by Damon Martin

The Walking Dead Hits Issue 100 With A Bang

The Walking Dead is not only one of the biggest shows on television, but is also one of the best selling comic books in the world, and now Robert Kirkman’s zombie tale has reached its historic 100th issue. It has already become the top selling single issue of the 21st century, prompting a second printing less than a week after its release.

According to Image Comics, the issue sold out of its 383,612 initial order the same day it was released. Meanwhile, BleedingCool reports that a copy of the rare ComiXology variant issue (pictured) was sold on eBay for $500.

“The Walking Dead continues to greatly exceed all my expectations in all forms,” said Robert Kirkman. “I am especially excited for what this means for comics as an industry, that this is an independent comic hitting that number. The future of comics couldn’t be brighter as more and more readers are embracing new ideas in a big way.”

The Walking Dead Magazine

You know there’s a Walking Dead comic book and a Walking Dead TV show, but what about a Walking Dead magazine? Well you’re in luck! Debuting on October 23, The Walking Dead Magazine will feature an insider look at both the comic book and the TV show. With exclusive content including interviews, spoilers, and previews, it will feature plenty of extra material for fans of the zombie epic.

“This magazine will be your one stop destination for all the news pertaining to the comic, TV show, video game, toys, games, and whatever else exists in the ever-expanding Walking Dead universe! If it’s happening, you’ll find out all about it right here,” creator Robert Kirkman said.

An alternate version of the debut issue will be available exclusively in comic stores. The cover of this special edition (pictured above), will feature a previously unreleased image by Walking Dead comic artist Charlie Adlard.

Get Ready For The Ricktatorship

“Get one thing straight, if you’re staying this isn’t a democracy anymore!”

Those were the infamous final words of Rick Grimes as Season 2 of The Walking Dead closed on AMC just a few short months ago. Now that the cast is in full swing production for Season 3 some details are starting to emerge about what to expect as the group of survivors moves into a prison.

Andrew Lincoln, who portrays Grimes in the zombie drama, says he gained inspiration from a seminal apocalyptic novel to help him understand the depths to which the former sheriff’s deputy has fallen as he’s seen friends and family die time and time again since the undead came back to life.

“I was reading…The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I saved reading that until now and I think Rick is very much at that point. It’s interesting because the time scale in that book and this season I think is very similar. He’s been pushing people away all the way through Cormac McCarthy’s book to protect his son,” Lincold explained during last weekend’s San Diego Comic Con. “In doing so, he loses his humanity. I think Rick has isolated himself from the group and in his marriage and that’s the way that he is protecting everybody. I think that’s a very interesting place to start this season.”

And so begins the Ricktatorship

Executive Producer Glen Mazzara Says There Is No Safe Haven

In a recent interview with The Wrap.com, Executive Producer Glen Mazzara answered questions about the new season, and while he obviously couldn’t reveal much about the highly anticipated third season, he did confirm something that everyone should already know about a world infested by zombies…

There really is no safe place to hide.

The thought of there being some utopia that the survivors of this zombie apocalypse could escape to should just be washed from your brains right now because it ain’t happening.

“There is no safe haven in this world. I want to make that clear. At the end of our Season 2 finale that farm is overtaken and that farm was that last safe haven, and there’s no safe haven in that world. I want to be very clear about that. No one is safe. There is no safe haven,” said Mazzara.

Season 3 Photos Released: The Governor And Michonne Revealed; Merle is Back!

SuicideGirls first told you earlier this year that Michael Rooker’s raging redneck character Merle Dixon would be back in Season 3 of The Walking Dead and now photos released by AMC show his return (albeit less one hand).

The stills also reveal the identity of the badass hooded sword wielding character who debuts from the comic books to the screen to kick off next season as well as the man who will undoubtedly become the most hated villain in Walking Dead history as soon as he makes his first appearance.

