing to wrap one’s head around, and I’m sure glad you get nine months to get used to the idea. We actually discovered Mrs. Swinebread was pregnant while on our short trip to Japan, which was nice because the information lifted my in-laws spirits at a sad time.

I had planned on waiting until the baby was born and surprise all of you with the news, but I realized that I will have no time when my son arrives for blogging beyond a few posts here and there. You all might have noticed that I’ve been a tad neglectful when is comes to commenting, which I apologize for, but much of my free time has been taken up with preparations for the baby. Rest assured though, Atomic Romance will continue although with more brevity.

There are so many thoughts, worries, and joys that keep swirling around my brain. I’m so afraid that I could be too forgetful or clumsy and somehow Swinebread Jr. would get hurt. But then I remember that everybody has these fears and I’m just joining the club. Soon, I will unite with those of you that have children. I’ll begin the long and paradoxically quick journey of watching my son be born, grow into a boy, then teenager, and finally a man. At least, I hope with all of my being that I will.

I haven’t much of a legacy to share with my son but I do have a large comic book collection that I built from the time I was 12 years old. All of these four-color adventures will now be his to explore. I keep getting images of teaching my son to read with the help of Tin Tin, Asterix and Spiderman. Of course, at some point I’ll introduce him to Conan and the Hyborian World as well. But I can’t be neglectful of his Japanese heritage either, and tons of amazing children’s manga will fill his bookshelves too. He will be able to speak and read in two very different languages, wow. It will be a real joy to discover what his interests will be and support him in whatever he chooses to do. I just hope his father’s eccentric comic collecting gives him a boost in exploring all the bold possibilities in life.

But what I really wanna know is, will Swinebread Jr. be Marvel or DC? Heh heh, just kidding, he can be what ever he wants. I just want him to read something including novels.

Soon I will be a Dad and the Real adventure will begin.


-Swinebread