Polite Dissent

scene from Hulk #21 (Loeb/McGuinness)

I had hoped we were done with the whole pyschiatrist/pyschologist thing, but apparently not.

Leonard Samson has long been established as a psychiatrist with an MD, not a PhD. There have been numerous mentions of his attending medical school, including multiple references in Loeb’s own Hulk series.

Heh, heh. Nice one, Foster. Use his “mallet” indeed.
Oh wait, you were being serious? Damn.

In all her appearances, did Jane Foster perform any actual nursing?

Sorry Doc, but you don’t treat a black eye by putting some sort of cream on it. Think of it this way: a black eye is essentially a bruise around the eye — and when do you put anything on a bruise? The real treatment of a black eye is easy: ice, and time. That’s it. Nothing fancy needed.

(Now in his defense, I guess the skin around the eye could have been broken open by the punch, and Blake might be putting some sort of antibacterial ointment on it, but that’s still a stretch).

Here’s a scene from the first story in Moonstone’s Airfighters #1. The setting is the Normandy beaches on D-Day, and one American commander is running into more resistance than expected. What’s wrong this panel?

Previous picture quizzes

Tags: airfighters d-day picture quiz

Valkyrie was on the cover of this comic, yet there is no Valkyrie inside. Where is my Valkyrie?

With spring just around the corner, this week’s public service ad features young Allergy Biggs wondering why no birds have moved into his birdhouse. His family offers their advice, and then their help, to make Allergy’s birdhouse a success.

Despite being the title character, Binky seems to leave most of the work to the others — though he does offer some unhelpful platitudes. Everyone else in the family actually contributes something meaningful. (Well OK, Binky’s holding a hammer in one scene, but what exactly is he hammering? Binky has the birdhouse, Dad is sawing the roof, and Mom is working on the perch. I bet he’s just smashing some walnuts to munch on while the others work).

It seems pretty clear where poor Allergy inherited his looks. I would consider this a good argument for adoption.

This PSA was found in DC comics from November 1955, including Action Comics #206 and Adventure Comics #214 (the source of this ad). The script was by Jack Schiff with art by Win Mortimer.

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Tags: comics psa binky allergy jack schiff win mortimer

A bigoted World War II soldier is gravely wounded, and only a transfusion from an African-American can save him. Sound familiar? It should: it’s the defining scene of the justly classic “What’s the Color of Your Blood?” from Our Army at War #160, by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert (Nov 1965).

Only it turns out, this isn’t the first comic with this scene. Sgt. Fury #6 (March 1964) features a similar scene.

Of course, the stories couldn’t be more different:
Sgt. Fury #6, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, features Lee’s typical bombastic storytelling. Fury and his squad take on Rommel’s entire North African Division, and were actually winning when they were stopped by the British Army — because the British had found out Rommel had to a part to play in a plot to assassinate Hitler and wanted him to follow through with it.

“What’s the Color of Your Blood” is more down to earth, featuring two former boxing champions meeting on the battlefield to decide once and for all who is the champ. (If you’ve never read it, the entire story can be found here, and is well worth your time).

The Brave and the Bold #31 “Small Problems”
J. Michael Straczynski, writer
Chad Hardin and Justiniano, pencilers

The Atom is called to Arkham Asylum to treat a neurological problem the Joker is having. He has to shrink down to microscopic size, enter the brain, and release an “experimental chemical” at a specific location to cure the Joker.

There are many, many problems with this comic. I’m all for Fantastic Voyage homages, but it is obvious that Straczynski has no understanding of how the brain or nervous system actually functions. A twelve year old with access to Wikipedia and five minutes to spare could write a more accurate — and no less engaging — story.

The main stumbling block is Straczynski’s misunderstanding of synapses — the junctions between nerve cells*, where one cell passes a signal to the second cell. These synapses can be either chemical (a message molecule known as a neurotransmitter carries the impulse from the first cell to the second cell), or electrical (the two cells are connected by channels which allow an electrical signal — ions, really — to be passed from the first cell to the second cell).

I’ll just touch on a few of the bigger errors here:

What the doctor here is describing is not particularly rare at all. When too many synapses fire off, you have a seizure. If it involves part of the brain, it’s a partial seizure; if it involves most of the brain, it’s a generalized seizure. If the seizures happen repeatedly, then it’s considered epilepsy. If it is a seizure that cannot be stopped, then it is called status epilepticus, and yes, it can lead to brain damage and death (but it’s not rare: 42,000 deaths a year). • If the Joker really were in status, he’s be dead long before the Atom ever got there.

This is some horrible, horrible technobabble. I know everyone uses “the brain = a computer” metaphor, but it’s just that: a metaphor; a figure of speech. The brain is not really a computer — it is orders of magnitude more complex and you can’t “reboot” it. For one thing, I’d want my brainstem to keep working no matter what, since it controls such things as the heartbeat and breathing. • “Synaptic array at the microscopic level” is redundant. All human synapses are microscopic.

Straczynski seems to think that all synapses are electrical in nature, but that is not true — in fact, chemical synapses are much more numerous; electrical synapses only show up in certain pathways where speed is important — reflexes, for instance. He spends most of the issue confusing the two types of synapses. “Synaptic gaps” occur in chemical synapses; electrical synapses are tied together by ion channels. Chemical synapses are involved in the higher processes, like memory. Electrical synapses transmit ions from one nerve cell to another through channels in the cell membrane — there is no “electrical pulse” or lightning bolts (as drawn in the comic) between the nerves. The rest is just more technobabble.

For a better “The Atom in somebody’s brain” story, I recommend The Brave and the Bold (original series) #115, where the Atom controls a brain-dead Batman to solve his murder.

*There are also synapses between nerve cells and other cells, such as between a nerve cell and a muscle cell.

In all my years of reading comics, I’ve read my share of bad stories, but none have approached the the sheer level of vileness and pointlessness* of Justice League: Cry For Justice. It is, without a doubt, the worst comic series I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading.

*Unless the point was to make me dislike a writer and characters I’ve previously enjoyed; in which case: mission accomplished.

To cleanse the palate, here are some puppies as an antidote:

As I do every now and then, I’m going to take a throwaway line from a recent comic and use it for some idle speculation. This time, the comic in question is The Indomitable Iron Man, more specifically, “Brainchild,” the story by Duane Swierczynski and Manuel Garcia.

In the story, Pepper Potts granddaughter mentions:

“Five years ago I was one of the millions who caught G7N1. A Stark ubi-vaccine – something you were playing around with years ago – well, it saved my life.”

To me, G7N1 sounds like an influenza virus, so let’s run with that.

A little background:
Influenza A is the most pathogenic flu virus in humans. All known flu epidemics have been caused by it. Influenza A mutates rapidly, so new strains are developing all the time. The subtypes of Influenza A are named for two proteins coded by the virus: hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. Different strains of Influenza A have different versions of these proteins. So the H1N1 virus codes for hemagglutinin #1 and neuraminidase #1, H3N2 virus has hemagglutinin #3 and neuraminidase #2, and so on. So far, nine different Hs and 16 different Ns have been identified. Luckily, most strains are not pathogenic in humans — the main ones that are now are the H1N1 (swine flu), H3N2 (Hong Kong flu), and H5N1 (bird flu).

Influenza B is not as common as Influenza A. It does not mutate as quickly either, so it is not divided into subtypes. Because of the slower mutation rate, and the fact that it is can only infect a few distinct species of animals (humans, ferrets, and seals), Influenza B has never caused large epidemics.

Influenza C is even less common than Influenza B. Like Influenza B, it does not occur in more than one subtype. Generally, it causes mild disease in children, but occasionally Influenza C can cause a local outbreak, but never large epidemics.

Back to the speculation:
G7N1 — the name doesn’t fit an Influenza A virus (no “H”), but it is similar. Given the fact that the virus causes epidemics, it’s unlikely to be Influenza B or C. So it is most likely a new genus of influenza. As I mentioned, the naming pattern sounds similar to Influenza A, so maybe it started as a major mutation of A, or is suspected to have been derived from A at some point.

Also note that it is “G7” so there have been at least 7 subtypes of this heretofore unknown virus identified in about sixty years — a high mutation rate.

Another Buzzy public service ad, this one dealing with voting — well, more or less.

An unintentionally ironic title to this PSA, as both anecdotes actually concern people not voting.

With the introduction of his father, it seems clear Buzzy inherited his stick-my-nose-in-other-people’s-business tendencies. Let’s hope he didn’t also inherit the “incapable of writing things down in calendars” gene.

This PSA was found in DC comics from November 1952. The script was by Jack Schiff with art by partner in crime Win Mortimer.

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Tags: comics psa buzzy vote jack schiff win mortimer

Here’s Magneto working hard, oblivious to the rest of the world, trying to save the life of a certain X-Men. I suspect his nose is bleeding from the effort of breaking the laws of physics –more than usual, that is. Magneto is using his power to affect an object so distant in space that his power his is traveling faster than the speed of light — which considering that his power involves generating electromagnetic waves is pretty damn impressive.

All previous Psychic and Superpowered Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed magneto x-men

scene from The Web #6 (Sturges/Robinson)

I’m pretty sure the pictures and words are supposed to agree. For someone who has no heart rate or respiration, the monitors show surprisingly normal readings in both.

Smallville is having a hobby contest with the winner receiving a trip around the world. The contest looks for the person in town who has the largest coin, rarest stamp, most valuable mineral, and most unusual autograph. Spoiled rich kid Orville Orville plans on winning by using his money to buy the best specimens. Superboy decides to help the other kids beat Orville by using his power to find specimens that will beat out Orville’s.

