Watch the third one for a special treat for our kind.

How would you like to wake up and find one of these beasties going through your marshmallows? :

The giant rat is about five times the size of a typical city rat, says Kristofer Helgen, a scientist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, US.

“With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the camp several times during the trip,” he says.

{Via Neil Gaiman]

It’s the real-life inspiration for Pikachu and almost as cute! The very rare and mysterious long-eared jerboa of the Gobi desert has been caught on film for the first time!:

The long-eared jerboa, a tiny nocturnal mammal that is dwarfed by its enormous ears, can be found in deserts in Mongolia and China.

Zoological Society of London (ZSL) scientist Jonathan Baillie said the footage was helping researchers to learn more about the mysterious animal.

The species is classified as endangered on the IUCN Red list.

Videos of the long-tailed, giant-eared little fellas hopping about are on beyond adorable.

We want one!!!

[Thanks to Maclaine for the link.]actors porn moviesmorgan brittany actress pornactresses movies softporn ofarabes pornos actricesporno actrizesfree movies actually pornadam porn kochtaylor porn adam star Map

Discovered by teenage paleontologist!

Nature is cruel.

Al Columbia’s cover for MOME 10. [Via Flog]

Here in this very blog, people were complaining the other day that Neil Gaiman always wears the same leather jacket. Well that is not ALWAYS the case, as this bee blog explains, going so far as to post a picture of Gaiman in a white beekeeping suit! That’s Neil failing to wear gloves while stirring up a hive of angry bees. We think you can guess what happened next.

Speaking of Gaiman, CBR caught him on the red carpet of the Scream Awards for some talk about SANDMAN:

A few months ago in CBR’s Lying in the Gutters, Rich Johnston reported that a new Neil Gaiman “Sandman” miniseries, originally planned to commemorate the 25 th anniversary of the ground-breaking title, fell apart when publisher DC Comics and Gaiman couldn’t come to a suitable arrangement. “Basically, there were people at DC who wanted to make it happen, and there were people at DC who were not prepared to do very much to make it happen,” Gaiman told CBR News. “They were perfectly happy for me to write it as long as we wrote it on the same terms that I started writing ‘Sandman’ on in 1987, but nothing better than that. And they wouldn’t move on it.”

Gaiman said the aborted series would have been a prequel to his “The Sandman” epic. “In ‘Sandman’ #1, [Dream] is captured and we learn a little bit later on that he had been doing something halfway across the galaxy, and had come back in a state of a complete exhaustion,” Gaiman said. “And [the new series] would have been the story of what he’d been doing there and what had happened.”

The writer said that whether or not the story ever sees the light of day depends primarily on his schedule and DC Comics’ willingness to negotiate a more equitable deal.

While one wonders what kind of deal the now best selling author Gaiman would demand, there’s no question but that any Sandman related by Gaiman would be the bee’s knees and sell like hot cakes.

In a scene out of a biblical epic or perhaps crazed supervillain attack, the bugs descended last night on Cleveland’s Jacobs field during the playoff game between the Yankees and Indians. The bugs are apparently called “Canadian Soldiers.” Cleveland won the game in extra innings.

posted by Mark Coale

An Italian scientist has come up with an idea for a Spider-Man like climbing suit. The suit would use the sticky million-hair technology employed by geckos and…SPIDERS.

It is generally accepted that the microscopic hairs adhere to the surfaces, not by gripping in the traditional sense, but by using intermolecular phenomena called van der Waal forces, which are the same that allow an atom’s protons not to burst apart.

Adhesion strength drops exponentially as the surface area and weight increases, so creating the same effect in a human-sized subject has been considered impossible.

However, Professor Nicola Pugno has calculated how sufficient stickiness could be generated in the same way to support an adult human’s bodyweight.

This would be achieved by creating gloves and shoes coated in an hierarchical structure of carbon nanotubes to provide the same effect.

Stan Sakai attends the Japan Expo in Paris and gives the kind of travel report only a very seasoned traveler could produce — lots of good info here! Also, the nugget that he’s writing a Hulk story for Marvel. WOOT!

I have 12 books in France–16 if you count the four original oversize editions–so I was kept busy singing all the time. Fanfan was there and, at 4:30, escorted me to a signing at an Album store. The chain has three stores in Paris, and about 30 throughout France. I was at the one in Bercy. Customers were given tickets for the signing, but I went through them, and signed for any one who wanted it.

We dined outdoors at a restaurant across from the store. I had roasted duckling with new potatoes. The creme brulee with ginger bread pieces and fig syryp was too sweet. I also had a banana nector/pineapple drink. I had never even heard of banana juice. It was worth trying once, though not twice.

