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2011/08/12

Neatorama

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The 10 Most Important Kisses in the Universe

Posted: 12 Aug 2011 05:08 AM PDT

Pucker up as we explore 10 smooches that changed religion, art, culture, and history.

1. The Kiss of Judas: A Betrayal or Just Misunderstood?

Nothing ends a good “bromance” quite like flagrant, murderous betrayal. A long time ago, a wandering preacher named Jesus was doing pretty well for himself—building up a following and promoting religious teachings—until one of his buddies sold him out to the authorities. In exchange for 30 pieces of silver, Judas Iscariot kissed Jesus on the cheek and, by doing so, identified him to Roman soldiers.

Although Judas double-crossed his best friend for a paltry sum, some scholars argue that Judas is the secret hero of Christianity. The claim is based on a recent translation of The Gospel of Judas, a text written by Jesus' followers a couple hundred years after his death. In 1978, a farmer discovered the mysterious text in Egypt and sold it to an antiques dealer. Years later, a National Geographic Society team got hold of it. They restored and analyzed the document, and in 2006, they announced that the text painted Judas as a man of valor. According to their interpretation, he was actually Jesus' most trusted friend, because he agreed to fake a betrayal so that Jesus could die a martyr and then be resurrected.

Soon after the National Geographic Society released its findings, other scholars started picking the interpretation apart. Chief among them was April D. DeConick, a Rice University biblical studies professor, who claimed the team made some critical errors, including translating several passages to mean the exact opposite of what they were intended to communicate. DeConick contends that the Gospel says Judas was a "demon" rather than a "spirit," as interpreted by National Geographic, and that he was set apart "from the holy generation" rather than "for the holy generation." With just a few tweaks in translation, Judas has gone right back to playing the bad guy.

2. The Kisses You Can Share with a Quaker

(Image credit: Wikipedia user Beatrice Murch)

The Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, is a small Christian sect best known for rejecting all forms of violence, embracing progressive politics, and dedicating themselves to simple, restrained living. They've promoted a more harmonious world by founding causes such as Amnesty International, not to mention lending their name to oatmeal.

So we were surprised to learn that when teenage Quakers get together, their favorite activity is a free-for-all kissing game that often ends in bruising and rug burn. Alternately known as Ratchet Screwdriver, Bloody Winkum, or Wink, the game dates back to the early 1900s. To play, participants divide themselves into girl/boy pairs with one boy left over to be the "Winker." The pairs sit on the floor, with each boy hugging a girl from behind. When the Winker winks at a girl, she tries to scramble across the room to kiss him, while her male partner does his best to hold her back. Hilarity (and release of pent-up sexual frustration) ensues.

But not everyone finds this game so hilarious. In 2002, the Children & Young People's Committee of the Quakers in Britain issued a statement discouraging the game at official functions. And while that may not seem surprising, the reasoning is. The committee frowns upon the game because younger children and adults don't get to play, thus making it ageist. Due to their egalitarian values, Quakers seldom segregate by age at get-togethers, and the committee didn't want the very young or the very old to feel left out.

3. The Kiss that Proved No Means No

Gentlemen, a word: When a lady rejects your advances, you'd do best to listen. Take, for example, the story of Thomas Saverland, an English gentleman who was at a party in 1837 and, as a joke, kissed Miss Caroline Newton by force. In response, she bit off a chunk of his nose.

Saverland took her to court, where the judge found his case more hilarious than harrowing. The judge ruled, "When a man kisses a woman against her will, she is fully entitled to bite off his nose, if she so pleases." A smart-mouthed barrister then added, "and eat it up, if she has a fancy that way."

4. The Kiss That Said "Welcome to America!"

At the turn of the 20th century, immigration processing at Ellis Island was quite an ordeal. Immigrants had to prove they weren't carrying any of a long list of illnesses, mental impairments, or moral defects. If you were sick (and it was curable), then you'd be detained in the hospital until you got better. The whole process could take hours, days, or months. And even then, you could be turned back. Also, ladies traveling alone and anyone with less than $20 in their pockets had to wait for a sponsor or family member to meet them. If no one was there to greet you, you were sent back.