Season 3 Debut Date Announced

This bit of news is short and sweet, but probably the most anticipated for any fan of The Walking Dead. As first announced at San Diego Comic Con by executive producer Glen Mazzara, The Walking Dead will return on Sunday, October 14 at 9 PM ET. There has been a 16-episode order for Season 3, and once again the show will be broken into two parts with the first series of episodes airing in 2012 and the second slate debuting in 2013.

Related Posts

Interview: The Walking Dead’s Irone Singleton aka T-Dog
Interview: The Walking Dead’s Michael Rooker – Merle Is Back
Walking Dead Executive Producer Glen Mazzara Reveals Season 3 Secrets
The Walking Dead Season 2 Finale Recap: And Hell Followed Them
When There Is No More Room In Hell, The Dead Come To TV
Scott Ian (Anthrax) and Matt Mogk (Zombie Research Society): Planning for the Apocalypse
That’s Not Your Mommy Anymore – Teaching Children How To Identify Zombies
SG Interview: Robert Kirkman
SG Interview: Viggo Mortensen – The Road

by SG’s Team Agony feat. Clio

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.

Q: I have been going through a long divorce, it has taken most of my time away from my girlfriend and she is growing more and more irritated with me. I on the other hand, have been doing every thing I can to finalize all the paperwork and move on. But she thinks I’m trying to get back with my ex no matter what I tell her. As far as I know she is a pretty trusting person, and I haven’t given her any reason to not trust me. I just don’t know what to do. Should I push through it? I really love her, and don’t want to lose her because of my crazy ex wife.

A: All I can say is… get that shit over with as soon as possible. Talk to your girlfriend about her distrustfulness and step it up a notch to show her that she’s the only object of your affection. Are you still in touch with your (almost) ex-wife? Limit the contact you have with her. Don’t talk shit about her, just acknowledge that she once mattered but doesn’t anymore. If you still own any of her crap, get rid of it now. When will the divorce be finalized? Celebrate with your girlfriend when you’re officially a free man. You could even throw a divorce party if that’s your thing. Bottom line: spend more time with your girlfriend, and less time on anything that has to do with your ex.

Good luck!

Clio
xoxo

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com

by Nicole Powers

“What if the Devil was not the bad guy? Maybe he’s been painted in a wrong light. What if God was not so good?”
– Darren Lynn Bousman

Director Darren Lynn Bousman has been to hell and back getting his recent projects to the big screen. Since leaving the Saw franchise behind after helming films II, III and IV, he’s been forced to seek alternate routes to get his work seen. If necessity is the mother of invention, then Bousman’s latest Rocky Horror-inspired project, The Devil’s Carnival, is invention’s demented bastard child.

Bypassing traditional distribution channels entirely, Bousman took the first installment of his unique episodic cinematic rock opera direct to his considerable fan base via a rock & roll-style cross-country tour earlier this year. The film-cum-theatrical experience played to mostly sold-out houses packed with the willfully immersed, prompting an encore tour – the first date of which was at San Diego’s Comic Con. We caught up with Bousman by phone as he boarded the train back from the annual geek fest…

Read our exclusive interview with Darren Lynn Bousman on SuicideGirls.com.

Jupiter Suicide in Giggly

• LOCATION: France.
• HOMETOWN: Disneyland ! (Paris)
• CIGARETTES: “I’m giving up.”
• MY DIET: Omnivore.
• ALCOHOL: Occasionally.
• MY KINK FACTOR: Electrocution, clown suits, furries, oh my!
• POT: I’m a total stoner.
• MY IDEA OF A GOOD TIME: Bars, after parties, home by dawn.

Get to know Jupiter better over at SuicideGirls.com!

by Brad Warner

I was planning to write a different article today but then I heard the news about the shooting at the screening of the new Batman movie in Colorado. If you haven’t heard about that, click on the highlighted words in the previous sentence and read the CNN article.

Addressing the incident in Colorado, President Obama said:

“If there’s anything to take away from this tragedy it’s the reminder that life is very fragile. Our time here is limited and it is precious. And what matters at the end of the day is not the small things, it’s not the trivial things, which so often consume us and our daily lives. Ultimately, it’s how we choose to treat one another and how we love one another.”

