Steve Ditko’s ‘The Ever Unreachable’

For comic book readers, Steve Ditko is a name to be reckoned with. In a career spanning more than five decades, Ditko has drawn countless pages in every genre for every major publisher. Ditko has created scores of original characters and is probably best known for co-creating The Amazing Spider-Man. Ditko is also the author of many non-fiction essays on topics that range from the popular culture to metaphysics.

Several months ago, Big Hollywood posted Steve Ditko’s provocative essay, “Toyland”. It was a powerfully written piece on creativity, philosophy, heroism and the disturbing trend towards nihilism in the culture.  As a result, “Toyland” got some interesting comments and Ditko has prepared the following as a response.

Written especially for Big Hollywood, here is Steve Ditko’s “The Ever Unreachable.” (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: 9/11, A is A, Aristotle, Bill of Rights, Comic Books
Posted Nov 21st 2009 at 7:03 am in Art, Books and Literature, Culture, Featured Story | 26313864 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/blash/2009/11/21/steve-ditkos-the-ever-unreachable/Steve+Ditko%27s+%27The+Ever+Unreachable%272009-11-21+15%3A03%3A42Batton+Lash

‘HELP!’

I remember three images from September 11, 2001:

1)  People jumping from burning buildings.
2)  Congress standing outside, humbly bowing their heads, and praying.
This was a shocking sight.
3)  The pews of my church completely full of people…and for several months after.

It’s human nature to remember God when we’re in big trouble.  Even agnostics offered up a prayer that day.  We needed super human help from a higher power to defeat the Enemy Without.

God answered our prayers, and along with the excellent leadership of Bush, Cheney, our fantastic military, and superb FBI and CIA, we have been safe for eight years.  Thank you.  (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: 9/11, Congress, Farrah Fawcett, founding fathers, Obama
Posted Sep 21st 2009 at 6:52 am in Politics, Religion | 22813471 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/vjackson/2009/09/21/help/%27HELP%21%272009-09-21+13%3A52%3A57Victoria+Jackson

New Political Blog ‘Big Government’ Launches Thursday

FoxNews.com reports:

New Political Blog BigGovernment.com to Launch Thursday

A conservative blogger and publisher who took on Hollywood earlier this year is setting his sights on the nation’s political establishment.

BigGovernment.com will launch Thursday as a “one-stop shop” for commentary and other political information, according to Andrew Breitbart, the site’s founder.

“This is speaking to the zeitgeist of the blogosphere that every story has an underlying relationship to what’s going on in the Obama administration and how the Republican Party is going to regroup as it relates to issues of the expansion of government powers,” Breitbart told Foxnews.com. “We are just now starting to vet the president and the people he’s put into power.” (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Andrew Breitbart, BigGovernment, breitbart, founding fathers, government
Posted Sep 9th 2009 at 7:02 pm in News, Politics | 22121055 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/09/09/new-political-blog-big-government-launches-tomorrow/New+Political+Blog+%27Big+Government%27+Launches+Thursday2009-09-10+02%3A02%3A57Big+Hollywood

Encroaching Government Ensures We’re Not Free

Americans beware. You are not free. Worse, you are being made more and more a slave each day by the very people who tell you incessantly that you are. In fact, the very word itself, FREEDOM, has become your enemy, as it is bandied about proudly and loudly, and distracting you from the encroaching tyranny all around. The word freedom has replaced the substance of freedom that was your birthright, and that is no more.

Of course, Americans were never completely free, which is expressly why freedom was so long sustained on these shores. Our founders knew what freedom is: The natural, God-created state of man, completely unrestrained by the conventions of other men. They also knew that such pure freedom was never practically experienced, and that if it was, it could never be sustained, because it would naturally and instantly consume itself as the powerful and strong exercise of their will without restraint upon the weak. Pure freedom replaces itself with tyranny, rapidly and violently in a shockingly Darwinian fashion. From the chaos of pure freedom rise despots and kings. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: America, founding fathers, Freedom, government, Obama
Posted Jul 22nd 2009 at 8:44 am in Politics | 18601865 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jdboreing/2009/07/22/freedom%e2%80%99s-just-another-word-for-you-aren%e2%80%99t-free/Encroaching+Government+Ensures+We%27re+Not+Free+2009-07-22+15%3A44%3A55Jeremy+D.+Boreing

Lessons From the Movies: ‘I was born a poor black child.’

