Originally appeared as fourth post in PopIN as PopMuda:

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You might already know that I really adore comics. They are a great medium of telling stories through art.

Today, I’d like share some of my favourite graphic novels that can be considered radical in their deconstruction of what it means to be human, and the whole god, heaven/hell thing:

Preacher (by Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon)
This one hell of a ride is what you get when you mix a Texan preacher, an Irish vampire and a sharp-shooter hottie. Preacher Jesse Custer lived a messed-up childhood under his righteous grandma who wanted him to grow up being a man of God. When the unnatural child of an angel and a demon accidentally entered his body and granted him the “Word of God”, he made it his mission to find God across the United States.

Hellblazer (by various writers & artists)
John Constantine might be many things—occult detective, thief, exorcist, demon hunter, liar, The Laughing Magician—but he’s just really a chain-smoking Scouse bastard. Once on the brink of death, he tricked the First of the Fallen to not only save his ass, but cure him of his lung cancer. One scene that continues to give me the chills is by writer Brian Azzarello, when John cursed some Muslims convicts to pray the other way for pissing him off.

Transmetropolitan (by Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson)
In a dystopian future where humans have found hundreds of ways to live beyond our normal bodies, Spider Jerusalem is a gonzo journalist hell-bent on reporting the truth and bringing down corrupt politicians. When his stories were censored from mainstream press by the President and faced with assassination attempts, Spider continued to dissent in exile through guerilla internet-like “feedsites”. Somehow reminds me a lot of RPK.

Marvelman (by Alan Moore & various artists)
Formerly Marvelman, then Miracleman after a lawsuit by Marvel Comics, and recently Marvelman again after being bought by Marvel. He was initially a British version of Captain Marvel, but Alan Moore, master of reboots, turned it into a far more sinister story. Moore kept asking the question: “What would you do if you have the power of gods?”: Would you try to take over the world? Could you still stay with your mere human love ones? How would you remake Earth?

The Sandman (by Neil Gaiman & various artists)
Definitely one of the best tales ever made, and Gaiman’s greatest achievement so far. Sandman popularised the use of mythical characters in new settings and tales. Lucifer, for example, suddenly decided one day to quit his role as keeper of Hell, set free all its prisoners, and closed it, leaving the key in care of the titular character, Morpheus: The Lord of Dreams.

Something to think about.

My favourite story? Ramadan. Remember the enchanted Baghdad, with its palaces, flying carpets, beautiful harems, genies and wonderful creatures? Where has it gone, and why is it now a war-torn country full of misery?  The answer, as told in this story, is because Caliph Harun al-Rashid had presented Baghdad to Morpheus for safe-keeping in the land of dreams, so that its glory will never fade and be remembered forever!

You might have realised that for someone who talks about rationalism and rejecting superstition, I am very fond of supernatural fictions. Well, it’s because that’s how I feel supernatural should stay as—fiction.

Now if I have succeeded in getting your interest, why don’t you pick some of these titles up? Comics are not all about superpowers and hot chicks, you know.

Psst, have you joined Unscientific Malaysia’s Facebook fan page yet? We have some awesome discussion going on about evolution!

Third post as PopMuda at PopIN:

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Google “Malaysia” and “evolusi” together, and the first link that comes out is for “racing”-flick Evolusi KL Drift. FML.

This is where tackling the issue of evolution in Malaysia becomes rather tricky—it’s rarely because so many people oppose it. We just don’t talk about it much.

So let me get the ball rolling. What is evolution anyway?

To put it simply, theory of evolution explains how animals and plants change over time. This process of change is driven by a concept called natural selection, which means whichever species suits their environment best, will survive better on the average. To survive better, these animals and plants will adapt and change, causing variations after billions of years.

So why don’t we talk about it much? Chiefly it’s because the two main Abrahamic religions in Malaysia, Islam and Christianity are very much sensitive on the origin of human.