For the most valuable mineral contest, Orville enters an uncut diamond worth a million dollars. To help Teddy beat him, Superboy returns with a large boulder of pitchblende for him to enter.

Pitchblende, or uraninite, is a uranium ore that is also a source of radium.

Uranium and radium? Doesn’t that mean Ted’s boulder is radioactive and potentially dangerous?

Yes.

Exactly how dangerous is the rock Superboy has brought to class?

Small samples of uranium ore are not particularly dangerous if handled with care, but Superboy has a very large sample, and he’s not being careful at all.

Now for some quick and dirty math: assuming the chunk of rock he is holding is about 4 feet (1.2m) in diameter, then it weighs around 21600 pounds (9800 kg — uranium ore is very dense and heavy). Since Superboy is holding it in his hands, he is being exposed to about 19.5 million millirem (mrem) per hour. For Teddy and the teacher, in the few minutes they’re standing a few inches from the ore, they’ve probably received on the order of 406,000 mrem of radiation — the equivalent of 400 abdominal CT scans (or 40,500 chest x-rays) all at the same time. This puts them in the range of “acute radiation poisoning” which has at least a 60% fatality rate. [here's the math, if you're so inclined]

The rest of the class is about four times farther back from the boulder than Teddy is, so they’ve only received 1/16th of the same dose, or about 25,400 mrem (which is equal to 25 CT scans at the same time). A dose of this magnitude usually causes a temporary decrease in white blood cells, but is not fatal — well, except for recent studies which suggest that it increases the person’s lifetime risk of cancer by a several percentage points.

Nice going Superboy. You won the contest, but gave Teddy and the teacher acute radiation poisoning and increased the risk of cancer in the rest of the class. I think I’ll hang out with Lex Luthor instead: it’s safer.

(Seriously, even in 1947 they had to know a boulder of radioactive material was a bad idea)

Thanks to his super-powers, Clark could fake being sick better than anyone else in high school. And I mean anyone else.
Read more…

This week’s comic book public service ad celebrates the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. With 32 competing nations, it was the largest Winter Olympics to date, as well as the first to be televised.

So what happened to the 1956 Winter Olympic athletes mentioned in this PSA? Most continued in their sport, in one form or another, or went on to bigger, better things:
Anton Sailer Still considered one of the best alpine skiers, ever. Did a little acting and a little politics after retiring from skiing.
Renee Colliard The 1956 Olympics seems to have been her shining moment (at least as far as this non-French speaker can tell).
Boris Shilov Became a renowned skating coach after retiring from competition.
Antti Hyvarinen A broken hip ended his competitive career, became a coach.
Hayes Alan Jenkins After retiring from skating, earned a Harvard law degree
Tenley Emma Albright Earned a medical degree from Harvard and became a famous surgeon

And for comparison, the winning time in this year’s 5000-meter speed skating was 6:14.60.

This PSA was found in DC comics from February 1957 (Action Comics #225 in this case). It was written by Jack Schiff, with art by Ruben Moreira.

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Tags: comics psa winter olympics jack schiff ruben moreira

Yet again, I am here to take on the question of Brother Voodoo: psychologist or psychiatrist?

This time, I’m turning to a new source, MU1 – Gamer’s Handbook to the Marvel Universe (Volume 1 – Abomination through Dreadnought). This was the eight volume encyclopedia of Marvel characters published for the Marvel Super Heroes Game, published by TSR in the mid- to late-80s. In the guide, Brother Voodoo gets a page and a half (and for the record, that’s a little less than American Eagle — who at this point had only appeared in one comic).

On his entry, his profession is listed as “Ex-Psychologist (M.D.), now Houngan (voodoo priest).”

In this scene from the Gen 13 (current series) #33, Void uses her teleportation powers to dispose of a bomb — only it’s such a powerful bomb, she has to send it high in the atmosphere, resulting in a classic pushing-powers-to-the-max nosebleed.

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed gen 13 void bomb

You know you’re reading an old comic when the doctors are all sitting around smoking:

scene from Doctor Tom Brent, Young Intern #1 (Charlton, 1963)

To be fair, the comic was published a year before the Surgeon General’s report first condemning cigarettes came out, and three years before warning labels were added to cigarette packs.

Of course, it wasn’t just comic books that depicted doctors smoking, cigarette ads did too:

click on the image for the full-sized ad

For those of you wondering how many doctors smoked in the past compared to how many smoke now, I don’t have a good answer for you. The best I have is a short paper that takes a look at smoking rates among Rhode Island physicians from 1963-1983. It is over twenty years out of date, so I suspect the numbers have fallen even more, but I think it gives a good idea of the trend. Here’s one of the charts from that paper.

Back when I was in residency, I had the opportunity on several occasions to serve as the in-house doctor for the local symphony orchestra. There was no pay per se, but I got two tickets to the show (cheap date!) and the chance to hear some great performances. It was easy: I just showed up on my assigned night and introduced myself to the head usher. I was given a pair of seats in the back of the theater and the staff would come and get me if there were any sort of medical emergency. I attended a little over a dozen symphony performances during my residency and never had any real medical emergency — however, every show without fail, at some point I would be called to examine a little old lady who had tripped on the theater steps. It was never a serious injury, just some bruising or maybe a sprain (and for the record: it was a different lady each time; those were some tricky steps).

All of the residents took turns attending the symphony, and no one else was ever called away for any sort of medical problem — except for Gerry. He was summoned once, only it wasn’t for a little old lady, but for the visiting marquee-name soloist. He later told me it was for a very minor issue and he got to hang out after the show with the star.

As I become bitter in my old age, I like to pretend his experience was more like Dr Landon’s in this back-up story from Nurse Betsy Crane #20:

Click on any of the images for the full story

Dr. Landon went on to co-star in his own brief comic book series, The Young Doctors. In past years, I have looked at issues The Young Doctors #4 and The Young Doctors #5.

With the Vancouver Winter Olympics in full swing, I thought now was a good time for “sportmanship” public service ad, courtesy of Batman, Robin and Action Comics #141.

Though this PSA is ostensibly about sportsmanship, the main focus is actually on prejudice, with a little patriotism thrown in for good measure. Still, it’s a good PSA, even if the title is somewhat misleading.

For some good reading on good sportsmanship and the Olympics, check out this article on the Pierre de Coubertin medal (the “True Spirit of Sportmaship” medal).

This PSA was found in DC comics from February 1950. Written, as always, by Jack Schiff, with art by frequent PSA collaborator Win Mortimer.

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Tags: comics psa batman robin sportsmanship olympics jack schiff win mortimer

Yesterday marked the 100th Anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America and to commemorate the occasion, here’s a Boy Scouts of America public service ad from Worlds Finest #46 (June/July 1950).

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Tags: comics psa superman batman boy scouts

William Tenn passed away this weekend. He was one of the last of the great Golden Age science fiction writers. He was also the first writer I ever saw at a convention. I was about twelve and had convinced my father to take me to Rovacon, a small science-fiction convention in the neighboring town of Roanoke, Virginia, where William Tenn was the guest of honor. I was having fun exploring the con and I only made it to the last ten or fifteen minutes of his talk, but immediately wished I had heard the whole speech. In the portion I heard, he was talking about the difficulties of time traveling. Not the scientific or technological hurdles, but the social ones. He mentioned how a man from just one hundred years ago would find it extremely hard to function in today’s society, and vice versa. Think of all the differences between now and 1910: Technology, certainly. Health and sanitation, too. But think of societal attitudes and how they’ve changed: Women’s lib. Civil rights. The U.N. Non-isolationist policies. A person traveling back to 1910 could quickly find themselves in trouble just mentioning some commonly accepted modern beliefs. At the age of twelve, I found this fascinating, and I still do. Now more than ever I wish I had made it the entire talk.

My favorite of Tenn’s stories is Time in Advance. In the future, criminals are shipped out to harsh frontier worlds to serve out their sentences performing the back-breaking work of terraforming the planets. Few survive more than a few years, let alone their entire sentence. There is also the option of serving time in advance. In this case, you haven’t committed any crime yet, but you are planning to. By serving your sentence first, with a hefty fifty-percent reduction in length, you are entirely free to commit your crime upon your return to Earth — if you happen to survive. As the story begins, two convicts have just returned after serving their time in advance for murder. This is a big story for the media — only rarely does a single time-in-advancer survive, let alone two arriving on the same day. However, the two convicts find that having the freedom to commit a murder of their choice open up doors and exposes secrets they weren’t expecting. It’s a great story, with a nice undercurrent of dark comedy.

Time in Advance, along with 32 other stories can be found in Immodest Proposals: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn, Volume 1. If you haven’t the story before, or Tenn at all, I recommend picking up the book, or (more economically) at least encouraging your library to do so.

Supergirl #49 “Death & The Family”
Sterling Gates, writer
Matt Camp, artist

Lana Lang has been found down and bleeding profusely. She is rushed to the emergency room for resuscitation.

First, they’re shocking a flatline. I’m sure I’ve mentioned at least once before that this is not how to treat a flatline.