Of course, all of this was further complicated by the fact that immigrants couldn't go down to the pay phone and call Aunt Bertha when they landed. Instead, when relatives heard that the right ship had docked, they trucked over to Ellis Island and waited desperately by the Kissing Post—a giant wooden column just outside the room where the final stages of immigration took place. Ellis Island staffers gave the Kissing Post its name because families and lovers were generally swept up in emotion as they reconnected with their long losts. Today, the Kissing Post continues to be a symbol of hope and togetherness as the pillar that supports the American Family Immigration History Center. If you're one of the 100 million Americans descended from immigrants who passed through Ellis Island, there's a good chance the History Center there can help you find a picture of the ship that carried your ancestors.

5. The Eskimo Kiss: A Tale Taller than the Abominable Snowman

Popular wisdom claims that Eskimos rub noses because kissing on the lips would cause their mouths to freeze together. Not only is this completely untrue, but Eskimos don't rub noses at all.

The myth of the Eskimo kiss was created by Hollywood in an early "documentary" called Nanook of the North, which took America by storm in 1922. To film it, director Robert J. Flaherty recorded real Inuits in the Arctic. However, in order to accommodate the huge, awkward cameras of the day, he staged all the scenes and built a three-sided igloo for interior shots. Nanook, the main character, wasn't really named Nanook, and the women playing his wives weren't really his wives. As for the term "Eskimo kiss," that too was constructed by Flaherty to explain how one of the wives was nuzzling her baby. In actuality, the woman was giving her baby a kunik, an expression of affection in Inuit culture. Typically in kuniks, adults press the sides of their noses against the cheeks of their babies and breathe in their scent. Who kuniks whom differs from culture to culture, but it's never a romantic gesture. Inuits kiss on the lips, just like everyone else.

6. The First Guy-on-Guy Kiss to Hit the Big Screen

Movie experts often credit Sunday Bloody Sunday, a 1971 film about a love triangle among two guys and a girl, with being the first mainstream feature film to depict two gay men kissing. That's true, but it wasn't the first time two guys kissed on screen. Apparently, straight men had been doing it for decades.

In 1927, two soldiers kissed tenderly in the silent movie Wings, which won Best Picture at the first Academy Awards. When the film was released, no one raised an eyebrow about the scene, partially because kissing in the trenches was remarkably common during World War I. According to British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Santanu Das, letters and accounts of the war are peppered with stories of soldiers kissing, embracing, and giving each other pet names like "my Palestine Wife." Das believes the war succeeded in breaking down the traditional limits on emotional and physical intimacy between men, allowing soldiers to form relationships that went beyond what was permissible at home. While it's surprising to us today, that Wings scene didn't even cause a stir in 1920s America.

7. The Kiss that Gave Artists Their 15 Minutes

If it weren't for kissing, Andy Warhol might never have become The King of Pop Art. In 1963, Warhol was still a little-known commercial illustrator. But that all changed when he bought a silent-film camera and started shooting his friends and acquaintances kissing in unbroken, four-minute-long shots. The result was a series called Kiss, which took the art world by storm. In fact, New York's Gramercy Arts Theater played a new "kiss" each week. The series helped cement Warhol's place in the artsy underground, and it also launched the careers of several kissers.

8. The Prepubescent Kiss that Changed the Law

When first-grader Johnathan Prevette pecked his classmate on the cheek in Lexington, N.C., he quickly became a poster boy for everything that was wrong with America in 1996. After Johnathan's classmate complained to a teacher, the 6-year-old was taken out of class for the day, missing an ice cream party. When the school told Johnathan's parents that he'd violated the sexual harassment rules, a media circus followed. Critics pointed to the Prevette case as a sign that political correctness had gone too far, adding that innocent play didn't deserve such harsh punishments. After all, pundits asked, is a child really capable of sexual harassment?

But while Johnathan was making headlines, another legal battle was raging. A 10-year-old Georgia girl named LaShonda Davis had been repeatedly groped by a bully in her class, to the point where she contemplated suicide. She told several of the teachers at her school, but no one did anything. LaShonda's parents had to call the police—and sue the school—before the abuse stopped.

Both Johnathan and LaShonda deserved protection under the law, and both cases played a role in molding the current standards. In response to the Johnathan Prevette case, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights issued new guidelines for identifying sexual harassment by putting the emphasis on common sense and telling schools to take age and maturity into account. But there was still a big question about whether schools should be accountable for students harassing each other. When LaShonda's case went to the Supreme Court in 1999, their answer was yes, sort of. The Court decided that schools can be blamed, but only if they learn of the abuse and do nothing to stop it.

