The Big D, by Elayne Riggs
Back in the spring during my job hunt, I took care of my annual checkup. I’d gotten fed up with my New Rochelle physician who’d kept up a steady drumbeat of “you need to lose weight” as the answer for everything from my heart scare to high blood pressure to allergies (the allergy advice seemed to always be supplemented by free samples of Flonase, from which she was doubtless getting a kickback), and heck if I wanted to schlep into New Rochelle again anyway. So I went to a local doctor who was listed as a fat-friendly health professional. But while this local doc was certainly friendly, she turned out not to be terribly fat-accepting, especially considering the results of my first workup.
Her office called me when the test numbers arrived, asking me to return, which I did, shortly before I was offered my current position. Nobody said why I had to come in again, but I was misled to believe it was because they needed to retake the blood test since I hadn’t fasted prior to the first test (not that they’d reminded me I should have). Well, as it turns out, I was greeted with the kind of news that pretty much rocked my life in a dramatically deeper way than did my atrial fibrillation scare of Aught-5. That was the overnight hospital stay which gave me a wake-up call at age 48 that I could no longer eat anything I wanted and not suffer the consequences. So I commenced with a salt-restricted lifestyle, missed potato chips and pickles for awhile, but could more or less deal with it just fine.
This one was different. The diagnosis was diabetes.
Trevor von Eeden returns to comics tomorrow with a series that is especially meaningful to our American culture. It’s the story of boxer Jack Johnson, whom von Eeden describes as “the first psychologically free black man in American History.” This is the first major biography of Johnson created by an African-American artist.
After retiring from the ring, he opened a Harlem night spot in 1920 that became to be famously known a few years later as The Cotton Club. Johnson also holds a patent for modifications he made to a wrench.
Iron Man 2, Thor, The First Avenger: Captain America and The Avengers are now scheduled to film at Raleigh Productions in Manhattan Beach, California.
While promoting today’s DVD release of The Happening, M. Night Shyamalan spoke about a possibly sequel to his super-powered story, Unbreakable.
There’s a lot of prequel/sequel talk in the air this week. First, rumors have it that Jennifer Aniston is being offered tons of cash to reprise her character in a follow-up to The Break-Up, opposite Vince Vaughn.
The cast for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is rounding out with the addition of Anne Hathaway as the White Queen opposite Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen according to 
Velile Tshabalala will guest star in 2008’s Doctor Who Christmas special, “The Next Doctor”. In a profile published in 
Walt Disney Studios’ [[[Sleeping Beauty]]] holds up as a spectacular work of animation and it looks even better now that the studio has cleaned it up. The classic fairy tale has stood the test of time quite nicely and the Platinum Edition 50th Anniversary 2-disc set, released today, is a worthwhile addition to your home video library. It’s a great artifafct, and the end of an era of amazing animated fare from Disney Studios. Every anuimated feature that has followed, through today, somehow pales in comparison to this effort.
Due to a legal puzzle in who has the rights to the ReAnimator characters, Diamond is not carrying issues 17 and 18 of Devil’s Due’s Hack Slash. So how do you get your copy? We dig up the answer, plus: 
or 
Opus will end its run as Sunday-only comic strip on November 2, according to a release from the Washington Post Writers Group.Berkeley Breathed in a press release, indicated, “With the crisis in Wall Street and Washington, I’m suspending my comic strip to assist the nation. The best way I can help is to leave politics permanently and write funny stories for America’s kids. I call on John McCain to join me.”