How should they proceed? Asystole (the fancy, medical word for a flatline) is tough to treat, and the odds are against you from the start, no matter what television tells you. The key to treating asystole is to correct the underlying cause. One concern: Lana’s lost a lot of blood — there’s at least two panels of her laying supine in large puddles of blood and the staff is splattered with blood. As far as the ER staff is aware, this blood loss is a possible cause of her condition, yet they’ve done nothing to treat it. There’s no blood being transfused — in fact, there’s not even a single IV line, which are important in any resuscitation. (As an aside, the defribrillation paddles are also reversed: the upper paddle should be on Lana’s right, and the lower on the left)

Second, as fancy as that face mask is, it’s not going to be any good at getting the air she needs down into her lungs. I appreciate the fact that Cage at least added a breathing tube entering her mouth, but it’s too narrow to be any use (it needs to be about the width of a thumb to work). Plus, if she’s got a breathing tube in place, why does she need a mask?

Third, Lana is bleeding from her mouth, nose, and eyes. If you were the ER staff, what’s one of the first things that would cross your mind? Hemorrhagic fever (Ebola, Marburg, and for the comic-inclined, the Clench). Sure, none of them are endemic to the US, but in this day and age, who’s to say Lana hasn’t been traveling, or exposed to someone who has? The ER staff would be wearing a lot more protective gear.

On the positive side, fzzCHOOMPH is the best sound effect I’ve seen in quite a while.

Once again, Wolfie learns the hard way not to move in on Buzzy’s girl. Poor Wolfie. Sure, he’s a jerk, but he has some of the worst luck in comics.

Or does he? I think this scenario was really a plot by Buzzy and Susie:

This PSA was found in Adventure Comics #154 as well as the other DC comics from July 1950. The ad was written by Jack Schiff, with art by Bob Oksner.

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Tags: comics psa buzzy wolfie jack schiff bob oksner

Volume Four of Apothecarius Argentum moves the action from Beazol to the neighboring kingdom of Navara, a poor and starving country with a widespread wasting disease brought on by overuse of a toxic pesticide. Princess Primula and her companions, including friend/love-interest/Royal apothecary Argent and his rival, Lorca, third Prince of Navara.

There’s probably a spoiler or two in the annotations, so consider yourself warned.

Belladonna
The young prince has been suffering from seizures and was given belladonna to treat them.

Belladonna is a plant that has a long history of use in traditional medicine and continues to be used, to some extent, in modern medicine as well. The plant is very potent and must be used sparingly because of the high potential of adverse events, especially death. This is especially true for children (especially sickly malnourished ones like the prince). Let me put it this way: the more common name for belladonna is Deadly Nightshade.

Historically, while belladonna has been used to treat a variety of different ailments, it has not been used to treat seizures. The only mention I’ve even seen of the use of belladonna for seizures comes from homeopathy, which is not traditional medicine — or really any sort of medicine at all (despite what its practitioners would like you to think); homeopathy can best be described as a delusion combining sympathetic magic, wishful thinking, and an early-19th century understanding of science.

Belladonna contains several potent chemicals, most notably atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine — all drugs that are used today. Belladonna extract itself is still used in a few modern medicines, Donnatal (a stomach medication) is probably the best known.

Dandelion
The prince has been given an overdose of belladonna, and Argent gives him dandelion extract to correct it.

Argent is correct that belladonna is excreted almost entirely through the kidney, so increasing kidney function should get rid of the medicine faster. Diuretics (drugs that increase urine output) are one way of doing this. Dandelion has long been used as a diuretic. While I have seen no recent studies or reports that confirm its benefits in this regard, I’m willing to give the plant the benefit of the doubt because the effects of a diuretic are hard to miss (if you pee a lot, it’s a diuretic).

Activated Charcoal
Activated charcoal is used again to treat the chronic wasting disease that is common in Navara. I covered this in depth in the Volume 3 annotations.

Cochineal
The cochineal is a tiny insect (Dactylopius coccus) that grows on cacti in Central and South America. When the females of the species are collected, dried, and crushed they produce the brilliant red dye carmine which is used for coloring fabrics, cosmetics, and food.

It takes 70,000 insects, all collected by hand, to make a pound of dye, which is worth about $36 in today’s market.

Prince Lorca mentions several times that the insects grow on citrus, but they don’t — they can only live on certain species of cactus. I wonder if this might be a translation error, either in the translation of the manga, or from the author’s original sources. (There is a similar insect known as “Polish Cochineal,” and while it doesn’t grow on cacti, it doesn’t grow on citrus either.)

Marijuana
The story mentions a link between marijuana use and psychiatric disease. There haves been several studies that have looked at this very subject, but the results have been unclear. Can marijuana use lead to psychiatric illness, or do people with pre-existing psychiatric disease tend to use marijuana more? Studies have suggested both results, so just leave this one as “undecided.”

Is it possible to die from a marijuana overdose? Again, sources vary, but almost all seem to agree that it would take an incredibly high level of exposure to be fatal, and many experts suggest that it would be physically impossible to achieve this high a dose. (On the other hand, with incense burning in a sealed room with heavy curtains, I suspect the king suffocated to death when the incense used up all the oxygen).

Another DC Comics Public Service Ad teaching about science — this time the topic is “The Atom” — more specifically radiolabeling (using radioactive isotopes to mark certain chemicals, which can then be traced), since that is what most of the vignettes depict.

As usual when dealing with these science PSAs, I have some questions and concerns:
Did the Brazilian doctor use radiolabeling to find the tumor (such as a bone scan or PET scan), or did he use radiation to treat it?
By 1959, there was already a Yellow Fever vaccine available, which would probably do more to eradicate the disease than making radioactive mosquitoes (wasn’t that a SciFi SyFy movie?)
The fourth panel is what really worries me. I think they’re using radioactive fertilizer in Canada to grow mutant tobacco plants.

This PSA was found in Batman #128 as well as the other DC comics from December 1959. This ad was written by Jack Schiff. There is some debate about the identity of the artist, but most sources list Lou Cameron.

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Tags: comics psa atom isotope mosquito jack schiff lou cameron

In retrospect, I should have realized that a motherboard crash was imminent when my computer had trouble recognizing the new memory I added.

Oh well, I needed to update the computer anyway…

Apothecarius Argentum is a manga series written by a trained pharmacist, so while the setting is a fairly generic medieval kingdom, the medical aspect is well done and based on both Eastern and Western medical traditions. Volume Three covers chapters 9 through 12 of the overall story. Volume One (part 1 and part 2) and Volume 2 annotations are also available.

Beazol is a small prosperous kingdom ruled over by a wise but very stern king. His only child, the princess Primula, is slowly coming into her own as a leader. Her closest companion is Argent, the royal apothecary (healer). He is a basilisk, a member of a secret society who has been purposefully exposed to various poisons since an infant. This renders him immune to toxins, but his skin also excretes a deadly poison, so he cannot touch anyone else.

In this volume, Lorca, the youngest son of Navara, the next kingdom over, comes to Beazol to woo Primula. He is sickly, but very devious -– quite the contrast to the straightforward Primula and Argent. Just as Argent is an expert on medicinal plants and herbs, Lorca is an expert on insects, especially beetles. The volume starts in Beazol, but then the action moves to the famine-ridden country of Navara.

Read more…

Stories from the Golden Age of comics generally had a great deal more death than comics today where super-heroes have their vows against killing. More often than not, Golden Age villains died at the end of the story (especially if they were mad scientists or crime bosses), often in a poetic manner. Even Batman and Superman, while they usually didn’t kill the villains outright, often did nothing to stop their easily preventable death.

However, of all the Golden Age heroes, Doctor Fate had the highest body count. Here’s a quick tally of all the opponents he killed in just his first year of appearances:

Notes:
1. While not killed outright, Wotan was chained to a rock for eternity within a hidden cavern deep in the earth — like Loki, only without the venomous snake.
2. It was piloted by tiny men, so that counts double, right?
3. An entire inhabited planet destroyed, forty years before Phoenix was essentially put to death for the same actions.

While almost all of DC Comics’ public service ads show their age in one way or another — they were published 40-50 years ago, after all — there are a handful that are truly, hopelessly outdated:

And now we can add one more to the list: a PSA that celebrates adding the 49th star to the American flag.

To be fair, it does mention that “next year” Hawaii will become the 50th state, and it gives a nice quick history of the flag. Still, there’s something a little depressing about this PSA in that it was written knowing it would be irrelevant in a year.

This PSA was found in Adventure Comics #266 as well as the other DC comics from November 1959. This ad was written by the king-of-PSAs Jack Schiff, with art by Bernard Baily.

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Tags: comics psa flag alaska hawaii jack schiff bernard baily

A recurrent controversy on this blog has been whether Dr. Jericho Drumm (better known as Brother Voodoo) is a psychiatrist or psychologist. In various stories over the years, he’s been referred to as both (sometimes within the same comic). Calling him a psychologist occurs the most frequently, and that seems to be generally accepted. But is it true?

With the recent release of Doctor Voodoo: The Origin of Jericho Drumm, which reprints Brother Voodoo’s first appearance, the question can finally be answered.

So which is Brother Voodoo?

Here is his first appearance (as Dr. Jericho Drumm) and he is clearly identified as a “noted psychologist.” So that answers the question, right?

Not so fast. Here is Dr. Drumm a page later whipping out his stethoscope and tending to his dying brother. He even pulls out a syringe and medication to administer to him.

It seems that Brother Voodoo’s first appearance only complicates the debate. He is clearly identified as a psychologist, yet he is practicing medicine just a page later. I think it can be chalked up to yet another writer confusing psychiatrist and psychologist, an all too common occurrence. However, given that Drumm’s use of Western medicine is key to his character at this point in the story, I suspect the writer fully intended for him to have medical training, and therefore be a psychiatrist.