9. The Kiss That Could Send You to Jail

(Image credit: Flickr user bradleyolin)

In the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, there's a smooching spot called el Callejón del Beso, or the Alley of the Kiss. According to local legend, the alley was once the final scene of a tragic love affair. A young woman and her lover were meeting there to run away together, but when her father discovered them, he stabbed his daughter in the heart. As she lay dying, her lover kissed her hand for the last time, and the alley got its name. Today, it's said that anyone who kisses there will have seven years of happiness. Thanks to its romantic history, the alley has become a popular tourist attraction, although that's starting to change. On January 20, 2009, the ultra-conservative mayor of Guanajuato authorized a new municipal ordinance cracking down on public displays of affection. If he has his way, lip-locking in the open will carry with it a fine of $100 and up to 36 hours in jail.

10. The Most Iconic Kiss in History

(Image credit: Victor Jorgensen)

On August 14, 1945, thousands of men and women embraced one another in New York City's Times Square to celebrate victory over Japan. But two people—a sailor and a nurse—locked lips at just the right moment and became larger than life. More than a dozen men and at least three women claim to be the kissers in Alfred Eisenstaedt's photograph. Of the men, our favorite is George Mendonça, a Rhode Island fisherman and World War II navy recruit, who claims he grabbed the strange nurse and kissed her right in front of his girlfriend. In fact, Mendonça says his girlfriend, now his wife, is in the background of the photo.

While the mystery will probably never be solved, Alfred Eisenstaedt has left us with a juicy back story. In his autobiography, the famed photographer writes that he followed around a sailor who moved through the crowd, kissing anything wearing a skirt. When the sailor hit on a nurse whose white dress contrasted nicely with his dark suit, Eisenstaedt snapped the shot. But he failed to get their names. Coincidentally, another photographer, Victor Jorgensen, took the same shot from a slightly different angle and also forgot to get the subjects' names. Jorgensen's version ran in the next day's New York Times, but as a working military photographer at the time, he didn't own the rights to his work. So while Eisenstaedt received glory and royalty checks for his image, Jorgensen simply got a nice clipping to hang on his fridge.

__________________________

The above article was written by Maggie Koerth-Baker. It is reprinted with permission from the May/June 2009 issue of mental_floss magazine.

Don’t forget to feed your brain by subscribing to the magazine and visiting mental_floss‘ extremely entertaining website and blog today for more!

Flake Concept Car

Posted: 12 Aug 2011 04:11 AM PDT

Although only in a concept stage, the Flake car by designer DaFeng is–for the lack of a better word–cool–or at least it looks really cool! The plan is to cover a vehicle in carbon-fiber pieces with each one connected by carbon nanotubes that will allow the individual scales to adjust the car by creating drag on whatever side the car needs control or to stand up in order to slow it down. See the complete project including a video of the concept car in action at DaFeng’s blog. Be sure and check out the wheels, called “D-Wheels” which operate like tank tracks.

Link via Like Cool


Fastest Thing On Earth

Posted: 12 Aug 2011 04:07 AM PDT

Link via YouTube

Jet?  Space shuttle? Bullets?  Nope. All wrong. It’s fungi. That’s right. Everyday common field-growing fungi. Richard Hammond of the BBC’s popular car show, Top Gear features the fungi in his trivia-and-brains show Invisible Worlds.  Captured in slow motion shooting its spores over two meters at over 20,000 G’s, the Pilobolus spores make the astronauts on the space shuttle deal look like right sissies with their measly 4 G’s. Super-slow motion photography captures the astonishing launch in this interesting piece about poop-loving fungi that is the fastest moving thing on the planet.

R/C Flying Shark

Posted: 12 Aug 2011 01:40 AM PDT


(Video link)

“Air Swimmers” is the collective name of these fun and cool flying, radio-controlled toys that comes in the shape of a shark and a clownfish.

Air Swimmers swim through the air with incredibly smooth and life-like motion. These amazing fish provide hours of remote control indoor fun in even the smallest of rooms (not for outdoor use). They require only four AAA batteries (one in the body, three in the controller) and have complete up, down and 360 degree turning control.

Link via Nerdcore

Box with an Eye

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 08:47 PM PDT

I read about a study that found people are less likely to steal things if they feel they are being watched -even if it’s just a photograph of someone looking at them. If that’s the case, no one would dare open a box that sports an eye stalk! Artist Angela Rose made this box and many more with an eye in each, which will discourage anyone from pilfering the contents. See the entire selection at Necropolis Studios. Link -Thanks, Stuart!