True that. You do not even want to get me started on the matter of the Second Amendment and gun control. That debate was over and settled for me on the night of December 8, 1980 when John Lennon was murdered by a maniac with a legally acquired gun. There is no further need to discuss the matter. You will not change my mind on this issue. So please do not bother trying.

But facts are facts. People in the United States of America are allowed to have guns. I am not complacent on this issue and I will continue to do everything I can to change this fact for as long as I’m alive. Nonetheless this is the situation. I’m an American and I like living in this country. So I have to do what I can to make it better.

To me, this most recent tragedy is part of a much larger problem, which most people barely seem able to grasp. As technology advances, more and more people will continue to have access to greater and greater destructive power. The attacks on New York and Washington, DC on September 11, 2001 are the best example of this. Up until then, such an attack could only have been carried out by one of those very large, highly organized units of humanity we call a nation.

Nations have banded together to commit horrific atrocities in the past. This is certainly true. But it’s very hard to get that many people to participate in something really awful. Hitler, to take the most obvious example, really had to work at it. If he’d been able to get the holocaust or the blitzkrieg attacks on London going with just the first fifty guys who showed up at one of his beer hall gigs in Munich I’m sure he would have. But he couldn’t. He had to get thousands of people to support him. The difference between then and now is that now you can get something really horrific going with just a handful of people. Or even just one. The technology has progressed and will continue to progress along those lines.

In Japan (where I lived for eleven years), as in most of the civilized world, not just any lunatic can go buy a stash of guns the way they can here in America. This doesn’t mean there are no homicidal crazies in Japan. It just means they have to use more primitive technology. When I was over there a guy went into an elementary school in Osaka armed with a great big knife and killed eight children. I’m sure he would have used a gun and killed more if he could have gotten one. But he couldn’t.

Our continuing greater access to advanced technology is the factor that makes fundamental human change extremely urgent right now. In the past we could get away with a lot of shit because we didn’t have access to such tremendous destructive power. We couldn’t do that much damage to each other, to our planet and so forth. Now we can.

We’ve all heard the argument that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Of course the fact is that people with guns can kill people far more effectively than people without guns. But this has been said so often it’s a cliché. Still, even I have to admit that it’s true that if everyone who owned a gun were moral and sane, people could have as many guns as they wanted. Unfortunately not everyone is moral and sane. Nor can we effectively test everyone who tries to buy a gun as to their level of sanity and morality. So we need to control the access to such weapons. Again, this is just a fact, not something I want to debate.

To me, the most urgent issue in the world is not gun control. It’s morality. I’ve always felt this way. It’s one of the most fundamental points in all of Buddhism. People who say that Zen Buddhism has no stance on morality do not understand the very strong stance Zen Buddhism takes on morality. Some of this is the fault of Zen Buddhists who fail to (or are simply unable to) explain our ideas of morality clearly. But it’s also because the Zen take on morality is so very different from what we’ve been used to that it’s hard for people to grasp even when it is explained clearly.

I’ll make what will probably be an inadequate attempt at explaining it here on this little blog. Please forgive me if this just ends up being confusing.

All attempts to regulate morality through rules are doomed to fail. Even the tougher gun control laws that are clearly needed in the United States will ultimately fail. People will still be able to obtain guns if they really try hard. The difference is that they’ll have to try hard and thus may be deterred from doing whatever it is they want to do with their guns because it’s too damned difficult to get them. Yet there will be those few who are determined and those few will be able to do terrible things.

But guns are far from our only problem. Our most basic problem is that we do not know how to behave morally. In part this is because we imagine that morality is based on rules imposed by others. We associate moral behavior with the avoidance of punishment. Religions try make us believe in an imaginary place where even those bad things we’ve done that the law or our parents or whoever have failed to punish will be punished by an imaginary being who sees everything. The law of karma in Buddhism is too often poorly explained as yet another means by which this is supposed to occur. We’ll be punished for our bad behavior, it’s often wrongly said, by a kind of invisible moral force somewhere in the universe.