§ Mike Baron tells us his blog “World of Mike Baron” is back up for real, just in time for the release of a new NEXUS !

§ ComiPress offers a detailed look at the history of plagiarism in Manga.

§ At Seven Hells, Crotchgate is revisited, but we see Alex Ross’s Citizen Steel has undergone “significant shrinkage. [Via Blog@]

§ Colleen Doran has found a very odd pair of Wonder Woman scissors.

§ RIP Kerwin Mathews, via Steve Bunche

§ Sean Penn and Iggy Pop are among the voices for the English language version of Persepolis

§ Boom Studios co-head honcho and Eureka creator Andrew Cosby has been hired to write a screenplay for Disney along with comics scripter Johanna Stokes.

§ Todd Alcott examines the life of the friendly millipede. GROSS.

Actually it appears to be quite dead:

A giant squid has washed up near Strahan on Tasmania’s west coast.

The squid, measuring about six metres long, was found last night on Ocean Beach by a member of the public.

Zoology experts from the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery are hoping to examine the squid to find how old it was and how it died.

And that’s how we feel today…like a dead squid washed up on the shores of Tasmania. Too much to do. And everyone we know feels EXACTLY the same. Doomed, doomed, we tell you.

We’re spending a little time chilling by the pool*, and sifting through all the pr that’s come through over the last week or so. Still working on a few more essays but that will be when we are a bit more mentally recovered.

* ALERT! METAPHORICAL USE ONLY! NO actual pool lounging meant or implied. In reality we are just sitting here staring at a computer screen.

Cover image via Bully’s Mane Event cover collection and Jacob Covey’s confession that he is a Animal-Fight-Furry:

I can’t really say WHY I’m so drawn to unlikely animal fights portrayed in comics/teen adventure book covers but, man, I really do. My dream is to do a book of animal conflict (ala Beasts!) but I can’t justify it to myself. ANYway, Mike Baehr pointed me to this site which slakes my thirst for Horse Fights. This is the fourth image I’ve found of “Bears Vs. Horses,” the theoretical title to my nonexistent book.

feeling a xanax high give does

Today mobile payments ranging from mobile banking to mobile credit cards to mobile commerce are very widely used in Asia and Africa, and in selected European markets.

Boy oh boy, you’d think I’d planned the timing of my look at women and comics to coincide with the solicitations, which, unbidden, contain such things as these:

Just another day at the office. Business as usual. Moving on. I should note that I actually like Adam Hughes’ covers for CATWOMAN — these are sexy but not demeaning, and we all know that Catwoman is not above using her attractiveness to get what she wants.

The winner for the week however comes from Marvel and it’s a beaut:

Great. There’s apparently some bound MALE team member tied up behind Black Cat, but why bother to show him in hentai bondage. Although I’d like to think this image of an octopus caressing a bound woman’s nipple was an homage to the great Hokusai [link NSFW], somehow I think that was not the intent. The repugnance against this cover has been widespread among both men and women, but pornographer Elin Winkler puts it best:

Now, as we all know, I publish pornographic comics. Not just tease comics or pinup comics or sexy comics- hardcore pornography. Poles & holes, money shots, manga-style spurting penii, cartoon boobies bouncing, etc. I am not ashamed of the adult comics my company publishes. This is because I try to be a responsible editor and I believe there should be adult comics out there with consensual sex, women enjoying themselves and not being treated as mere objects, couples in love who can’t keep their hands off each other, and the radical idea that sex, in all its forms, should be fun and pleasant and positive. This means it’s often difficult to find artists who understand these concepts, and we often have to reject stuff with very nice art that contains things like rape, snuff, extreme violence, and the like.

I looked at this cover for Heroes For Hire and realized that 1) it looks like it belongs on the cover of a porn comic, like Milk and 2) it’s a cover I wouldn’t even run on Milk, because the women are all obviously in an abused position. That was my initial reaction.

My second reaction was something along the lines of “holy shit, is that Misty Knight?!”

Holy shit indeed. Because you see, those bound and degraded women, one of them with some kind of white liquid dripping on her boobs, are the HEROES of HEROES FRO HIRE. That’s right. They are the protagonists, the instigators. The heroes. And I too weep for Misty Knight. That’s her to the left. Can you believe it? She’s wearing clothes. And standing up. Straight. And not tied up. And she’s got a gun. And she obviously knows how to USE it. And if you cross her, she will.

When the new HEROES FOR HIRE starring Misty Knight and Colleen Wing and Black Cat and a few others started in 2006, she looked like this (right.) Although she’s gotten a little less tough, and Cheryl Lynn has had a field day with her hairstyle, at least she’s wearing clothes and standing upright, etc.