Memrise

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 08:40 PM PDT

For those familiar with Anki, you may be interested in Memrise, a spaced repetition system tool that helps users memorize vocabulary in different languages. Word associations and spanned testing reminders are used to facilitate vocabulary recognition and recall. The choice of languages is huge, from Mandarin (narrated by a very sultry-sounding woman) to French and Cherokee (beta mode.)

The learning process is visualized as a plant, so that when a new word is introduced a seed is planted in both your brain and a browser-based greenhouse.  To water your seedlings, your memory is tested for the meaning of the word between spaced intervals. Depending on how well you do and how often you visit, your plants may either wither or grow, eventually graduating from greenhouse to garden. Memrise’s sleek web design and enjoyable interface has got me hooked. Besides that–I hate to see my plants die.
Link

Rebecca Wilson Ceramic Paper Cups

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 08:39 PM PDT

58 billion paper cups are thrown out every year, and ceramics artist Rebecca Wilson has perhaps found a solution.

Rebecca talks about her paper cup project, "The paper cup is an icon of the 'throwaway culture' and by imposing classical ceramic styling and transposing materials I aim to highlight and question our tendency towards wasteful consumerism.”

These Delftware-inspired paperware would seem perfect for an outdoor tea party. Despite the potential stains on the inside, I wouldn’t help but feel guilty for tossing these out.

Link – via Beautiful Decay

Pool Fun in Hungary

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 08:35 PM PDT


(YouTube link)

Some folks have pool toys that are more involved than those of other folks. What could possibly go wrong? -via Cynical-C

Lace Spider Webs

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 06:14 PM PDT

Shane Waltener creates elaborate installations around his lace doilies, such as this one entitled Auntie Peggy Has Departed. To him, doilies represent dreamcatchers that make a moment in the past accessible for the present.

Another rather striking work that I found at his website is a doily spider web meant to be viewed in front of a chandelier by glass artist Dale Chihuly. The juxtaposition of Waltener’s white lines and Chihuly’s colored spheres is quite lovely.

Link -via Craft | Chihuly Doily

Portal 2 Puppet

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 06:01 PM PDT


(Video Link)

YouTube user trpchaki made this amazing puppet that looks like Wheatley from Portal 2. She took many in-progress photos showing the amazing skill and inventiveness that went into building it — especially the controls, the sound system, and the movable parts. Link -via Geekologie

Braincar

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 05:48 PM PDT

This sculpture by Olaf Mooji, appropriately dubbed “Braincar”, expresses his belief in “the nearly psychological connection between drivers and their cars.” There’s a projection system inside that permits Mooji to put weirdly psychedelic or clear, coherent images to people watching it drive by. At the link, you can find a video of the car as well as photos of its construction.

Link -via DVICE | Artist’s Website | Photo: Gé Hirdes

Window Doodles

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 05:39 PM PDT

Windoodles is a new Tumblr blog that compiles doodles that people have put on windows with dry erase markers so that the images project onto the scenery outside. This one is by a MTV employee named Gusto.

Link -via Blame It on the Voices

Combat Garden Gnomes

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 05:34 PM PDT

If your gopher problem is getting out of hand, you may need to acquire one of Shawn Thorsson’s decidedly robust garden gnomes. He casts his riflegnomes from scratch and offers them in standing, kneeling, and prone positions. Link -via Make

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 05:22 PM PDT

This brilliant print, inspired by a scene in The Princess Bride, was made by an artist named Rakka. He writes “like i had any choice as to what to make inigo out of.” Well done, sir. Well done. Link -via reddit

Briefcase Destroyed in Beverly Hills After Agent Refuses to Read Script

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 04:25 PM PDT

As an aspiring screenwriter (how many years can you be considered "aspiring" before you’re just expiring?)  I can appreciate this writer's plight, sending out countless script queries only to face rejection. However he went too far in harassing the staff of one literary agency in Beverly Hills, CA. When the would be screen writer dropped off a briefcase with a computer inside, containing his script the cops were called and treated it as if it were an bomb threat! I've heard of movies being a bomb at the box office, but this takes it to the next level.

The bizarre story was set in Beverly Hills, where a man visited the office of a literary agent and left behind a briefcase that he said contained a computer, police Sgt. Brad Cornelius said.

The man left instructions for it to be delivered to someone at the business, who told another person in the office, “This guy’s been kind of pestering me to read his stuff” and said he neither asked for nor wanted the briefcase, Cornelius said.

A security guard took the case into an alley, and an LAPD police bomb squad was sent to investigate the suspicious package.

