Disproportionate Response Man

A great entry from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:

More Wasted Tax Dollars

"Another Door" in Amazing Spider-Man #647 by Fred Van Lente

and Max Fiumara, Marvel Comics 2010

I've been saying for years that the United States government should stop funding the Smithsonian. It poses an extreme risk to the taxpayers.

Also, when did the Spidey mobile get in there?

The American Way

The Amazing Spider-Man #638 by Joe Quesada, Paolo Rivera
Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie, and Paul Ryan
Marvel Comics, (2010)

Spectacle for profit. The American way.

Bureaucracy in the Afterlife

The Unwritten #11 by Mike Carey and Peter Gross, Vertigo (2010)

Apparently, they keep pretty tight records even in the afterlife. I mean, look at all the hoops Tommy has to jump through in order to get through the gates. What about when he applies for insurance? Do you think the afterlife has competing plans?

I can't imagine what the DMV must be like.

Ecocomics Week in Review 02/05/2010

Part of our job at Ecocomics is to inform the readers of the latest ecocomics news stories. With that in mind, we present to you, straight from the editor's desk of The DB, the WEEK IN REVIEW, a summary of the week's most important events.

Economics Themed Superheroes

Two weeks ago, we asked you all to submit your economics-themed superheroes/supervillains. Here are your submissions. Many of them were done using Marvel's Create Your Own Superhero function. Others were done using other software and one was hand-drawn! All of them are spectacular.

First, we have THE TOXIC ASSET, created by Tim. Too big to fail, just big enough to kill.



Next, we have HELICOPTER BEN, created by E. Supplying justice, demanding vengeance...



Next, we have CONFUSED EX-HIPPIE, created by Matt. "Whoa, my portfolio is, like, so diversified."



Next up is GOLDLINE by Baylee. He'll give you a gold rush!



Next we have three characters and descriptions created by Paul Richard Gerome Wojtkiewicz.

The first is GOLD STANDARD, a powerful cyborg who vowed to protect the world from inflation.



The second is TAXING COLOSSUS, a mysterious menace, which seeks funding for the diabolical skills of his master (yet unknown).



The third is CLASSY, who in normal life is just an average billionaire, but when there is trouble, he speaks the phrase, "A Habitats System I Miss" that seems gibberish. Few know, however, that this is a magical anagram for the names of famous economists: Smith, Mises, Say and Bastiat.



Next up, we have HYPER INFLATION, created by Jeremy. The longer he stays in the fight, the more powerful he becomes! He'll burn through your strongest assets given the chance. The only way to bring him down is with 24 karat gold. Shadowbanker beware!



Finally, we have HOMELESS SUPERHERO, created by D. He lost his job, but he is still a superhero!


Again, all of these submissions were absolutely amazing and all deserve much praise. So praise them everyone!

Behold...The Shadowbanker!

I decided to have some fun with Marvel's "Create Your Own Superhero" feature and crafted a prototype Shadowbanker. What do you think? Pretty menacing, isn't he?

Can anyone make a cool economics-themed character? If so, send to us at ecocomics dot blog at gmail dot com and we'll post them! You can use Marvel's feature, or just draw, doodle, use MS Paint, whatever! Bonus points if you can create a Shadowbanker and Mark superhero (or villain) team!

Spread the word!

Tongue Tip

Here's a new twitter experiment created by one of our friends and aimed at catching those words that you think you know but are just out of reach. From the creator, this is how it works:

TongueTip is an experiment in crowdsourcing the thesaurus. While a traditional thesaurus is normally useful, it has one major flaw: it requires a synonym as a point of entry. What if you can't think of a word that means what you're trying to say? That's where TongueTip comes in. Simply tweet @TongueTip with a description of the word or phrase you're trying to come up with, and TongueTip will repost your request to the TongueTip feed. Everyone following the feed will see your request, and if someone thinks they might know the word(s) you're looking for, they can reply to the TongueTip tweet; their suggestion will be automatically forwarded to you via direct message.

TongueTip is only a few days young and needs more followers, so go try it out!!! You can check it out here.