Bat-links, get your bat-links (and one Cap'n America)

These are all odds and ends I've found over the last few days during occasional breaks from unending immersion in the unending horrors currently unfolding in New Orleans (more on that in a later entry). They're all kinda random and kinda interconnected at the same time.

1. I found this extremely handy collection of reviews of Batman (and related) graphic novels, trade paperbacks, etc. while doing one of my characteristically kinky Google searches. (I forget the keywords in question this time, but seeing what emerges from combinations like "Batman+bondage+deathtrap" has long been one of my favorite uses of the world's greatest search engine.) There's nothing even remotely R-rated about this particular page, it just looks like a potentially valuable tool for sorting through the vast array of bat-books on the shelves these days.

2. The same Google search, whatever it was, also yielded this exhaustive Wikipedia entry on slash and fan fiction which should be of interest and use to all who share my close and personal connection to certain masked manhunters.

3. Speaking of which, the world always has room for another Seduction of the Innocent joke...

4.and for another gender-transgressive kid-related Batman reference in another indie comic. A Beaucoup Kevin find. Merci beaucoup, Kevin, indeed!

5. Shifting from sex to politics, here's an interesting collection of links to several reviews and think-pieces arguing that Batman Begins (and/or the title character) has an essentially conservative agenda. (BTW, a neighbor I had a crush on during the Dark Knight Returns era was on the cutting edge of this Batman-as-right-winger notion; as he saw it, the bat mythos glorifies the fabulously wealthy individual who vows to rid his city of crime. I hate to read it that way myself, but then as we know, I do have a soft spot in my heart--or a hard spot somewhere else--for sexy Republican dudes, even though, like Claire Fisher, I detest their politics.)

6. Perhaps I will remember to devote more attention to this one in that upcoming New Orleans post, but in case I forget or it doesn't fit, here's another fruit of that same Google expedition: a student term paper on Batman and postmodernism.The bulk of the essay is a fairly detailed history of the character as he has evolved over time and across genres. The postmodern part is iffy in the way most student term papers tend to be when juxtaposing fun pop culture and dreary critical theory, but I also found a lot of eye-opening stuff I may quote in future entries on various bat-subjects.



Finally, as promised, the non-Bat-related link:
7. I also have Beaucoup Kevin to thank for my discovery of this cartoon that proposes a government-sponsored Captain America clone used to create low-budget patriotic cartoons in the Vietnam era. If you liked Team America as much as I did, you'll dig this, too.