Officials sealed off one square block and evacuated dozens of people from a handful of businesses on nearby Rodeo Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard before blowing open the briefcase, which contained no explosives.

Link

Chair and Lamp

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 02:50 PM PDT

Photo Credit: Nieuwe Heren

File this under the “Why didn’t I think of that?” category! Nieuwe Heren, a Dutch design firm ran by two designers in their twenties, came up with a chair and lamp combo that could be accommodated in the smallest of spaces. They made it to provide parents a seat on which to read their children a bedtime story with a lamp at the ready. When you’re done using it, lean it against the wall and leave the lamp on for a bit of ambient light. Cool.

Space Classics

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 01:38 PM PDT

It’s about time sci-fi movie scores got their props, right? So thinks the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, which is giving a concert featuring the music of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Close Encounters among others. Here is a clever set of posters for the show by Showpony Advertising.

Link via Super Punch

Jenny Odell Google Maps Art

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 01:34 PM PDT

While I would typically consider scanning the backyards of strangers’ houses a bit creepy, Jenny Odell does it for art (and anything done for art is excusable, right?) Odell’s Satellite Collections amalgamate images of swimming pools, nuclear cooling towers, and basketball courts found through Google Maps. How many baseball diamonds are there in Manhattan? According to Jenny Odell, 116. Impressive.

Link – via NPR

Strange Attractors is a Book About Extraterrestrial Sexuality

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 10:38 AM PDT

A new book is contemplating how extraterrestrials may reproduce. It aims to explore how sexuality might have evolved on other planets and does so with some interesting illustrations and video. How do you think alien sexuality might manifest itself?

Strange Attractors is a joint effort between Encyclopedia Destructica and the federally funded Institute of Extraterrestrial Sexuality (which is a thing that exists) that intends to explore the variety of ways in which alien species might reproduce. The project is planned to be a series of short films, images and written descriptions that fall somewhere between speculative science, sexual thought-experiment, mockumentary and plain old weird-looking stuff. Where the idea behind this project originated I cannot claim to know, but the fact that it even exists makes me want to believe in aliens.

8-bit Sculptures

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 10:38 AM PDT

Using hundreds of tiny wooden blocks artist Shawn Smith is creating “8-bit” sculptures. At a time when retro 8-bit anything is extremely popular these sculptures take this motif and apply it to every day objects and animals. See the full gallery at the link.

Link

'Mystery tree' Survives Wildfire -Again

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 10:08 AM PDT

A 20-foot juniper tree near Sunset Point, Arizona survived a wildfire last week that consumed everything around it. It’s not the first time, either. In fact, the tree is a famous survivor.

Every year it's decorated for Christmas and Independence Day. Right now, it's covered with several American flags and yellow ribbons. It also has its own water system set up underneath, with several large drums and a pipe to feed it water.

That's where the tree gets its name — the mystery tree. A mystery person or people decorate it every year, but it's also a mystery because it manages to have survived several wildfires over the years.

"It's survived wildfire after wildfire" says ADOT engineer Greg Gentsch. "We're just happy it's still here.”

Link -via Arbroath

Past Versions of Our Future

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 10:06 AM PDT


(YouTube link)

In 1964, forward-thinker Arthur C. Clarke predicted instant global communication, e-commerce, and remote surgery. Fifty years ago, everyone had some idea of what the 21st century wold be like. Some of those ideas turned out to be ludicrously wrong. Others were eerily correct. Gamma squad has a collection of videos that show predictions of both kinds, so you can judge who was worth listening to way back then. Link

Nyan Cat as an NES Game

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 09:51 AM PDT

If Nyan Cat were around in 1988, he would the star of an NES game. And it would be in the bargain bin now. J. R. Baker took this idea and ran with it, designing both the front and back of the game case in the style of Konami games from the ’80s. See the expanded art and work in progress at his site. Link

The Bernie Madoff Collection

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 09:37 AM PDT

Bernie Madoff is serving time in a federal prison for running the largest Ponzi scheme ever. The U.S. Marshals Service held an auction of Madoff’s possessions to recoup some of the losses. Frederick James designs bought some of Madoff’s clothing, which they have made into iPad cases. You could probably make one out of your own pants, but these come with a bit of notoriety …if that’s important to you. Link -via Everlasting Blort

Spyro Gyro Motorized Stylus

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 09:28 AM PDT

Spyro Gyro Motorized Stylus – $9.995

School is almost here. Are you looking for a fun way to waste time while you should be studying? You need the Spyro Gyro Motorized Stylus from the NeatoShop.   The Spyro Gyro comes complete with 5 different color pen tips, and 3 interchangeable patterns.  It’s the perfect way to waste hours upon hours of valuable study time.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more entertaining Back to School items!