It’s a lot harder to weasel your way out of bad blind dates now.

From the “Jerry Jitterbug” story in Adventure Comics #171 (December, 1951). Click here for the rest of the strip.

Since it’s the first week of a new year, tonight I’m posting a comic book public service ad concerning New Year’s resolutions. Actually, the PSA deals with safety (at least the “don’t leave things on the ground/floor” aspect of safety) and Johnny’s New Year’s resolution is just used to frame the lesson.

Discussion Questions:
1. Where in the U.S. would Johnny be raking up leaves in January?
2. Do resolutions not count unless you write them down?
3. Where is the other skate?
4. Is the soap actually a sloppy attempt on Johnny’s life by his much derided “Sis?”

This PSA was found in Action Comics #298 as well as the other DC comics from March 1963. A black and white ad appeared in some of the comics. This ad was written by Jack Schiff, with art by Sheldon Moldoff.

More PSAs

Tags: comics psa safety new years jack schiff sheldon moldoff

It’s that time again: time to look back on the past year and find the best — and worst — that comic book medicine has to offer.

Previous “Best of the Year”: The Best Comic Book Medicine of 2008 The Best Comic Book Medicine of 2007 The Best Comic Book Medicine of 2006 The Best Comic Book Medicine of 2005 The Best Comic Book Medicine of 2004

Previous “Worst of the Year”: The Worst Comic Book Medicine of 2008 The Worst Comic Book Medicine of 2007 The Worst Comic Book Medicine of 2006 The Worst Comic Book Medicine of 2005 The Worst Comic Book Medicine of 2004

In the meantime, enjoy this ridiculously easy Picture Quiz from Psylocke #2 (by Yost and Tolibao). What’s wrong with this picture, the opening panel from Psylocke #2?

Previous picture quizzes

scenes from New Avengers #60 (Bendis/Immonen)

I’m sure Neilalien will be all over this, but let me just quickly point out that — despite what the New Avengers seem to think — over forty years of continuity has firmly established that Dr. Strange is a neurosurgeon, not a heart surgeon.

For example, here’s how his biography on Marvel’s own site reads: “His talent was unaffected, though, and he became a wealthy, celebrated neurosurgeon before he turned thirty.”

Apparently candy is good for you — at least that is according to the well-known peer-reviewed scientific journal Adventure Comics (in this case, issue #211).
It may have something to do with our old friend dextrose.

There’s a little (very little) snow on the ground here in southern Illinois, so I thought I’d go for a snow-themed PSA this week.

Peter Porkchops — one of DC Comics premier “funny animal” characters from the 1950s (and later a super-hero in Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew) — is back for another public service ad. This time, he’s teaching the readers to stand up for what’s right, even if it’s unpopular (a good choice for a PSA topic actually).

Wolfie seems to be a common name among antagonists in DC humor comics.

This PSA was found in Action Comics #203 as well as the other DC comics from April 1954. This ad was written — as always — by Jack Schiff, with art this time by Rube Grossman.

More PSAs

Tags: comics psa peter porkchops wolfie jack schiff rube grossman

Batman #5

see also: “Anesthesia? Batman don’t need no anesthesia!”

Christmas Day is finally here! And to celebrate the final day of Scott’s 2009 Comic Book Cover Countdown Advent Calendar I bring you the Christmas Story as never seen before — in New Super 3Dimension!

The First Christmas
(Fiction Housue, 1953)

Click on the cover for larger view

Christmas Day!

It’s Christmas Eve! Only one last day until Christmas, and this year’s penultimate Advent Calendar Comic Book Countdown cover tries to take over the world!

Pinky and the Brain Christmas Special #1
(DC Comics, January 1996)

Click on the cover for larger view

1 Day until Christmas!

Betsy Crane’s friend and fellow nurse Diane has met and fallen in love with a Jeff, a widower with a young daughter. He saved her from drowning a few weeks before and she has fallen head over heels in love with him.

One day though, Jeff is uncharacteristically brusque to her and Betsy when encountering them on the street. The two nurses head over to Jeff’s house to figure out what is wrong. Jeff is angry that Diane has appeared on his doorstep, but it doesn’t stop him from complaining of a severe headache and eyes that are very sensitive to light. He also suffers a seizure while Diane is pleading with him. Meanwhile, Betsy is talking to Jeff’s young daughter, who mentions that her dog Shag has been hiding from her lately and doesn’t want to play. She also mentions that her father won’t take her swimming anymore because he is afraid of the water. Betsy puts two and two together and realizes that Jeff has rabies, and that he must have gotten from the dog Shag.

Betsy calls her boss Dr. Kiel and he rushes an ambulance out to collect Jeff and admit him to the hospital. He is given daily rabies injections and suffers “sleepless nights and momentary spasms” but “Dr. Kiel and Betsy were always there giving their medical skill and tireless sympathy.” Three weeks later, Jeff is released from the hospital, completely cured, and he and Diane (and Jeff’s daughter and her new dog, Little Shaggy) live happily ever after.

Even by the low standards of a fifty-year old romance comic, this is a horrible and misleading story medically:

Although this is clearly a story about rabies, the word “rabies” is never used.
Jeff has “hydrophobia” (an older, and now seldom used term), but never “rabies.”
A wild fox was “rabid” and bit Shag, who became “sick.”

Rabies is not that easily cured.
In the entire history of mankind, only a handful of people have survived rabies without receiving injection therapy, and even then they all suffered from some brain damage, usually quite severe. At this point in time (forty-eight years after the comic was written), the best case scenario utilizes the recently developed “Milwaukee protocol” — but it’s only been used successfully twice.
Yes, Jeff did receive rabies injections, but at that point his rabies was so far along — he’d already developed neurological signs including seizures — it wouldn’t have done much good.
Plus, Dr Kiel gave the injection wrong. Most of it should be injected near the bite, not in another limb entirely.
Bottom Line: Even if Jeff had somehow managed to survive the rabies (very very unlikely, say about 10,000:1 odds), he would be left with months if not years of intense physical therapy afterward. There is no way he would walk out of the hospital completely cured in three short weeks.

With just two days to go until Christmas, today’s cover features a common theme on this years Advent Calendar Comic Book Cover Countdown: funny animals. And this cover feature one of the most famous funny animals of all time: Bugs Bunny (I’m guessing he’s probably in second place behind Mickey Mouse).

Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Funnies #2
(Dell, November 1951)

Click on the cover for larger view

2 Days until Christmas!

Only three days left until Christmas, and what would a Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar be without a visit from Santa’s rebellious daughter, Jingle Belle? This year, issue #3 of her Dark Horse series is featured.

Jingle Belle #3
(Dark Horse Comics, February 2005)

Click on the cover for larger view

3 Days until Christmas!

The second of two Superboy Christmas-themed public service ads, and definitely the weaker of the two.

I haven’t read too many Superboy stories, but does he come across as smug and condescending in the comics as he does in these PSAs?

For those of you paying attention last week, this week has even more instances of Superboy’s cape mysteriously flying out behind him and seeming to defy gravity. I think I have to go with the Kryptonian flatulence theory.

This PSA was found Adventure Comics #160 as well as other DC comics from January 1951. Just like last week (and pretty much every Superboy PSA), the script is by Jack Schiff with art by Win Mortimer.

More PSAs

Tags: comics psa superboy christmas charity jack schiff win mortimer

Only four days remain until Christmas, and today’s Advent Calendar Countdown Comic Book Cover is another Golden Age funny animal title. This one features hippos, monkeys, snow, and palm trees.

Funny Picture Stories #4
(Centaur, December 1937)

Click on the cover for larger view

4 Days until Christmas!

Just 5 days to ago until Christmas, and for today’s Advent Calendar Comic Book Cover Countdown, we had back again to the dawn of the Golden Age — 1934, to be exact (which technically makes this older than the cover I previously said was the oldest. See what happens when you don’t take good notes).

Famous Funnies #5
(Eastern Color, December 1934)

Click on the cover for larger view

5 Days until Christmas!

Citizen, there are six days remaining until Christmas.

Judge Dredd #6
(Quality Periodicals, March 1987)

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6 Days until Christmas!

A mere week remains until Christmas, and I hope everyone has their all of their holiday shopping done (I sure don’t — sorry Mom and Dad, looks like gift cards for you).

Today’s Christmas comic book cover is another unusual one — and from a title not generally associated with holiday cheer. But, hey, mistletoe!

Evil Ernie #7 (Chaos Comics, January 1999)

Click on the cover for larger view

7 Days until Christmas!

Only 8 days left until Christmas, and today there’s a first on the Advent Calendar Comic Book Cover Countdown: a cowboy comic. From the Folden Age, here comes Star Ranger #8.

Star Ranger #8 (Centaur, December 1937)

Click on the cover for larger view

8 Days until Christmas!

Today’s entry in the Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar Countdown is the oldest title featured this year. It dates from before the Golden Age of super-hero comics — two and a half years before Superman’s first appearance. The cover features Popeye, Henry, and Jiggs (from the comic strip “Bringing Up Father“). Other characters appear as ornaments on the strangely two-dimensional tree.

King Comics #9 (David McKay, December 1936)

Click on the cover for larger view

9 Days until Christmas!

Since we’re in the middle of the holiday season, I thought this would be a good time for the first of two Superboy holiday-themed public service ads. As it’s Hanukkah now, this PSA is fitting because in addition to Christmas, it also mentions Hanukkah.