It’s understandable for Christians who believe in the Young Earth creationism (i.e. Earth was created in six days, and is only about a few thousand years old), but for Muslims, it’s simply baffling. Most would accept that the Big Bang did happen and billions-year-old fossils are real, but the mere mention of men descending from apes would make some go bonkers.

I have heard many instances of our students overseas who refuse outright to attend evolution classes, like the very act of learning is blasphemous.

Let me assure you, evolution does not even suggest that men came from apes, but that’s a story for another day.

Of course, there are attempts to reconcile evolution and creationism [English version]—an attempt which I think is futile at best—but isn’t it a wonder why this isn’t discussed more? Instead, authorities try their best to hush this up so there won’t be more who will question the status quo (just like they do with everything else).

Why are we, as a country, still in denial on evolution? It is the basis of modern biology, and one of the most important concepts in science. Just imagine the madness if the government suddenly decides to teach that the world is flat, or the Sun revolves around Earth!

Time and time again, why do we keep dismissing the theory of evolution, considering how much it affects our very lives? If we can’t agree on it, let’s at least talk about it more.

So, intelligent readers of PopIN, do you reject evolution? Or do you believe in the theory? Are you mostly confused? Do you think that there might be truth in it, but are still unconvinced? Do you think I’m talking total bullshit?

We would love to know what your views are on this controversial topic. Drop by our discussion board on the newly launched Unscientific Malaysia Facebook fan page and put forward your opinions! Hop on!

This was my second post as PopIN’s PopMuda.

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Away from polarising politicians back home, Malaysian students in Sydney thrive on being simply of one race: Malaysian race. That was one of the most important things I learnt while in Sydney for four years.

Today, I want to share with you some of the interesting things our students there do for fun:

Malaysia Fest (MFest)
Undoubtedly the oldest and biggest Malaysian cultural festival organised by students—in Australia, if not the world. MFest showcases the best of Malaysia with the classic combo of cultural stage shows and stalls of authentic goodies. Months before the event, the students start choreographing and rehearsing the performances . Every year the committee tries to outdo the last year’s, and MFest 2009 headed by Jenny Tan is the grandest yet, with guest performances by One Buck Short, Reza Salleh, Liyana Fizi and Rashdan Harith. In 2010, MFest will be in its 20th year.

Photo credits: Kamal Hadi

With Love, Down Under (WLDU)
WLDU is a charity organisation based in Sydney, but with members from all over Australia and Malaysia. The idea was concocted by Erina Zahara Ellias as a way for the students to give to society during uni holidays. Two events have been organised so far: a dinner in Malaysia and the WLDU Charity Gig in UNSW featuring Flop Poppy. In two years, they have managed to collect RM 42,000 for PERNIM and Pertubuhan Penyayang ar-Raudhah. WLDU plans to branch into other charities in the future, especially environmental causes.

Photo credits: Andrialis Abdul Rahman

TONG
Combining art exhibitions and impromptu concerts, TONG is the flagship annual event led by Tasniim Abd Rahman and Persatuan Pelajar Melayu Sydney (PPMS). Every year, Malaysia Hall is turned into a gallery featuring eclectic artworks from arts and design students. It is apt then that the name was derived from the act of throwing all artistic “junk” in one space. The last TONG was given the theme “junkies in rubik.kubik”.

Photo credits: Andrialis Abdul Rahman

Malam Gema Merdeka (MGM)
Starting as a modest dinner to celebrate Hari Merdeka, MGM has transformed in the last three years into a full-blown musical theatre under its masterminds from Malaysian Students’ Council of Australia (MASCA) NSW, Najmuddin Mohd Aminuddin and Nik Arif Izani. Attended by the Malaysian High Commissioner and consuls from various countries, MGM features spectacular performances with elaborate dances and costumes. It is usually held on the Merdeka eve and ends with Merdeka shouts.

