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...

~ Avril Lavine: Hello Kitty

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.