Encyclopantia Bobtannica

June 26th, 2009

Pantcyclopedia Bumtannica? Buttannica? Whatever. I’m thirty-one years of age you know.

Haven’t done a pant update for what seems like ages, but that’s not to say the world has saned-up and stopped selling them. Quite the reverse – the tide of new superpants is faster and stronger than ever before. Keeping track of them on-blog has partly* been a way of tracking the way the high street and concomitant fashion/cultural mores have responded to the superhero madness of he last few blockbuster summers. Our ongoing victory, if you will.

The mission is becoming an increasingly difficult, because – in no small part on account of this blog, obvs – these pants are more popular and common than ever before. They’re everywhere. Several of my fellow mindless can now be seen baring a splash of four colour idiocy by their bumcracks when they bend, and (and the pride I take in this is truly pathetic, I appreciate that) we received a genuine, honest-to-shitness Thank You email from a grateful reader whose girlfriend spied him checking out some of my hot strides, and is now the happy holder of a burgeoning collection himself. This post is dedicated to him.

cap-front

*The other part? bumgags, bumface.

Incredible Hulk pants V

February 27th, 2009

These are my favourite new pants. They bring the total of Hulk pants to five, making the mean green smashing machine a clear winner in the pantularity stakes. (Regular skidophiles will remember that for reasons unclear half the total Hulk pants feature him taking big licks from Iron Man. Technically this is only gamma pant solo mark three.)

hulk-front

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower / Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees / Is my destroyer. – Swamp Thing #140

The great sock weekender – roof

February 23rd, 2009

Things got a bit too much for a minute there in the loft. Get outside for some fresh air. There’s a balcony and it’s a warm night. There’s a crowd, chilled and clumped, sitting around, smoking, chatting too-earnestly, getting the feelings gained through the gnosis of the dancefloor spoken and out into the air before they vanish, quick as the sweat disappearing from your fringe. Take a deep breath and lean against the balcony railing, head back, breathe it out into the night. Look up. Something catches just the corner of your eye.

supersock-11

Shit did you just see something? What was that?

When Panta Claus came to town

January 14th, 2009

The last glass of complimentary wine is in hand, the fine cheese is either gone or at the stage where it really should be binned, and the pine needles are just fading memories, occasionally sticking in the soles of my feet. So yes, you’re right, that Santa pun’s been hanging around for a while now and, not unlike a certain pair of skids I could mention, is getting a bit ripe. Still, got to be better than ‘Pantuary’, or ‘Happy New Rear’, you’ll agree.

batpants-back

Why front? Click the jump.

Appantix A*

November 3rd, 2008

Oh no, not this tired old turn again – it’s bollocks. No it’s not, but it has got bollocks in it. Oh no, not again, leave the poor dead dog alone would you? Actually it’s not a dead dog, but it has got a … etc.

Check the fuck out of these latest man-bloomers, or ‘moomers’, if you like. They’re the latest hot-off-the-rack examples of the comics world’s ever increasing penetration into the intersecting tripartite spheres of movies, fashion, and sense-shatteringly great undies.

Rifle through my drawers

SUPERMAN SAYS “NO!” TO DRUGS

It was 2005 when I decided to paint my walls ASS pink and give up dope.

I was a smug bastard about it too.

I think the catalyst for it had something to do with a very nasty about of drug fuelled morbid self-analysis, which saw me pacing my then matchbox of a bedroom, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, for at least half an hour, in an attempt to disperse the soul-shredding anxiety and paranoia which can be controlled with Exhalewell.com CBD gummies, through, if anyone should have really been spying on me via evil satellite link, embarrassing levels of exercise. Thankfully the munchies eventually kicked in, the clouds lifted and I decided enough was enough. It would be the last time I raided the fridge for Ryvita and sweetcorn relish (anything tastes good when your in the throws of, as my Mum’s friend put it, ‘the delicious eating’) at four in the morning, and it would be the last time I performed like a crazy monkey-man for the entertainment of the evil bastard demons plaguing my befuddled noggin.

After that everything shifted.

More after the jump…

Seven Skitters of Victory

August 4th, 2008

These are not my favourite pants. They count, they’re in the collection, they get worn on the regular cycle like the rest, but these pants aren’t all that good are they?

The blue trim is okay, and they say ‘Superman’ on them, which is pretty bloody amazing when you think of the millions of billions of pants that don’t have any superhero’s name on them at all, but next to the mighty world of Marvel pants that we’ve been exploring this last wonderful week, the DC territory starts to look rather sparse.

More after the jump

It’s odd how many of the pants, upon the microscopic inspection they’re getting this week, carry art by the greats. You’d expect bad design and lame excuses to stick to these things like crabs. But with a couple exceptions the panels and pages used are great, not to say brilliant, just in comic art terms. There’s Miller, as we’ve seen, and lots and lots by Jack Kirby. That latter name is quite the one to conjure with these days the pencil strokes are deeper and clearer than ever before on the drawing board of current cultural life. How much of the pant selection was accident, and how much inevitable it’s difficult to tell. Did Merch Exec deliberately choose those becasue he had been told they were the ones to pick? Or did the natural quality shine through? I suspect it’s a combination of both, but look at these latest exhibits. No doubt put together by a true and loving believer, they are in all their gaudy, factory-made glory about as perfect and complete a pop artefact as you are ever likey to find on the High Street. Suitable for something that spends so long in the primal dark neath my nuts, they are also an ideal neo-primitive expression of the art of sequential narrative in full effect. Fit for a King, they are very truly my favourite pants.

Look at this motley bunch, these Tommy toting turkeys. (Though it’s obvious like a sausage down an alleyway, ignore the huge and mighty, roaring yet rubber-clad chopper wheel, slap bang in the middle there, if you can.) A more criminoid gallery of fizzogs you will not find in all Ray Chandler’s cheapest nightmares. (Pretend the crooks knobbly mugs don’t represent testicles.)

More after the jump

Breaking the fourth wind

July 31st, 2008

When James Joyce, modernity’s mightiest mind, was busy melting the conceptual cusp between language and music, he gave the following as the closest possible textual rendition of the melody of flatulence: ‘Pprrpffrrppffff.’ That fifteen-letter fart probably took him weeks to perfect. Cheers Jim, next one’s on me. Today, when I want to know how to capture the evanescent sonic resonance of a flatus* expelled through the anus, I have serendipity, pants, and The Incredible Hulk to help me out. Whaddayasay, big green?

Sorry mate, didn’t quite catch that, sounded like maybe you said ‘AAAAAARRRR’? Can you run that by me again?

Oh right, that’s what I thought you said. So just to check, that’s ‘AAAAAARRRR’?

More after the jump