Love the Person NeXT to You
This charity project was started by Muhammad Hafiz Samsudin and Baiti Aziz, who are representatives of Act of Random Kindness (ARK). With a couple of other friends, they distribute free clothes, books, food and whatever they can spare to the homeless and other needy people around the Newtown area. The free stuff are donated by students, especially those who are leaving for good. They look forward to continue their efforts in Malaysia when they get back after graduation soon.

All these projects are organised 100% by students, and they would be glad for any support they can get, especially in financial sponsorship. Are you from a company or GLC looking to give some corporate social responsibility? You can contact these events on their website to give them a much-needed boost.

Here’s my 1st post as PopIN’s PopMuda. Tune in at PopIn’s Facebook page and Twitter for updates on my posts this whole week!

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Face it, we Malaysians are such a superstitious lot. Admittedly, it adds a certain flavour and colour to our culture, but there are some instances where the superstitions border on being absurdly ridiculous.

Let’s take a look at some of the stuff Malaysians take to heart:

1. Numbers
Countless Malaysians suffer from an irrational fear for numbers. The result: we have floor 3A instead of floor 4. Also because of this, car plates that contain variations of ‘444’ or ‘4444’ are relatively cheaper than other vanity numbers. Funny, innit?

Don’t even mention getting nombor ekor. We see them in the weirdest of places.

2. Bomoh
Bomohs and pawangs are almost part of our national health service, that I fear one day it might join the ranks of other alternative pseudo-treatments like homeopathy and acupuncture. The thing is, bomohs are notorious for rape cases and even murder. Furthermore, they do not need legit training, be hygienic or even certified. Unlike doctors, they are not obligated to abide by the oath to “do no harm”.

Why do we trust them so much again?

3. Hantu
Boy, we have so many names for different ghouls! (Danny Lim’s The Malaysian Book of The Undead is an amusing guide to most of them). However, more sinister is that there are always some hantus or makhluk halus to be blamed for everything that went wrong. Rape? That was the orang minyak. Theft? Toyol. Car acccidents? Pocong. Abduction? Hantu tetek.

Others? Just blame in on dark arts or djinn possession.

4. Media
Do we have so many supernatural news in the media because we believe in those nonsense, or do we believe in them because they come up a lot in news? Malaysian tabloids thrive on these paranormal sensations (here looking at you, Harian Metro and Kosmo) and we have kids reading Mastika instead of Reader’s Digest.

The tabloids are not the only guilty ones. TV3 featured the praying sejadah hoax a few weeks ago.

5. Bogus
Looking at the ads targeted at Malaysians, it seems that all we care about is getting thin and being virile. It is very common to see ubat kuat or urut batin ads plastered around, and to get thin, we’re easily duped by sham products ranging from diet juices, irradiated gems in Premium Beautiful corsets, magical crystals, magnetic mattress et cetera, et cetera.

I reserve my greatest gripe for the BioAura water system. According to their TV ad, some filtered water is all you need to become a successful person. Pfft.

For more take on the supernatural, visit Unscientific Malaysia.

Malaysia Fest 2009 (MFest), a cultural festival run by Malaysian students in Sydney, had just revealed their promotional poster last week:

MFest 2009: Our Culture, Our Essence

Which is the best damn MFest poster I’ve ever seen so far. Credits go to designer Azlan Ab. Malek and the Marketing Executive Producer (EP) Sabrina Hanim.

Things have not always been this awesome for MFest. However, the renaissance in the quality of marketing and promotion in MFest can be attributed to Sunny Tan, who was the Marketing EP in 2006.

This was the poster back then in 2006, when yours truly was just a lowly minion, a Marketing Director under Sunny’s department:

MFest 2006: One Festival, Many Faces, A World of Excitement

Laugh all you want, haha. I myself feel like crying with shame every time I see this poster resurface. It was cobbled together with whatever Photoshop skills that I had to hastily acquire.