In the comedy classic, “The Jerk,” Steve Martin begins his sad tale with the famous line, “I was born a poor black child…” He isn’t kidding. The film revolves around the life of a pale-skinned, white-haired man who firmly believes he is something he is not, despite all evidence to the contrary. The lie has very little practical value, however, as almost all of his actual behavior is driven by his true nature, not his view of himself. Put simply, no matter how black he believes himself to be, Steve Martin cannot sing the blues.

This is, perhaps, one of the most interesting things about human beings: Our unique capacity for deception. Not the deception of others. Most animals are capable of that sort of deceit. No, it is the ability of man to deceive himself that is so remarkable, and not just the ability, but the proclivity to do it. Like Steve Martin’s character in the film, man seems ever determined to create his own definition of himself based not so much on what he is, but on what he would like to be. This self-image certainly has some effect on what a person does, but strangely, it almost never changes or constrains what they actually are. Despite his efforts to be what he believes himself to be, what he is almost always dominates him. The inner-white-man always emerges if you will. While the human mind seems perfectly capable of believing two mutually exclusive things at the exact same time, it is perhaps only able to consistently act from one of them. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: founding fathers, self-image, Steve Martin, The Jerk
Posted Jun 27th 2009 at 5:47 pm in Entertainment, Politics, Religion | 1670305 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jdboreing/2009/06/27/some-lessons-from-the-movies-i-was-born-a-poor-black-child/Lessons+From+the+Movies%3A+%27I+was+born+a+poor+black+child.%272009-06-28+00%3A47%3A06Jeremy+D.+Boreing

Happy Flag Day

I painted my first American flag in 1997 after viewing Robert Hughes’ PBS series “American Visions” about the history of American art and its coming of age in the fifties. This left me wanting to see Jasper Johns 1954 flag painting so much that I got up the next day, headed to the library, returned home and wound up painting my own flag. I have painted the American flag numerous times since and will continue to do so.

All Quiet on the Western Front, 1997

In 2001 I wanted to create a work of art that would fuse Jasper Johns flag and Andy Warhol’s 32 Campbell Soup Can paintings titled “Choices” with a little Ed Ruscha thrown in for good measure. The soup can paintings were all identical except for the flavors on the cans and that’s what I would do to my Johns inspired flags. All identical, as much as you can make thirty-two separate paintings, except in this case, instead of flavors, each vertical flag painting would have an almost invisible word at the bottom. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: American Visions., Andy Warhol, Art, Choices, Ed Ruscha
Posted Jun 14th 2009 at 9:37 am in Entertainment, Politics | 1595702 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aalvillar/2009/06/14/happy-flag-day/Happy+Flag+Day+2009-06-14+16%3A37%3A20Alvaro+Alvillar

Sunday Matineé: 1776

March 16 will mark the 40th anniversary of the Broadway opening of “1776.”  Written by Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone, it went on to run for 1,217 performances.  It’s hard to believe that forty years ago it was still popular to write an unabashedly patriotic musical that openly celebrated American Exceptionalism and painted the founding fathers not just as humans but as the intellectual and moral giants that they were.  Because the 1972 film version is tantamount to a filmed version of the play rather than a Hollywood re-interpretation, its original intent and form is easily accessible to today’s audience.  It deserves a good look and therefore, is this week’s Sunday Matineé.  (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: "1776", "Sit Down John", 46th Street Theatre, Abigail Adams, American Exceptionalism
Posted Mar 1st 2009 at 3:44 pm in Entertainment, Video | 6880265 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/sright/2009/03/01/sunday-matinee-1776/Sunday+Matine%C3%A9%3A++17762009-03-01+23%3A44%3A48Stage+Right