In fact, when I was a teenaged girl reading comics, I wouldn’t have minded being Misty Knight. She was smart and tough and in control and had exciting adventures. AND she got to date dreamy Danny Rand, aka Iron Fist! What was not to like!

Now? Well, unless you’re the “S” in a “D&S” you probably don’t want to be Misty Knight. No offense to the S’s out there.

Now, here is the SHOCKING TWIST ENDING!!! R U READY??? That salivating, salacious cover? It was drawn by an artist named Sana Takeda. Who is Japanese.

And a woman.

Yep, that cover was drawn by a woman.

Are you confused? Is she a gender traitor? Is hentai what girls really like?

I don’t know what went into that cover. I know the editor is Mark Paniccia, the father of a one year old daughter that he loves more than anything. I know Mark well enough to hazard the guess that he wasn’t trying to “oppress” women, “oppress” Misty Knight, or follow a secret agenda. He was probably just trying to sell more books. I imagine Sana Takeda wanted to sell more books. The really really sad thing is that inside the Biosphere, up on the mountain, probably nobody gave this a second thought. Nobody thought that “Misty Knight and the Black Cat and Colleen Wing shouldn’t be shown this way because it demeans them as characters.”

And you know what’s even sadder? That no one at Marvel or DC will ever say a word about any of this. The Mary Jane statue controversy had been going on for well over a week, and been on TV shows, with nary a peep out of an official spokesman at either company. Will anyone ask Joe Quesada or Paul Levitz about any of this? Will anyone remember?

And that, ladies and germs, is why we can’t shut up.

Sorry we had to break off in the middle of the posting this morning, but we had to dash off to the American Museum of Natural History where a Spider-Man Week event was taking place, as star Tobey Maguire had to fight off a horde of radioactive spiders!

No not really, but he did appear with Dr. Norm Platnick. The dynamic duo rapped about spiders, their webs, their venom and their taxonomic status — they are ARACHNIDS not INSECTS! — to an eager audience of tots, many clad in Spidey threads. Seriously, our inner nerd was geeking out at the idea of recreating one of the greatest moments in comics history, while surrounded by cages full of GIANT BIRD-EATING SPIDERS.

Some more pics in the jump, but after hearing the room full of kids chanting “Go Spidey!” one must ask…WHY AREN’T THERE MORE SPIDER-MAN COMICS FOR KIDS? Really!

(more…)

AND…Marv Wolfman’s Wild Kingdom!

Delayed posting today as we’re off trying to gather food for our beloved Inky — we’re just terrified to feed her any wet food these days. We were feeding her ‘human tuna’ for a while until someone reminded us that you can’t eat too much tuna because of the mercury levels. Inky does not need mercury poisoning on top of her other behavioral issues, believe me.

Inky is not happy eating kibble, but as you know, we are long time supporters of the Kibbles’n'Bits, so that’s just the way it is.

BTW, That Darn Cat food is NOT repeat NOT, part of the recall, but it at least gives this post a semblance of topicality.

Because the world needs more videos of otters floating around holding hands.

[Via Cute Overload]

A new race of albino millipedes has been discovered living in the Grand Canyon.

Two albino millipedes have come out of their cavernous hiding places to represent an entirely new genus of these leggy organisms.

Scientists spotted the millipedes in caves on opposite sides of the Grand Canyon. One species was found in a cave on the South Rim and the other in two caves on the North Rim.

“We knew the millipedes likely represented two distinct species because the two populations were separated by the Grand Canyon,” said biologist J. Judson Wynne, a cave expert at Northern Arizona University who also works for the U.S. Geological Survey. “The fact these two species belong to an entirely new genus was a great surprise to us.”

No word yet on whether these are “flesh eating albino centipedes” +2 against elves, or “acid spitting albino centipedes” +1 at night.

PS: if you like cryptozoology, support Loren Coleman.

Regular readers know we have always been manatee-friendly here at The Beat. These peaceful, lovable behemoths of the seas may lack cutes, but they make up for it in sheer can-do spirit as earth’s most unlikely sea mammals. Although thought of as an ocean-going beast, manatees actually favor drifting tranquilly through the brackish estuaries along the Florida coast, often resulting in that merriest of cries, “Honey, there’s a manatee in the sewage outlet!”

It comes as no surprise, then, that Conan O’Brien has leapt on the manatee bandwagon, with a recurring gag now turning into a web phenomenon:

On the Dec. 4 show, the manatee appeared in a skit about college mascots as the “FSU Webcam Manatee.” As it ended, O’Brien ad libbed a reference to “HornyManatee.com” - and thus a website was born.