I was immensely proud of the five hand-drawn caricatures, though. They were the mascots for that year’s MFest, and we dubbed them “the patungs” (dolls). They were supposed to represent the different races in Malaysia: Malays, Chinese, Indians, the indigenous and Azan Azlan. It was very hard for me to choose a favourite from the five! (it was the guy on extreme right).

The “words in the middle” was a genius idea by Sunny, they were supposed to be things that you could look forward to in MFest 2006. I adapted the concept of tag clouds, which was very new at that time.

Next year, I succeeded Sunny as the Marketing EP, and commissioned Joshua Soo for this poster:

MFest 2007: A Rainbow of Cultures

Marked improvement, don’t you think? I particularly love the colour scheme (“Rainbow of Cultures”! tee hee) and that hornbill humping the hibiscus. We dubbed that mascot Horny Bill. Suffice to say, the whole team that year was a bunch of horny buggers.

In 2008, my protégé Shaheera Djafar took over the department while I move up the ranks, and this must have been our tipping point. The terrific duo of Sabrina Hanim and Azlan Malek joined the department and produced this beaut:

MFest 2008: A Cultural Connection

The background painting was procured at Central Market KL: the Malay-ish hibiscus, Indian earring and Chinese cheongsam. There was this running joke among us that the lady in the painting is actually a cross-dressing dude since we couldn’t see her hair bunched up in a bun.

My favourite part of this: the red “FREE ADMISSION” stamp. Nothing like saying “FREE!” to get the Malaysians’ attentions.

There you go, see how far we’ve come. This year we’ll continue keeping it real.

Malaysia Fest: still the original, still the best.

More info on Malaysia Fest on their website and Facebook group. RSVP to MFest 2009: Our Culture, Our Essence here.

Zurairi AR was on board the Malaysia Fest committee from 2006 to 2008. However, he had sold his soul to MFest somewhere around the end of 2006 and continues to serve the wonderful event.

In true meme-of-the-week style:

Full story about this fucking ugly sonofabitch of an F1 car here. Original photo from here.

The whole story about “WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS” meme, here from Topless Robot.

Seriously though, who the fuck is responsible for this abomination?

Does your Facebook homepage look like this? Highlights bar cluttered with annoying tagged photos from evil distracting Fan Check or Pickup Friends applications?

Before: AAARGHHHH

With this (temporary) fix, you can hide them, and your bar will look a bit cleaner:

After: TADAAA!

This annoyance brings back memories of dozen stupid quiz updates appearing on your Facebook homepage. Luckily now we can hide those quiz results using filters on the homepage. The tagged photos however, are a bit harder since they automatically appear on the highlight bar, and you can’t filter them out by filtering a specific application.

Anyhow, I achieved the above by installing the Greasemonkey extension on Firefox, and using this handy script which will enable you to set what to show or hide on the highlights sidebar. After installing Greasemonkey on your Firefox, simply click the “install” button on the script page to install the script.

(I’m aware that Opera supports the script, and you can install scripts in IE7/IE8 using IE7Pro or iMacros, and in Chrome there are some tinkering you can do, but I’m afraid I don’t know the exact details since I use neither of these other browsers exclusively, sorry.)

After installing the script, there will be a tiny “Edit settings” link on top of your highlights bar, and clicking it will open the settings menu:

Just click on “Hide tagged” and those tagged photos are gone! You can click “Show tagged” to bring them back on.

Of course, the downside is all other innocent tagged photos will be hidden too if you click “Hide tagged”.

You can also just collapse the whole highlights bar by clicking the tiny arrow beside “Highlights”.

That’s why this is great as just a temporary fix if you can’t stand all those tagged photos (I know I can’t) until Facebook bans the applications, regulate the apps’ sidebar manipulation or until the hype dies down and people stop using the apps. Considering people still do quizzes up until now, that might be a long time coming.

You can also use this script to hide any other annoyances on your highlights bar! As you can see from the snapshot above, you can also hide certain friends from it.