Link

The Best and Worst Designed Alien Species in Video Games

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 09:10 AM PDT

What makes a good alien creature for a video game? It should look cool, have awesome powers or weapons, and provide a worthy adversary for the player. And it helps if they make some kind of sense. Unreality Magazine looks at several species of video game aliens and rates them accordingly. Which one is your favorite? Pictured is a Protoss warrior from Starcraft. Link

Stacey Mae

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 08:47 AM PDT


(YouTube link)

Don’t blink! This dog has perfected the art of the 5-second video. -via Arbroath

What Is It? game 188

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 06:26 AM PDT

It is once again time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog! Do you know what this object is?

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you’d like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will each win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don’t include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

Check out the What Is It? Blog for more clues, and more mystery items. Good luck!

The First Cross-dressing Comic Book Superhero

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 05:22 AM PDT

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

Madame Fatal is hardly up there in the pantheon of famous and beloved comic book superheroes. Batman, Superman, Iron Man, Captain America, and the Fantastic Four probably never lost any sleep over this rival comic hero possibly replacing them in their fan’s hearts.

Madame Fatal (sometimes spelled “Madam Fatal”) is a fictional character and superhero active during the Golden Age of comic books. Madame Fatal was created and originally illustrated by artist/writer Art Pinajian. The debut of the character was in Crack Comics #1 (May 1940). This was a crime/detective anthology published by Quality Comics. Madame Fatal continued in the series until issue #22, but was not at all popular or well-received.

The character later appeared in a few DC Comics, after they had purchased the rights to the character in 1956, along with a bulk buy-out of all the Quality Comics characters. Even so, Madame Fatal was never much seen except for a few brief appearances and passing mentions from other comic book characters.

Madame Fatal is notable for being a male superhero who dressed up as an elderly woman to fight crimes. As such, he was the first cross-dressing comic book superhero. (Interestingly, later that same year, The Red Tornado became the first female cross-dressing superhero (superheroine?). The Red Tornado proved to be much more popular and successful than Madame Fatal.

O.K, the basic premise goes like this: Richard Stanton is a highly intelligent, highly athletic, successful, world-famous actor. He is dapper, middle-aged, blonde, Caucasian (aren’t all superheroes?) and smokes a pipe. His daughter is kidnapped and he needs the help of police, who get nowhere at all. During the kidnapping ordeal, his wife dies of a broken heart. So, Stanton (as do many other superheroes during their genesis) decides to don a disguise, take on an alter ego, and take matters into his own hands.

He adopts the identity of a red-cloaked, elderly woman who carries a red walking stick. The red cane is used as her main weapon, and this, along with his (her?) superior intellect, athleticism, and deductive crime-solving abilities, helps Madame Fatal become a crime fighter and superhero. Using this disguise, he is able to save his daughter.

Richard Stanton decides to retire from acting and devote his life to conquering crime and criminals as the red cane-wielding Madame Fatal.

The Madame Fatal character was ridiculed, because of the cross-dressing angle, from the very beginning. An article in Cracked lists Madame Fatal as one of the “7 Crappiest Superheroes in Comic Book History.” Many modern readers interpreted the cross-dressing of Madame Fatal as a thinly-disguised attempt to actually portray comic’s first gay superhero, although this angle was never expressly acknowledged. Creator Pinjian’s actual intentions regarding the character are unknown.

Madame Fatal had a short life span. The character was very briefly mentioned in later comic books, but there have been thinly-veiled references to Madame Fatal over the years. The most recent time Madame Fatal was mentioned (or seen) was in DC Comics in 1999. The character was the butt of a gay joke (no pun intended, I swear). A scene in an August 1999 issue of Justice Society of America depicts the funeral of the first Sandman. Wildcat wonders whether his own funeral “will be like the time they buried Madame Fatal here, and no one turned up for the funeral but the touring cast of La Cage Aux Folles?” That would seem to imply the fact that Madame Fatal is dead in the DC Comics universe.

Madame Fatal probably suffered the most gut-wrenching type of death any comic book character can experience. More excruciating than death by gun, knives, clubs, or being lowered into a pool of acid.

Madame Fatal suffered the very worst type of death -death by unpopularity.

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