The Hundred Seventy-Eighth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

If you were completely incapable of drawing a hand clasping a tommygun, why did you put one at the front of the frame? Weren't things busy enough already?

Wow, I'm criticizing a subsistence-artist making war propaganda seventy-odd years ago. Weird that it's come to this.

The Hundred Seventy-Seventh Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

I know I've been taken aback by some of the hard-core violence in these golden-age stories, but wow, that's nasty.

The Hundred Seventy-Sixth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

Am I still an internet pedant if the apostrophe mistake I'm criticizing is from a comic published seventy years ago? Of course, the answer is yes.

The Hundred Seventy-Fifth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

And that's why you don't trust the Pied Piper.

Wow, would that next panel prove to have some unfortunate connotations a few years later...

The Hundred Seventy-Fourth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

It's a wonder America had to bother fighting a war at all, what with the rate the Japanese were apparently offing themselves at.

Red John Countdown Time!

We're down to the wire now on the end of the Red John mystery, so I thought I'd take this moment to re-asses my theory in light of new evidence.

In episode five, we learned from a detective presumably hired by Red John the man has a tattoo of three dots on his left shoulder.

This seems like an easy way to narrow the suspect down to one, but unfortunately for Patrick, it turns out that three of the remaining suspects each have the tattoo.

What's the significance? Well, obviously since we saw all of them plotting together-

We can extrapolate that they're all members of the same fraternal order of corrupt police officers and public officials that we've been learning about this year. Which isn't a huge surprise, since Bertram already expressed a love for William Blake, and the organization is clearly a William Blake-themed club, what with all the Tyger, Tyger nonsense. Also, the next episode is called 'The Great Red Dragon'. So there's that.

How the trick is done!

So, as promised, here's an explanation of how Red John pulled the trick with his list, apparently proving that he had information that Jane didn't even have access to when the video was made. The show briefly raised the spectre of Red John being psychic, but we can dismiss that out of hand, since his plan to get information from Jane's psychiatrist proves he's working with realistic sources of information. So - how did he make his own version of the list six weeks before it existed? There's a clue in the lead-up to the reading of the list.

The Hundred Seventy-Second Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

Isn't it about time that someone showed that Pied Piper a thing or two?

The Hundred Seventy-First Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

Nazi? Check.
Amazing mustache? Check.
Crazy mad scientist name? Check.
Plan to blow up New York? Check.

You might be my favorite new villain, Doctor Agony!

The Hundred Seventieth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

You know, I've seen fictional depictions of villains attempting to drop huge bags of sand on people hundreds of time throughout my life, but this may be the first time someone's actually been killed by one.

The Hundred Sixty-Ninth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

For a while there I was really enjoying the fact that Quicksilver was basically the only superhero who didn't have a racist sidekick. That was a nice few months.

The Hundred Sixty-Eighth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

Of all the crimes in the world, does robbing during a blackout deserve to be singled-out as particularly egregious?

The Hundred Sixty-Seventh Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

This panel is being presented as a public service - if you ever need to see an ideal representation of the concept of the 'wealthy dowager' in her natural state of being offended by the lower classes, there you have it.

On the Subject of the West Wing

In its final season, the producers The West Wing made a daring formal decision. They decided that instead of running the season in something approaching real time, as most network shows do, the show would be set over the course of a single presidential campaign, following Bradley Whitford's attempt to get Jimmy Smits the Democratic Party nomination, and then a win in the general election. It was an interesting idea, and made for some decent drama at times, but at its core, it was misbegotten strategy if the producers' goal was to ensure an eighth season of the show.

At its core, The West Wing was a show about the adventures of President Martin Sheen and his staff. While Martin's storylines often took a back seat to the adventures of Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits in the seventh season, he was always there, dominating the credits and sitting in the Oval Office. By playing out the presidential election over the entire season, and delaying the inauguration until the very last episode, the producers created a logical stopping point for the show. It created the idea that the show was the story of Martin Sheen's presidency, and the moment that ended, there was no reason to continue watching it.

They didn't have to structure it that way. People enjoyed the format of The West Wing, and audiences have a history of liking Jimmy Smits. Would they have watched a show about president Jimmy Smits? I can't say for certain, but the producers never gave them the chance to decide. By saving the inauguration until the very end of the season, the producers effectively surrendered to the idea that the show had to end with Martin leaving office. By having no episodes with Jimmy Smits as president, they never made the argument for the existence of a show with that premise.

Adventures in Fake Journalism: The Mentalist 509

For a little more than half of Season 5, Patrick Jane spent the episodes making a list of everyone he'd ever shook hands with in the hopes of figuring out which of them may have been the notorious serial killer Red John. In episode 509 we got a peek at a couple of pages from the book, and it was an interestingly detailed piece of work, from a propmaking standpoint.

It reads-