Now before all you “War of Christmas” soldiers get your knickers in a twist and start signing petitions and lighting up torches, bear in mind that this is the only one of three DC holiday PSAs that mentions any holiday other than Christmas (it’s also a 1953 ad, so this “war” of yours has probably been going on since long before you were born).

All the Christmas PSAs carry the same general message: the holidays are about family and charity. This PSA pulls it off the best.

This PSA was found Adventure Comics #185 as well as other DC comics from February 1953. Scripting of the PSA was carried out by Saint Nick Jack Schiff with art by Hanukkah Harry Win Mortimer.

More PSAs

Tags: comics psa superboy christmas hanukkah jack schiff win mortimer

Hulk #15, #16
Jeph Loeb, writer
Ian Churchill, penciler

At the end of Hulk #16, The (Red) She-Hulk stabs the (Red) Hulk in the neck with a sai. As the next issue starts, Samson gloats over the Hulk’s injury:

Samson: She severed your carotid artery. The more you move, the closer the sai will get to cutting into you aortic arch. Apparently, all those years in medical school weren’t for nothing. My father would be so proud.

I wouldn’t go counting on your father’s praise just yet, Samson, considering how little understanding of anatomy you have. It seems that medical school was a waste for you — at least anatomy class.

Let’s take another look at the scene when the She-Hulk stabbed the Red Hulk in the neck. This time, I’ve annotated the panel to make my point. The path of the sai is outlined in green (but bear in mind this is a two dimensional representation and the sai’s path is angled much deeper in the neck than I can show here). I’ll agree that she probably injured the carotid artery, so that part is true. Now, the blue arc is the aortic arch — which as you can see is not even close to the sai. Plus, with the prongs buried into the Hulk’s neck, despite what Samson says, that sai is not going anywhere.

Then a page later Samson is called “Leonard Samson, PhD”; is he a medical doctor or non-medical doctor? Make up your mind. Remember, psychiatrists and psychologists are two different professions — they may both deal with the mind, but they deal with it in very different ways. (For the record, Samson has always been identified as a psychiatrist: Leonard Samson, MD.)
Admittedly, a severed carotid is still fatal, at least to most (non-Hulk) people.
Samson’s speech contains some of the most bizzare emphasis I’ve ever seen in a comic. Who would speak like that, with the emphasis on “she” rather than — I don’t know — maybe the “severed” and “carotid.” And “the sai” — who emphasizes an article like that?

Today’s cover on the Advent Calendar Comic Book Cover Countdown is a tenth issue of course, meaning that just 10 days remain until Christmas.

Dennis the Menace Giant #10
(Hallden, Winter 1961)

Click on the cover for larger view

10 Days until Christmas!

Fourteen days down, just eleven to go until Christmas! And here is a cover featuring a minor antagonist character in Ghostbusters, who somehow managed to get his own comic book.

Slimer #11 (Now Comics, March 1990)

Click on the cover for larger view

11 Days until Christmas!

Just twelve days to go until Christmas, and that means today’s advent calendar features a Christmas-themed twelfth issue, and a nice Golden Age issue at that (and another example of the stocking gag, as well)

Tick Tock Tales #12
(Magazine Enterprises, December 1946)

Click on the cover for larger view

12 Days until Christmas!

In this scene from the Monkeyman & O’Brien Special #1, two thugs are psychically dominated by the mind of an evil white space gorilla.

As an added bonus(?), have some fan service, courtesy of artist/writer Art Adams.

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed monkeyman o’brien art adams fan service

Today’s cover features Richie Rich, the “poor little rich boy.” What exactly is so poor about Richie? He has loving parents, good friends, and more money than Scrooge McDuck. What is “poor” about all that? Maybe he hides a soul crushing depression (though he’s always smiling), or possibly some horrible fatal disease (which would explain the abnormally large head and swollen ankles)?

Richie Rich and His Girlfriends #13
(Harvey Comics, 1981)

Click on the cover for larger view

13 Days until Christmas!

Just two weeks until Christmas, and on today’s Advent Calendar Comic Book Cover Countdown, a visit from everyone’s favorite fat cat who doesn’t eat lasagna.

Heathcliff #14
(Marvel Comics, February 1987)

Click on the cover for larger view

14 Days until Christmas!

At exactly what point is a joke considered overdone and beaten into the ground? (Is there a committee that votes on stuff like that? Can I get on this committee?)

Archie makes his third appearance on this year’s countdown, and he seems to have things pretty well in hand.

What’s with the elves though? I’m pretty sure they’re Michael Dukakis and Dan Quayle.

Archie Giant Size Magazine #15
(Archie Comics, March 1962)

Click on the cover for larger view

15 Days until Christmas!

A little over two weeks until Christmas, and the Walt Disney gang (well, Donald) makes their second appearance on the Advent Calendar Comic Book Cover Countdown. I think this is the bulldog’s first (and only) appearance, though (in fact, I think he’s the first bulldog in any of my six years of doing this).

Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #16
(Dell Comics, January 1942)

Click on the cover for larger view

16 Days until Christmas!

Another Buzzy public service ad from 1950s DC comics, this one — as the title suggests — is about choosing a career (and you want to be a social worker, right? Oh, c’mon, it’s a great job. Really. Promise. Cross my heart. please?)

If only it were as easy to convince people of your point of view in the real world as it seems to be in Buzzy’s world.

It seems rather ironic that in a public service ad in a comic book, drawing = loafing

The Adventures of Jim Halley: Career Counselor For Hire. How was this never a comic book? If Mr. District Attorney or Sue and Sally Smith, Flying Nurses can be published, then so can this.

This PSA was found Adventure Comics #188, and can be found in other DC comics from May 1953. This ad was written by prolific PSA penner Jack Schiff, with art by persistent PSA-partner Win Mortimer.

More PSAs

Tags: comics psa buzzy profession jack schiff win mortimer

It’s no mystery that Scooby-Doo (and his eponymous comic book) is the subject of the eighth day of this year’s Advent Calendar Comic Book Cover Countdown. If you learn nothing else this year, you’ve at least learned that Velma is easy to shop for.

Scooby-Doo #17 (DC Comics, December 1998)

Click on the cover for larger view

17 Days until Christmas!

In this scene with the recuperating Luke Cage, there are a couple of things I’d like to draw your attention to:
1. An example of the too-many tubes problem, as Luke Cage has six separate tubes/wires going into his mouth.
2. Another example of a patient who is intubated (hooked up to a breathing machine), yet still has a nasal cannula (which delivers oxygen to the nose — which is unneeded in this situation because Cage has no choice but to breathe through the tube in his mouth). [Annotated panel]

Other thoughts:
It’s interesting how there is always a bag of blood hanging next to Cage — even when he’s in the Avengers HQ — though he’s never shown with an IV, so there’s no way to give him the blood if he needs it.
Plus, now that there’s no power drainer around, there isn’t any way to place an IV at all through his invulnerable skin.

You can always count on Disney (or in this case, Gold Key) for a good Christmas cover, and for day #7 (18 days to go) in the Advent Calendar Comic Book Cover Countdown, here’s Walt Disney Comics Digest #18.

Walt Disney Comics Digest #18 (Gold Key, 1969)

Click on the cover for larger view

18 Days until Christmas!

It’s December 6th, so that means only 19 days remaining until Christmas. Time for another Santa cover, this one just a little bizarre, courtesy of Peter Milligan’s Shade the Changing Man and cover artist Jamie Hewlett.

Shade the Changing Man #19 (DC Comics, January 1992)

Click on the cover for larger view

19 Days until Christmas!

from The Incredible Hulk Jumbo Activity Book

For your weekend entertainment…which of these Hulks is different (if it helps, think of one as the green hulk, one as the grey hulk, one as the red hulk, and one as the blue hulk)?

A classic-styled Archie on today’s entry in the Advent Calendar Comic Book Cover Countdown featuring his two best gals (or in this case “sugarplums”) and a stylin’ car.

Archie Giant Series Magazine #20 (Archie Comics, January 1963)

Click on the cover for larger view

20 Days until Christmas!

Just three weeks until Christmas, and today I have another atypical Christmas cover courtesy of Sgt. Rock and DC Comics for today’s Advent Calendar Comic Book Cover Countdown.

Sgt. Rock #21 (DC Comics, February 1992)

Click on the cover for larger view

21 Days until Christmas!

Just 22 days until Christmas, and today’s cover for Advent Calendar Comic Book Cover Countdown is Sabrina #22. Yesterday, horror comics. Today, witches. I’m all about the “reason for the season,” aren’t I?

Sabrina #22 (Archie, February 1999 )

Click on the cover for larger view

22 Days until Christmas!

A quick reminder: Jimmy Olsen is the third most common cause of heart attacks.

Those of you with good memories may recall that I have warned about this before, but it’s been over three years, and the new evidence keeps piling up — evidence which cannot be denied. If you have a personal or family history of heart disease, for God’s sake, stay away from Jimmy Olsen.

What symbolizes the Christmas season more than a black and white horror anthology? Very little, and that’s why I selected Nightmare #23 to be the second cover on the 2009 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar Countdown.

Nightmare #23 (Skywald, February 1975 )

Click on the cover for larger view

23 Days until Christmas!

Time for another look at science, 1950s style, courtesy of this public service ad from 1957.

This PSA refers to the International Geophysical Year, taking place from July 1, 1957 until December 21, 1958, which was an international effort to focus on the Earth Sciences (and also includes the study of various space phenomena). Overall, at least according to Wikipedia, it was a very succesful program.