Good luck! =)

Note: Greasemonkey is an awesome Firefox extension that lets you manipulate a lot of things on the internet with different scripts. Lifehacker has a feature on how to use it with  Top 10 Greasemonkey User Scripts.

Batman and Robin: always AWESOME

Here’s what I got last week:

• 28 Days Later #1
• The Last Days of Animal Man #4
• Avengers: The Initiative #27
• Batman and Robin #3
• Blackest Night: Titans #1
• Buck Rogers #3
• Dark Avengers #8
• Dark Reign: Elektra #5
• Dark Reign: The Sinister Spider-Man #3
• Dark X-Men: The Beginning #3
• Detective Comics #856
• Fantastic Four #570
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink #4
• Green Lantern #45
• Justice Society of America #30
• Madame Xanadu #14
• The Flash: Rebirth #4
• The New Avengers #56
• The Red Circle: The Shield
• Runaways #13

The story of The Red Circle intro issues comes full circle (heh) with The Shield. It’s pretty much the same super-soldier story: a bit of Cap, a bit of Magog and bit of Gauntlet (from Avengers: Initiative). The Red Circle titles are starting next month with The Web and The Shield. Inferno or The Hangman will be the backup stories for each of them.

You can go no wrong with zombies, and Boom! Studios did well by picking up the 28 Days Later franchise. The original film was one of the best “nu-zombies” (haha that’s what I’ll be calling these new breed of zombies/infected that can run fast as hell) film ever. This new title will tell the story of a group of hardened journalists covering the infected UK with the help of a lone survivor. It has a strong female lead character, and a good setup—hopefully this will excel, just like all other Boom! titles. Having me reading Kirkman’s The Walking Dead and re-playing Left 4 Dead, it’s gonna be a zombie fest all over again!

Let me just say here, that as always these titles are awesome: Batman and Robin, Detective Comics, Green Lantern, Madame Xanadu and Runaways. So I’ll be reviewing these other outstanding titles below.

RECOMMENDED READS:

Fantastic Four #570: Marvel was promoting the hell out of this new run by Jonathan Hickman, and I decided to pick it up after such strong praises from other comic writers and artists. I thought that Dark Reign: Fantastic Four, written by Hickman as a lead-in to his arc was fairly decent, not exactly mindblowing. There were some cool moments with Franklin and Val, but the bit about the alternate universe versions of Sue, Johnny and Ben was a bit gimmicky.

However, after reading this one, I’m pleased overall with the story. Hickman is definitely borrowing from DC on alternate earths, especially the gathering of Supermen part in Final Crisis. It’s nice to see Marvel exploring these concepts too, and I’m curious to find out who the three founders of The Council are, and what our Reed will think when he found out that he isn’t the first Reed to make an initiative to save the world.

The art looks superb, except for Eaglesham’s drawing of Reed as the bulky hunk. I’m quite used with him being the skinny old nerd (with glasses and all), so seeing him look like Tom Strong just felt funny. Other than that, hey, tip-top start to a new arc!

Avengers: The Initiative #27: Christos N. Gage took a different approach to Initiative this time, and refreshed the tired title. Since being taken over from S.H.I.E.L.D. and now led by Taskmaster and The Hood, a lot has changed in The Initiative. The Shadow Initiative is no longer what it used to be, and this new reality was told from the perspectives of really-minor characters Johnny Guitar and Dr. Sax.

Dark X-Men: The Beginning #3: The main story sees Emma Frost peering into the mysterious mind of Namor, and finding things she didn’t expect in there. The pair Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk are charming as ever, delivering great dialogues and nice art.

There was a particularly clever panel where Emma found the three doors symbolising Namor’s strategies to cope with the surface world. The three doors had “Attack”, “Negotiate” and “SUE” engraved on them. Then we had Emma saying, “Odd. I never imagined you’d be one for legal action.” I couldn’t stop smiling remembering the cleverness of the whole thing.