What’s really going on is that we misunderstand ourselves to be autonomous units who can inflict harm upon other autonomous units without suffering ourselves. But this is like thinking your right hand can stab your left foot and get away with it. Of course in some sense it can. Your right hand will not feel any pain if it does that. But your right hand can only do this if it is able to ignore the fact that it is part of a larger unit that does feel pain when it harms another part of that same larger unit. It’s not that the right hand will die and go to hell and be punished for stabbing your foot. Nor will the bad karma of stabbing your foot find its way back to your hand some time in the future. It all happens instantaneously.

The problem is that we are deeply, deeply steeped in a kind of huge collective delusion. Our mistaken way of understanding things has become so pervasive that we take it to be a fact. Our right hand really does think it’s not connected to our left foot. But it’s really not that hard to understand for ourselves right now that it’s a mistake. It just takes a bit of work to allow ourselves to settle enough that we can start seeing things as they actually are.

I am not trying to suggest that if only that guy in Colorado had meditated a little we wouldn’t have had this tragedy. In fact, there are so many meditation centers in Colorado I would not be surprised to learn that he did meditate. Perhaps even regularly. Meditation is not a magic solution to mental illness. In the short run sometimes meditation can seem to make mental illness worse by bringing it more to the surface.

But I do believe that our society desperately needs to establish a culture of meditation because we need a new basic foundation for moral action. We need a new foundation for moral action because the means for great destruction are now in the hands of far more people than ever had access to them before.

Obama is right. Ultimately, it is about how we choose to treat one another and how we love one another.

My heart goes out to all those who have suffered because of this recent tragedy and all of the other tragedies like this that we’ll never hear about.

Brad Warner is the author of Sex, Sin and Zen: A Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to Polyamory and Everything in Between as well as Hardcore Zen, Sit Down and Shut Up! and Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate. He maintains a blog about Buddhist stuff that you can click here to see. You can also buy T-shirts and hoodies based on his books, and the new CD by his band Zero Defex now!

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by Lee Camp

Let’s be honest with ourselves. America is too fat!…We’re also too skinny. The United States has the most obese people in the world. But we also force an impossible-to-obtain body image on young people. The end result is that everyone is miserable. Check out the video. Let me know if you agree in the comments section below.

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by Steven Whitney

Reading this recent tweet from the esteemed Governor of Wisconsin, one has to wonder if his head is buried in the sand or up his ass. Either way, his vision is blurred.

No disrespect to Noah – he built a fine ark – but like Mitt Romney, he invited only his family to come along for the ride. And the animals, of course. But at least on Noah’s vehicle, they weren’t strapped to the roof.

In ancient times, there were other great wonders to behold – the Great Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse at Alexandria, the Temple of Artemis, the Roman Coliseum, the Greek Parnassus, and even the Great Wall of China. All of them built by the governments of their eras.

In modern America, the bridges (the Golden Gate and Brooklyn come to mind) and dams and canals that adorn our waterways were built by the government. The Interstate Highway system and the city streets and country roads were built in the 1950s, under a Republican President who (like Roosevelt before him) saw the need to build our country’s vital infrastructure. The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space crafts, as well as the Space Shuttles and the giant telescopes that look into the farthest reaches of space were all built by our government. Why, even Wisconsin’s Statehouse was built by the government.

I doubt Noah, even with the help of his sons, could have managed any of them.

Governor, until you realize that individuals, private enterprise, and governments can all contribute remarkable achievements to society – separately or together – you define yourself by the old adage: there are none so blind as those who cannot see.

Related Posts:
Fighting Back Part 3: Fighting Fire With Fire
When The Past Is Prologue
Fighting Back Part 2: Defining Rovian Politics
Fighting Back
The Electoral Scam
Being Fair
Occupy Reality
Giving. . . And Taking Back
A Tale Of Two Grovers
A Last Pitch For Truth
America: Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.
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