This PSA was found Adventure Comics #237, and can be found in other DC comics from June 1957. The ad was never repeated, undoubtedly because the International Geophysical Year would be long over before it could appear in print again (plus the fact that the ad was wrong about the US having the first satellite in space.) This PSA was written by Jack Schiff with art by Ruben Moreira.

More PSAs

Tags: comics psa earth science space jack schiff ruben moreira

It’s time for my Sixth Annual Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar Countdown. For each day from today through Christmas Day, I will post a comic book with a Christmas-themed cover. The issue number of that cover will tell you how many days remain until Christmas (so today will feature a 24th issue, tomorrow a 23rd, and so on).

To start us off this year, here is Beavis and Butt-Head #24 featuring Daria in addition to the title characters.

Honestly, I was never much of a Beavis and Butt-Head fan. I caught it a couple of times, but it never made me want to come back for more. Daria, though, is a different story. Her spin-off series was always a favorite. Simply drawn (though better than Beavis and Butt-Head), but always funny. And apparently coming to DVD (finally!) next year.

Beavis and Butt-Head #24 (Marvel Comics, February 1996)

Click on the cover for larger view

24 Days until Christmas!

How head mirrors are really used…

Nellie the Nurse #5

Comic Cavalcade #18 (December, 1946)

That’s one helluva turkey if it takes three superheroes — including the fastest man alive — to catch it!

Since today is the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin publishing his most famous work, On the Origin of Species, I thought that natural science would be the perfect subject for tonight’s public service ad.

Unsurprisingly, DC comics published no evolution themed PSAs in the ’50s and ’60s. I did manage to find some interesting science PSAs (or more correctly, SCIENCE! PSAs), speculating about the future from a 1950s perspective, but they didn’t really fit the theme I had in mind.

I also came across this Buzzy nature PSA, and I think it’ll do just fine.

As a bonus, the PSA features birds. Sure, they’re no Galapagos finches, but it’s a start.

This PSA was found Action Comics #182, and can be found in other DC comics from July 1953. This ad was written by Jack Schiff, with art by Win Mortimer.

More PSAs

Tags: comics psa buzzy nature jack schiff win mortimer

A so-so mystery, but an interesting patient on this week’s episode of House.

James Sidas was a brilliant physics prodigy who quit the field twelve years ago and now works as a deliveryman. While he is delivering some books one day, he develops a hand tremor and some confusion. He is admitted to House’s team at Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, with the presenting complaints of ataxia (loss of coordination), anemia, and a mild cough. A CT scan was negative, as was a screen for toxin screen. The team’s initial differential diagnosis consists of West Nile Virus, hyperbilirubinemia (high bilirubin levels in the blood), meningitis, sickle cell anemia, or TTP (thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura). The last one seems the most likely so House has his team check a blood smear and AdamTS13 antibodies. The blood smear shows schistocytes (fragmented red blood cells), a sign of TTP, so they decide to begin treatment. Usually, plasmapheresis is treatment of choice, but James is allergic to one of the components of the procedure, so instead they perform a splenectomy — a removal of his spleen. The surgery goes well, but while Chase is examining him afterward, James begins to show symptoms of a stroke. He is rushed to the cath lab, where the clot in the brain is removed by a special catheter, “blood flow is restored,” and there is no permanent brain damage.

The fact that James suffered a stroke after his spleen was removed suggests that he did not have TTP. The differential now consists of CNS vasculitis (inflammation of the blood vessels in the brain), DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulation), acquired pancytopenia (low white cells, red cells, and platelets), or a toxin exposure. The team reasons that the basic toxin screen only tests for a few toxins, and they need to test for more. Chase and Taub are sent to search James’s apartment, while Thirteen and Foreman run an expanded toxicity screen. The apartment shows signs of mice (and Taub suggests James may have Leptospirosis), and a hidden bottle of booze.

The team now suspects that James has liver failure, probably due to alcohol abuse. When confronted, James admits to having a shot of vodka each day after work, but denies being an alcoholic. The team proceeds with a liver biopsy, which is normal. The liver function tests show a slightly elevated albumin, but are otherwise normal. Thirteen now deduces that James has renal (kidney) failure, not liver failure. The reasons for the kidney failure could be rhabdomyolysis (muscle damage), multiple myeloma (cancer of the blood forming cells), polycystic kidney disease, or Goodpasture’s Syndrome (an autoimmune disease that affects the kidneys and lungs). Goodpasture’s seems the most likely, so James is started on unnamed “immunosuppresant drugs” and dialysis. After a Eureka! moment in a conversation with Wilson, House realizes that James has been abusing dextromethorphan (DXM, also known as the DM in “Robitussin DM”). He has been taking it to suppress his intelligence, and taking the alcohol along with it to make it work better. The chronic abuse of the drug has caused his symptoms.

With an aggressive regimen, the drug is cleared from James’s system and his natural intelligence once again emerges. Due to his brilliance, he finds it impossible to relate to his wife anymore, and she herself realizes that he is no longer “the man she married.” While Foreman is trying to explain the situation to James’s wife, he begins to complain that he can’t feel his legs. Foreman evaluates and finds that James has no feeling in his legs at all. The team half-heartedly throws out some ideas including vitamin B12 deficiency, bone marrow malignancy (i.e. cancer of the bone marrow), and lupus, but none of them fit well. House talks to James who admits he had been abusing the dextromethorphan because, while he was intelligent, he was extremely unhappy. He tried to commit suicide once by jumping off of a tall building, but he survived, just busting some ribs. It was while he was in the hospital recovering from these injuries that he was given some narcotic pain medication, and he enjoyed the way it made him feel dumb. After discharge, he sought out the dextromethorphan because it made him feel the same way. Hearing about the history of broken ribs, House realizes that in the suicide attempt, James injured his spleen, causing it to split into multiple smaller (accessory) spleens. Chase thought he removed the spleen, but he removed only one and James still has several more. His ultimate diagnosis is the same one he started with: TTP. Once the rest of the spleens are removed, his TTP will be under better control. He decides to go back on the dextromethorphan though because he’d rather be dumb and happy than intelligent and alone.

For the second week in a row, There were no major errors that jumped out at me in tonight’s episode. The team did their usual combination overlooking certain findings and overtesting/undertesting (diagnosing renal failure without checking renal labs, for instance). Once again, that’s not to say I have no complaints…As usual, minor complaints are in blue, nit-picking ones in green:

Surely before Chase operated on James, he got an abdominal CT scan to double check the anatomy, and surely he would have seen at least one extra spleen (or unexplained mass) on the scan.

If James’s problem had been due to the DXM abuse, which they said caused brain damage, then clearing the drug from his system would not have returned him to his baseline but would have left behind some permanent damage.

Liver biopsy is not performed that early in someone with liver failure. There is much you can discover with labs and CTs/ultrasounds before you go plunging a needle into the liver of someone who is low on platelets.

Did James have accessory spleens or splenosis? It sounds more like the latter to me, but this is not my area of expertise.

The “Otis Campbell” mnemonic is for seizures, not strokes.

I’m not an expert on street drugs, as shown in my review a few weeks ago, but the affects of DMX that House and James describe don’t match what I see in the literature. Unless they’re saying that James went around high and tripping all the time, which you’d think somebody would notice.

What’s the House team going to do when they encounter someone who actually knows how to close a vent?

So James has Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura without the thrombocytopenia or the purpura? (OK, they implied a low platelet count late in the episode when they mentioned pancytopenia, but that was the only mention. Purpura? Never mentioned).

Schistocytes can be seen in other conditions besides TTP. DIC, for instance.

The team just gives up when James can’t feel his legs? And this is House’s All Star team?

Whatever happened to the ADAMTS13 testing from the beginning of the show? Might it have remained unmentioned because it would have given the final solution away too early?

Convenient how it was mentioned in the beginning that James’s CT was “clear”, but it was never mentioned what the CT was of…

Last week’s House review
A list of all prior House reviews

I’m not going to explain what’s wrong with this caption from The Last Days of Animal Man #6 — I’ll leave it to you.

The Last Days of Animal Man
Gerry Conway, writer
Chris Batista, penciller

I just finished reading The Last Days of Animal Man, and I’ve got a couple of problems with it, particularly the last issue.

1.
Animal Man defeats the villains by using his powers to infect them with Yersinia pestis, the Bubonic Plague. At first read, this is extremely clever — in a Merlin versus Madame Mim sort of way. But the more you think about it, the less sense it actually makes.

Animal Man’s powers allow him to gain the abilities of any animals he is near. He can gain the strength of a gorilla, the flight of a bird, the swimming ability of a fish, and so on. In this case, it appears he used his powers to gain the virulence of the bacteria.

Animal Man doesn’t become the animal in question; he just gains some of their abilities. So if he had won by incapacitating his opponents with a nasty bacterial toxin, that would make a certain amount of sense. But instead he actually infected them with the bacteria. How did he manage this? His powers don’t work this way. You need the actual bacteria to cause an infection, let alone one which is “overwhelming their immune systems.” Animal Man wasn’t infected himself, and he didn’t come into contact with the bacteria, so how did he infect the villains? He seems to have achieved abiogenesis – creating life (in this case the bacteria) from nothing.

2.
The biggest problem is basic biology. It goes back to something I first learned in seventh-grade science. Everyone read what Superman says, and then repeat after me: bacteria are not animals.

They belong to a separate kingdom entirely.