For backup stories, we get one story where Wolverine was supposedly rampaging through the middle of the desert. Of course, we found out that it wasn’t actually Wolverine. But who was it? Finally. the most interest story is at the end, about the now almost forgotten Aurora dealing with her schizophrenia and disassociative identity disorder.

Most of the time, I’m quite a bastard when it comes to charity. It’s hard to fork out some money for people on the other side of the world that I can barely relate to, or for a concept of Earth or nature too big to wrap around my head. It’s just worse that I hardly have anything to fork out anyway.

With great surprise, I have made up my mind to support To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA), a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.

I’m doing this through a widget by SocialVibe and WordPress which I now have in my sidebar to the right. With this widget, one can choose a sponsor who will donate an amount of money to the charity organisation of one’s choosing, based on the number of people clicking the widget.

My campaign is sponsored by truth, which is a non-profit youth smoking prevention campaign. To help this cause, you just have to click on the widget and sign a petition on smoking, nothing big. It will ask for your zip code, so just enter your Malaysian postcode, it’s pretty much the same digits.

I am not going to actively pursue anybody to contribute. If you happen to be browsing through my blog, or blog-hopping, just give the widget a click if it’s not too much of a bother, yeah?

Depression is not something that is strange to me—having been its grip for more than a year. It wrecked my life and my relationship with my loved ones.

I also know a lot of people who are suffering or have suffered from the same affliction. It is a very much common happening, you are definitely not alone. Everyone in depression thinks the same—that there is no hope, and that no one will ever understand what they go through.

But I do know that, to beat depression you have to love yourself. You must know your self-worth and that people do love you, no matter how bad the situation you are in. Surround yourself with friends and loved ones, never be alone. Talk, no matter to whom. Find solace in the embrace of family. Pray to whichever God or Gods you may worship.

If you find it too hard to talk to someone you know, start by seeking a counsellor. You can also anonymously call the helplines. Here is a list of helpful services in Australia. If you are in Malaysia, there is Befrienders, which was inspired by Samaritans, a similar group in the UK.

Just know that things will get better. Somebody once told me “Where else is there to go, if not up, when you hit rock bottom?“.

Lastly, if you are right now battling with depression, I leave you with this blog post from TWLOHA:

You are going to move through this.

More importantly, I love you. YOU ARE GOING TO MOVE THROUGH THIS.

Don’t be defeated. Submit yourself to the process. You are growing. You are changing. You are doing LIFE.

I am not trying to make you feel better. This fucking hurts, and there are no two ways around it.

But I am trying to encourage you to not retreat. I can’t remove the pain, but I am going to hold your hand while it hurts.

Continue to reach out. You need people right now.

I’m here for anything you need.

You are LOVED in ways you cannot imagine. In ways that don’t depend on you. In ways that don’t depend on your performance. In ways that cannot be lost. Remember Remember Remember.

Love you my friend.

- Anonymous

You, yes you, we do love you.

My younger brother and a couple of his friends entered the Kami Anak Malaysia video contest, which was held by Tourism Malaysia and the Ministry of Education. His group from SMK Putrajaya Precinct 9 (2) won the 2nd prize (it was the third place actually).

The grand prize (1st place) was won by SMK Sultanah Asma, a premier non-SBP all-girls boarding school from Alor Setar. I told my brother earlier on, that there is no way that his group can beat a boarding school in these competitions.

It’s not necessarily because of they produce better quality entries. It’s just the way the system work.

I went to a premier boarding school too, so I know full well how it goes. Against a boarding school, especially a famous one, a public school has almost no chance of winning. The world is unfair, like.

This is because the ministry prefers the boarding school to win. By winning, it’s a solid proof that the boarding school system works, and the ministry is doing a good job. Can you imagine how shoddy the ministry’s image will be if a public school can easily beat an elite school?

In any case, I am proud of his work and his steadfast effort to prove me wrong. Well, he did win an iPod Shuffle.

He said he wanted to make more films as he gets older. So, I’ll give him a start by putting his winning entry here: