Marina Takes A Swipe At Uncle Zam

Thankfully since I am working in Cyberjaya for this week, I am able to return back to home earlier than usual. Since I have things to do later on, I felt it is better to write this post together with doing some house chores before working on my stuff later on.

The Devil Inside And Out Part 2

This is a continuation from Sunday's entry and I intend to write on as long as it goes. Part 2 is literally the 'Out' part of the duology. At the end of part 1, called Inside, Matt Murdock, escaped prison with the help of an unlikely ally. The search for a one Alton Lennox, the lawyer of a convict, who ordered a shanking order on Franklin Nelson. It was discovered that Lennox left for Monaco and it is up to Matt to pick up the bread crumbs.


The actual story begins in #89, whereas #88 is the interlude of the story. #88 is called "The Secret Life of Foggy Nelson" which actually shows Foggy's side of the story near to the end of Inside. This was the thing I am referring to as the nod to You Only Live Twice. Foggy was a marked man by certain unknown people including the Mafia. He is under the WITSEC program - or the FBI's Witness Protection Program. Since he is unofficially dead to the entire world, he was not allowed to make contact with the outer world including Ben Urich or Dakota North.


In this case, this is the issue where Ed Brubaker makes his cameo as the FBI man. Artist Michael Lark modeled the FBI agent assigned to watch over Foggy after him - his trademark beard and glasses. The agent's plea of staying at close doors were true as he was about to be shot by the Mafia only to have ninjas saving his skin.

Back to Part 2, Brubaker called 'Out' as a swashbuckling show with Matt as the swashbuckler. He goes traveling around Europe searching for Lennox. However, Lennox was only part of the plan to lead Murdock to the very person that sets the entire game up in the beginning. Just find out by yourselves. There are numerous references - or shall I say that some plot elements clearly resemble - to Polanski's The Ninth Gate, with our protagonist being manipulated in the beginning and includes numerous locations including Paris and Sintra - a village near Lisbon.

After reading it, I find that the storyline clearly reminded me of the Dick Tracy story arc in 1978. The storyline in 1978 was literally creator Chester Gould's final run in the comics before handing over to other writers including Rick Fletcher and Max Allan Collins. According to the Wikipedia, in Chester's Final Run actually means the storyline of a villain taking the protagonist over the edge and causing mayhem because the villain is to die from a disease that eats him and considers the scheme as a parting gift before he goes to the grave. That was in 1978 and it was that year that Chester Gould decided to put that as Big Boy Caprice's last run.

By the end, Matt has to make a very choice that might affect the rest of his life.

The art drawn by Lark emulates the look of the 1970s.

Marina Takes A Swipe At Uncle Zam

Today's weekly column at The Star by Marina Mahathir - Blogging 101 For Politicians
- literally takes a swipe at politicians who criticize the blogging misuse. This was indeed a perfect response by Marina to Uncle Zam who proposed the classification of professional and non-professional bloggers like us. Does that mean that are going to be like William Thackeray or just a normal average Joe writing his diary post online?

In true there are no pro and non-pro bloggers in definition. It's just people who want to write diaries and do not mind to post it to the public to read. You don't even need to study hard to use this! It's not like taking a major examination! The idea of classifying bloggers according to her shows that politicians like Uncle Zam or Shaziman are literally pretty clueless about the world of blogging.

But look at Datuk Shahrir Ahmad or Opposition politicians that do have blogs. At least they do understand what blogging means. But we must always remember: be truthful and be sensible.
Nothing more, nothing less than that. What's the point of making more ruckus out of this blogging issue? To solve this problem, you must experience it yourself.

So, if you are a politician, start a blog and do some test posting to see how you feel about blogging. It's just like driving a car. If you are a frequent highway user, sometimes going at 140 makes a big difference than going at 110. The problem is that the current speed limit in the highway is absolutely absurd or obsolete. You authorities especially ministers will have to drive by yourselves to get the feel - not depending on the chauffeurs driving the big car!