Ultimate Jimmny...The Day my Brain Caught Fire

Observe below more of my frankly disurbing attempts at photoshop-style gubbins (obviously I can't afford photoshop so I use the nifty and fee Paint.net). These were to signify my return to academia proper, as of July 1st I am now techinally back in the 'Land of the PhDs' (surely a horror/sci-fi pitch in the making? 'In a Woorld of Highlighter pens and madness'). Even though it was 3am last night when I did them it was still hot as hell like in that great old sci-fi flick The Day the Earth Caught Fire.

I was thinking of my previous attempt at 'self-kicking-up-the-hole' 'rebranding' from last summer (with 'before' and 'after' pictures of the Chiefy 3000/Lorc V.20) yeah like that was sucess. So I started thinking more of the Ultimate Marvel universe where there are new versions of the Spider-Man and X-Men and the like where they start from scratch taking elements of previous Marvel incarnations of these characters but without the complex continuity that scares away the new readers that Marvel seeks in a comic equivalent of 'kiddies' cigarettes'. At its core (apart from Marvel's usual huckersterism and how they have sleepless nights if they even miss out on a penny of extra trade) is an idea of taking the best parts of a character and freeing it of historical baggage.

So as regards the 'Ultimate PhD' its a case of keeping the things that work (me smarts, enthusiasm, writing skills honed down the abstract mines, confident paper delivery) and dumping the things that damage the PhD. Basically, this is from being my own worst enemy: believing my work is shite and not worthwhile when everyone else says it is (borne out of a geek siege mentality where 'what everyone thinks' is wrong) . Lack of money always brings on such negative thoughtsreminding of the Batman: Animated Series episode 'If you's so smart, why aren't you rich?'

But the fact that even these thoughts expressed via the medium of superhero fictions convince me I'm doing the right thing and makes we want to get this fecker finished as soon as possible (so I can write all those She-Hulk and parallel dimension articles.)

So I do have a renewed enthusiasm for my project, I see so much of what is written about superheroes so pedestrian: Superheroes are wish fufilment geeky male teens, Superman is like Jesus, Is Batman or Superman gay? these may be all valid points to and extent but ignore so much of the complexity of superhero narratives.