In this public service ad, Binky’s younger Allergy and his friends ponder the future — the far, far distant future — of 1976.

Let’s see how Allergy and his friends did in their predictions:
Moon crater tours. Nope, not there yet.
Video conferencing. Good call, though not quite as predicted.
Large bulky electronic machines. Passed it by and left it in the dust.

This PSA is found in DC comics from June 1956. The writer, as always, was Jack Schiff. Art by Win Mortimer.

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Tags: comics psa binky allergy jack schiff win mortimer

Another thing I have to tell patients and their families at least a couple of time per week.

I swear, I have this same conversation with at least two or three patients a day. When will the horror of water allergy end?

With Veteran’s Day tomorrow, I looked hard to find a public service ad that discussed veterans. I was truly surprised that with all the public service ads DC produced in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, there don’t seem to be any about veterans — or the armed forces at all. This PSA, from April 1950, was the closest thing I could find because it at least includes a scene set in a veteran’s cemetery.

The PSA’s actual theme is tolerance for all religions — which is certainly a sound concept, but I would’ve liked it better had it acknowledged religions other than Christianity and Judaism — or taken it one step further and at least mentioned other options such as atheism. But I suspect that would have been a little too progressive for a 1950s mainstream comic book.

This PSA was found Adventure Comics #151, and can be found in other DC comics from April 1950. This ad was written by Jack Schiff, with art by Al Plastino.

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Tags: comics psa superman superman jack schiff al plastino

The criminal who discovered Jor-El’s super-power pills has escaped from prison and rumor has it that he has hidden one last pill somewhere. Superman, Batman, and Robin rush off to capture him before he can reach the pill, but the criminal slips by them. Batwoman (the mini-skirted all-but-incompetent Silver Age Batwoman, not the current one) decides she wants in on the act. She manages to find the villain and grabs his pill before he can swallow it. She then swallows the pill herself — and with her new super-powers — returns the criminal to prison.

Now that Batwoman has super-powers for the next twenty-four hours, how do you think she decides to use them? Stop crime, right? Wrong. She decides she is going to use her super-powers to discover the identities of Batman, Robin, and Superman.

So, not only does Batwoman — an alleged super-hero — not use her new powers to fight crime, but instead she uses them to betray the confidence of other heroes. Nice going.

Batwoman follows Batman and Robin as they drive around Gotham City in the Batmobile. They give her the slip — or at least they think they do — but as soon as they drive into the Batcave, there she is waiting for them. She tells the duo she used her x-ray vision to find the Batcave, and now, based on the mansion above the cave, she knows their identity. Next she sets out to discover Superman’s.

Batwoman catches up with Superman when he is saving a small town from an avalanche. She follows him, hoping he’ll lead her to his secret identity. He tries to scare her away by flying through a lightning storm, walking through an artillery proving ground, and floating over Niagara Falls, but none of it works. Finally, he decides what his only option is to expose her to the thing every woman is scared of: mice.

Superman’s plan works and he sneaks out through the basement, drilling through the ground, making sure to stay below veins of lead-bearing ores, but Batwoman is able to track him by sound. When he emerges from the ground, she tells him that he has fallen into her trap. She’s lured him away from his job for the whole afternoon, and since she saw what block of Metropolis he came from, all she has to do now is find the office in that block where a worker has been missing all afternoon. When she shows up at the Daily Planet, Lois tells her everyone has been there the whole day (but she only mentions Clark, Jimmy, and Perry — so in the Silver Age the Daily Planet apparently only employed four people). At this point, Batwoman’s twenty-four hours of powers are up and she admits defeat in figuring out Superman’s identity — but at least she knows the true identities of Batman and Robin. Not so fast, says Superman:

And just in case you were wondering:

Story from World’s Finest #90 (September/October 1957), by Edmond Hamilton and Dick Sprang

Tags: comics medicine kryptonite superman batman robin batwoman jor-el pills

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this scene, so I’m just going to engage is some speculation and throw out some ideas. There’s not quite enough information provided to know for sure what is going on. This may be due to cleverness on the writer’s part, or laziness. Regardless, Bendis’s glacial pacing is making this scenario last months.

We know that Luke Cage has had a “cardiac episode” — probably a heart attack — so he needs someone to restore the circulation to the arteries that supply his heart. Non-surgically, this can be done with thrombolytics (“clot-busting” drugs), or by angioplasty. Since he’s undergoing surgery, it seems he’s receiving a CABG (coronary artery bypass graft), the surgical method of restoring the heart’s circulation.

But then the surgeon mentions the pulmonary artery and also mentions a pump in the next panel (not shown here). Why is the surgeon messing with the pulmonary artery? It’s not part of coronary bypass surgery.
Is Cage’s heart so badly damaged that he requires a ventricular assist device to keep him alive (basically, a pump that helps the heart pump)? The doctor is focusing on the pulmonary artery which would mean Cage is getting a right ventricular assist device (VAD) instead of the much more common, and useful, left VAD. Frankly, neither VAD really fit Cage’s situation all that well.
Maybe he meant an intra-aortic balloon pump — which fits the circumstances better — and he just messed up the anatomy.
Or is Osborn up to something nefarious and implanting something nasty (which is my suspicion)? Time will tell, though at this rate my great-great-grandchildren will be reading the conclusion long after I’m gone.

Other thoughts:
♥ If you’re using a scalpel and the skin is “tearing”, then you’re doing something wrong. Surgical scalpels cut through skin like a hot knife through butter — if anything, it’s easy to cut too much.
♥ No mention of “cracking the chest” — opening the rib cage (because it’s hard to reach the heart, otherwise) — though the previous panel does show some rib spreaders at the ready.

The basic concept of defibrillation is to provide enough current to knock the heart back into a normal rhythm, but not enough to do any damage.

I think Norman Osborn missed that memo.

A new masked and super-powered bank robber appears in Metropolis and Superman tracks him to his lair only to find that the robber had been waiting for him with a chunk of kryptonite.

A few months before, our robber realized that if he wanted to be a successful criminal in Metropolis, he needed to find some kryptonite. He spent months tracking down every meteor¹ that landed nearby, looking for elusive chemical. He lucked out: not only did he find kryptonite, but he also found a box with some pills in the meteor. There is a note with the pills that reads “These radioactive capsules to be used only if needed to renew our super-powers on Earth. [Signed] Jor-El”

The robber took the kryptonite-embedded box back to his lair. He swallowed one of the pills, gained super-powers, and went on a crime spree. Then he lured Superman to his hideout and exposed him to the kryptonite. Leaving the Man of Steel for dead², the criminal flies off to commit more robberies.

Of course, Superman’s not quite dead yet — he takes his last bit of energy and uses his heat vision to break the water pipe in the ceiling, sending water cascading down on the box of pills, washing all the kryptonite away³. Able to stand up again, Superman grabs the box of pills and swallows one, figuring he needs the super-powers they’ll provide since his have been stolen by the kryptonite. Too late, he discovers that some kryptonite dust had gotten in the pills when Krypton exploded — the same explosion which sent the box to Earth. Now he’ll be completely powerless until the chemical leaves his system⁴.

Thinking quickly, Superman calls Batman and Robin. When the duo shows up, he gives them each one of the super-power pills, and they fly off to capture the robber. Since they’re not used to their new powers, not only do they let the villain escape, but they cause some serious property damage. Undeterred, Superman trains them in the use of their powers and they fly off again to capture the robber.

Meanwhile, Superman — using his crafty reporter skills — has discovered the robber’s new lair. Unfortunately, the robber catches Superman in his hideout and pulls out a gun, shooting him in the chest. About this time, Batman and Robin arrive and capture the villain, who is still gloating over Superman’s body. Could the Man of Steel be dead? Of course not. It turns out that while Superman may have been powerless, his suit was still invulnerable and it blocked the bullet, saving Superman’s life. It’s all a moot point now anyway, as the kryptonite has worn off and Superman has regained his powers. He gives the super-power pills to Batman who promises to keep them safely hidden away in the Bat-cave⁵.

Notes:
1. Yes, technically he was searching for a meteorite, not a meteor, but I’m sticking with what’s written in the comic for this review.
2. If I were a criminal who gained his super-powers through a pill, I would take the pills with me instead of leaving them behind. Sure, leave the kryptonite-encrusted box — just take the pills.
3. Apparently kryptonite is water soluble.
4. Kryptonite or not, shouldn’t the pills have given Superman super-powers? They were developed to give Kryptonians who lost their powers (like Superman) temporary powers. He took one after losing his powers temporarily from kryptonite exposure, so why should more kyrptonite dust in the pills stop them from working? It’s not like they’re affected by kryptonite — Batman and Robin got powers despite the kryptonite in the pills.
5. As far as we know, the pills are still there. Or at least, all but one of the pills…

The synthesis of heme (an important part of hemoglobin and red blood cells) is a complicated process requiring eight different enzymes. If any one of these enzymes is not working correctly, then a chemical known as porphyrin builds up and the person is said to have porphyria. There are several different types of porphyria depending on which enzyme isn’t working correctly. Generally, the porphyrias can be grouped into two classes: the acute (or hepatic) porphyrias, and the cutaneous (or erythropoetic) porphyrias.

The acute porphyrias cause severe abdominal pain as well as neurological and psychological symptoms. Some of them have cutaneous (skin) symptoms as well.

The cutaneous porphyrias, as the name suggests, have primarily skin symptoms. Photosensitivity — a painful rash when exposed to light — is a common problem.

