Sunday 22 June 2014

Matt Dow, SOOTHSAYER!


...Mom's not home tonight
So we can roll around, have a pillow fight
Like a major rager OMFG


Let's all slumber party
Like a fat kid on a pack of Smarties
Someone chuck a cupcake at me


It's time for spin the bottle
Not gonna talk about it tomorrow
Keep it just between you and me


Let's play truth or dare now
We can roll around in our underwear how
Every silly kitty should be...

DAVE SIM:
Boy, I've gone back and forth on this one. You don't want to set Matt off but...

A couple of weeks back in the NATIONAL POST, they had an article about this new video by Avril Lavigne -- "Hello Kitty" -- which people were saying was racist. And then saying it was creepy because she's almost thirty and here she is talking about having really...REALLY... cozy sleepovers.  And I thought, uh, well, yeah in a sense I can see that.  What's the "Hello Kitty" age for girls?  AL is almost thirty. Got it. Sort of.

And then I thought, Holy smoke. It's Matt Dow's -- and my -- "Adventures of Bi-curious Avril Lavigne". Which if you recall glamourpuss #25, I said that wouldn't be criminally actionable. "The Bi-curious Adventures of Avril Lavigne" would be. But the other way, you can say it's just a character.  Which is really what they're doing with the song.  She isn't 30 years old in the song, she's "Hello Kitty" age. She's that character.
Glamourpuss #25 (May 2012)
Art by Dave Sim
I HAD to watch the video. I AM a fan. But THAT seemed creepy.

But, it's, like...like...Avril Lavigne LOOKS like a tween. I think she always will.

And as a piece of pop culture, I'm fascinated by it. I mean "Are You Big In Japan?" And her husband who is a real music industry type, wrote the song (right?) or wrote it with her. So here's a husband writing his wife as a bi-curious, interracial tween.

But, you know, Japan is very different about... that stuff... than we are. That makes it okay, right?

Either her husband or "her people" also made a case that she's one of the most famous people on the planet, their criteria being how much Internet coverage there is of her in How. Many. Languages. And it's this staggering number. She's THE MOST FAMOUS Canadian by a wide, wide margin, from what they were saying. Justin Bieber is MUCH bigger in the English speaking world but he doesn't have her Pan Global stature.

So THAT makes it okay.

Right?

She's completely entitled to be as Japanese as she culturally wants to portray herself because she IS "Big In Japan". She's BIG EVERYWHERE.

Anyway, Matt, I'm impressed that you "got that" two years ahead of time.

Pretty good Comic Book Metaphysics for a first-timer.

Great shooting, kid.

Don't get cocky.    

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Am I the only person who chuckles when they hear/read the words "most famous Canadian" regardless of context? I dunno, it amuses me for some reason.

Anyway. I'm also kind of chuckling imagining Dave self-consciously watching an Avril Lavigne music video on a laptop in a coffee joint. And at Glamourpuss' continually prescient nature. And at the surprise Star Wars reference.

Hah.

-Wes Smith

Birdsong said...

I watched the video and it can compete with the best cartoons out there. I hope Avril is saving some cash for later because she won't look 14 years old forever.

Anonymous said...

"Comic-book metaphysics" -- hee hee hee! (Oh dear ...)

I too read that statistic about Avril Lavigne being famous in the non-English-speaking world. I always wondered how she would come across. Maybe something like this: http://youtu.be/yzC4hFK5P3g.

-- Damian T. Lloyd, dtl

Mouse Skull Entertainment said...

Well...

Not to go off or anything,

I actually got the idea for the "Bi-Curious Adventures of Avril Lavigne back in 2003.

So I "got that" eleven years ahead of time.

Apparently.

Matt Dow

Unknown said...

Brad Foster - I recognized the style immediately as I started scrolling down the image. a very pleasant blast from the past...
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