The next evening, O’Brien informed his audience that after the previous night’s show, he was contacted by NBC Standards and told the network would have to buy the rights to the then-fictional site. NBC purchased rights to the domain for $159 for 10 years.

The quickly formed site includes “Manatee on Manatee” action, as well as pictures of a “Manateen” and a “Voyeur Manatee.” It’s all a harmless spoof of Internet pornography, and O’Brien claims it has received over three million hits.

He’s encouraged fans to submit their Horny Manatee creations to conanhornymanatee.com - and has been flooded with responses of graphic novels, paintings and photos of people in manatee costumes.

We would dearly love to see these sex manatee graphic novels, but in the meantime, here is the website, doubtless already a haven for furries who like water sports.

For those of you who require actual cuteness in your animal totems, here are baby pandas. Take that, Warren Ellis.

[Panda link via MK Reed]

Employees at Paris Disneyland have made dozens of furries’ dreams come true by staging a sordid mouse-on-mouse sex orgy:

The footage, which is certain to be banned from Disney’s official merchandise, shows Goofy grabbing Minnie Mouse from behind.

She pulls herself away, but is then cornered for more fake sex with a giant snowman.

In another scene, Mickey Mouse, the children’s favourite, gets in on the act with the snowman.

The footage–which can be found widely on the internet under the title “Mouse Orgy”–is so despicable and shocking that you can click on the image for a larger picture so you can see how shocking and despicable it is. We know that this material will be damaging to the sensitive natures of our audience, but we feel that the public good is best served by allowing our readers to judge for themselves just how shocking and sordid these photos are in the privacy of their own homes.

[Link via Colleen]

Wow, is this a crazy world or what? A terrorist plane crasher turns out to be a NEW YORK YANKEE! Tragic. All this talk of plane crashes made everyone recall the late, great Thurman Munson.

Man, we were torn up when Thurman died. We even wrote a song about it that contained the line, “And everyone cried/the day you died.” No one rocked the handlebar the way Thurman did, or indeed the way anyone who did not live in the ’70s could.

There was no talk about Roberto Clemente, who died in a plane crash on New Year’s Eve in 1972, on his way to Nicaraugua in a charter plane full of supplies for earthquake victims. He was the only the second Hispanic American ever to be elected into baseball’s Hall of Fame. He was cool.

And now, your cryptozoological moment: While we were fact checking last night we came across this story which keeps alive hope that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker survives deep in the jungles of the Choctawhatchee River:

“On 41 occasions different team members have seen the bird. We heard that double knock, it’s a sound the ivory-billed makes that no other bird makes, but we didn’t get a clear video of the bird,” Hill said.

“I think people should be skeptical. I think they should demand clear photographic evidence. I might start to get skeptical myself thinking, ‘I’ve seen this bird,’ but how could I have seen a bird that it is impossible to photograph,” he said.

We believe.

While the Maine Mystery Beast seems to have been debunked, we are here to tell you, Maine is a hotbed of Crytozoological lore. There’s a Crypto exhibit going on at Bates College in Lewiston, and we’ve already heard credible reports of sightings of The Beast of Togus (a strange pig-dog seen running down the middle of the highway.) And we’re not even talking the VMAs.

But strange creatures once thought only dreamed of can be seen in the broad light of day. Yesterday we made a special trip to Delano Seafood on Rt. 1 in Waldoboro, ME to see an incredibly rare blue lobster, a mutant that occurs perhaps once out of every 2 million lobsters. They are savage, noble creatures, according to all reports.

When we heard there was a blue lobster on display, we thought it was going to be, maybe blue tinged, or tinted (live lobsters have a bit of a forest green look to them after all.) But no, this lobster is somewhere between cerulean and ultramarine blue. An older lady runs this seafood stand, and apparently she frowns on people who come in to gawk at the blue lobster without buying something, so if you stop by to see it, pick up some frozen scallops or some haddock or something.

We asked her plans for the rare specimen. “I’m going to feed it and keep it,” she said. And does it have a name? “No, I just call it my baby.”

After all this hanging around the seafood store we decided to purchase some normal specimens and conduct a scientific experiment. Our efforts confirmed that, yes, as reported, lobsters do turn bright red when steamed in a common kitchen pan.

Say, does anyone out there know how to buy an obelisk?

We’re officially on vacation now, but will be posting a few tidbits just because we’re nice.

We should also mention that since we’re in Maine, we’ve been discussing the ongoing Mystery Beast Phenomenon, and we’ve heard some interesting discussion. For instance, the corpse was said to have been picked clean in three days…but judging by the way a dead porcupine sits by the side of the road here for months on end, that just doesn’t ring true. Rest assured, we’re on the case.