In the late seventies and early eighties, several papers and a book or two were published suggesting that porphyria was the basis for vampire and werewolf legends. There is a certain undeniable logic behind the idea. People with porphyria do not venture out in the daylight, which explains the sunlight aversion of vampires (and werewolves, to a lesser extent). The disease can cause a thinning of the lips and gums, exposing more of the teeth, giving the individual a more bestial appearance. Historically, porphyria was treated by having the patient drink animal blood. Additionally, increased hair growth can be seen in some cases of porphyria and the psychiatric symptoms can lead to strange behaviors and increased violence.

It’s an interesting hypothesis, but I’m skeptical. I’m certain that people unfortunate enough to have porphyria were accused of being vampires or werewolves, but I don’t buy the idea that the entire legend is based on the disease. The theory seems to pick and choose the symptoms of different porphyrias to support the idea, creating a hodge-podge disease that doesn’t actually exist in nature (or if it does, would be extremely, extremely rare). Drinking animal blood does not equate to a blood lust — people with porphyria may understand that blood helps their symptoms, but they don’t actually crave it. The theory also describes the modern depiction of vampires — which is quite different from the how our ancestors understood them. For example, the vampire’s violent aversion to sunlight — a main part of the porphyria link — is a twentieth century embellishment to the vampire.

I’m not alone in my views as the majority of the scientific and medical community has dropped the theory (and I’m sure most have even better reasons than the ones I mentioned.) This hasn’t stopped the “porphyria = vampirism” link from appearing in pop culture over the past several decades. I’m pretty sure I remember it showing up as a side plot in an episode of St Elsewhere in the ’80s. More recently, the idea has shown up in the Batman and Detective Comics annuals as well as this week’s episode of Castle.

In the back-up story in the Batman and Detective annuals, the Gotham City Blood Bank is vandalized and robbed, and there is also an attempted murder or two. The villain — or is it villains? — is revealed to be someone with porphyria who believes that they are a vampire.

In one scene, some blood found at the crime scene is sent off to the lab and is returned with a diagnosis of porphyria.
Here’s my annotated version of that scene:

1. DNA testing — DNA and genetic testing is one of the best ways to diagnose porphyria. However, it’s a specialized test that is only run by certain labs and it takes more than just a day or two to get results.

2. There’s been DNA testing, but they still refer to it by the general term “acute hepatic porphyria” rather than which specific porphyria it is. That’s the point of the DNA testing: to pinpoint the exact enzyme deficiency.

3. I don’t think there’s any doubt where the information from this first paragraph came from, and it’s a nice accurate paragraph. [link fixed]

4. The second paragraph is a mess though, referring to a largely abandoned theory as if it were fact. The inaccurate “blood craving” is mentioned. And what is “pale pallor?” By definition, someone with pallor is pale.

I will point out that for the most part the writer makes it clear that it is the villain who believes in the porphyria/vampirism link — and other than the lab report shown above — does not seem to endorse the connection herself.

In Castle, an insane individual who believes himself to be a vampire screams out in flames and starts to smoke when exposed to sunlight. This is later explained away as porphyria.

Now, sunlight can be painful to people with severe cutaneous porphyria, but the skin rash (blisters, usually) take several minutes of exposure to develop — and that’s in the most severe case. The skin never smokes though, that’s simply ridiculous, even for Castle.

Posting resumes tomorrow with a look at vampires, werewolves, and porphyria (see the recent Batman annuals and this week’s Castle)

With Halloween just around the corner, I thought it was the perfect time for this public service ad featuring Binky and his giant-bowtie-wearing brother Allergy (and yes, he wears his bowtie even in costume).

I’ve mentioned how often these PSAs featured pro-United Nations themes, and this is a perfect example focusing on the United Nation’s Children Fund — better known as UNICEF. This is the third DC PSA featuring UNICEF (one, two), and here’s a bonus Casper PSA thrown in for free.

This PSA is found in DC comics from December 1957. Jack Schiff, as usual, wrote this PSA, with Ruben Moreira on art. I scanned this in from a copy of Adventure Comics #243 (which features “The Super-Toys From Krypton,” where Superboy’s childhood toys are sent to Earth. Is there anything Jor-El didn’t send from Krypton — other than more people he could have saved, I mean?) There is also a black and white version that can be found in some comics (Action Comics #235, for instance).

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Tags: comics psa halloween unicef binky allergy jack schiff ruben moreira

It’s time for three more case studies to determine if you’d be a good doctor in a super-hero world. So put on your thinking caps and your diagnostic head mirrors and see if you can make the correct diagnosis.

The previous case studies and a bit more an explanation can be found at Dr. Scott’s Case Studies of Comic Book Medicine

Magneto lands on the X-Men’s island Utopia, but Professor Xavier is not particularly happy about it and lashes out.

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed x-men magneto xavier

In the closing panels of Red Robin #4, Tim Drake is stabbed in the abdomen with a sword by the villainous Widower. In the next issue, it is revealed that his injury required the removal of his spleen.

Found in the upper left aspect of the abdominal cavity, the spleen is roughly the size of a grapefruit and serves several important functions: It removes old and damaged blood cells from the circulation, as well as removing harmful bacteria. It assists the immune system by acting as a large lymph node. It stores extra blood to act as an emergency reserve in case of severe blood loss.

Both blunt and penetrating abdominal trauma can injure the spleen. Penetrating trauma can lead to splenic lacerations. Blunt trauma can rupture it. Unfortunately, the spleen is very difficult to repair — it was once described to me as having the consistency of a sopping, water-logged sponge. Imagine trying to sew that back together. Often the only treatment for a severely damage spleen is splenectomy (removal of the spleen), leaving the patient asplenic (without a spleen).

The main concern in people lacking a spleen is an increased risk of infection. This is not just a slight increase in risk, but a significant increase in the risk of serious infections. In the worst case scenario, there is a condition known as OPSI (overwhelming post splenectomy infection) that can be fatal within just a few hours.

Asplenic individuals are susceptible to a wide variety of germs, but the three most concerning are:

1. Bacteria that have a thick protective capsule. These bacteria include pneumoccocus (a cause of pneumonia and other infections), meningococcus (a cause of meningitis), and Haemophilus influenzae (another cause of meningitis, among other nasty infections).

2. Capnocytophaga canimorsus, a bacteria found in dog bites.

3. Parasites that like to hide within red blood cells (malaria is the main one, but also babesiosis and ehrlichiosis, rare tick-borne infections).

Asplenic individuals need to be aggressively immunized against the riskiest bacteria. They will require the pneumococcus, meningococcus, and Haemophilus influenza vaccines. The pneumoccocal vaccine may need to be repeated every 5 years. Additionally, pediatric patients who lose their spleen need to be started on daily broad spectrum antibiotics for the next 2-5 years. Those who are considered particularly high risk for infection may need daily antibiotics for the rest of their life.

Buzzy is back, along with his girlfriend Susie and his macrocephalic friend Wolfie in this comic book public service ad. As usual, Wolfie is up to no good — though this time it’s his driving ability that is in question rather than his personal skills.

Knowing Wolfie as well as Buzzy does, why would he think getting in a car with him would be a good idea? Especially since seat belts weren’t a standard feature back in 1953.

This PSA is found in DC comics from September 1953. As with virtually all Buzzy PSAs, this page is written by Jack Schiff with art by Win Mortimer.

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Tags: comics psa buzzy wolfie jack schiff win mortimer

Elasti-Girl is taken over by Mento, grown as tall as her powers allow, and then used as conduit for Mento’s psychic powers. The results aren’t pretty for the locals, or for Elasti-Girl.

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed elasti-girl mento doom patrol

When and why did placing the hands on either side of the forehead become the official pose of telepaths and other comic book psychics?

I figure there are several possibilities why:
1. The brains of psychics are heavier than normal — especially when using their powers — and they need the extra support.
2. It’s an aiming device.
3. Psychic powers cause migraines and they’re massaging the sensitive spots.
4. It increases downforce, in case one of those pesky psychic winds comes along. It also helps them in cornering on banked tracks.
5. They close their eyes when concentrating and it prevents them from bumping into anything if they start walking around.
6. It prevents a psychic nosebleed.

As for when , as far as I can find (in my admittedly brief search), it goes back to X-Men #3 (January 1964):

A common theme of DC Comic’s public service ads in the 1950s and ’60s was support for the United Nations. This was from an era when the relationship between the US and the UN was much less contentious than it is now. I thought this was an appropriate ad because it features both Iran and the UN, which have been in the news frequently lately, albeit for vastly different reasons.

The four planes representing Iran’s “United Nations Friends” are labeled US, USSR, India, and Pakistan.

Based on when this PSA was written, I suspect the planes are spraying DDT, which — depending on your view of Rachel Carson and Silent Spring — may very well have caused more problems than it solved.

This PSA scores a hat trick and is found in DC comics from December 1950, March 1955, and November 1963. This particular ad was scanned in from Adventure Comics #202 (March 1955) This PSA was written by Jack Schiff with Win Mortimer on art.

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Tags: comics psa united nations iran jack schiff bob brown

An interesting premise initially on this week’s episode of House, but a slight episode over all. It was in many ways a rehash of House vs God, only not as clever

Jack Randall is the son of a billionaire. He has been sick for over a week with worsening abdominal pain, fever, dehydration, diarrhea, and weight loss. He has seen a variety of doctors, the last who prescribed intravenous antibiotics for a presumed case of Clostridium dificile (i.e. “C. diff” — a cause of severe antibiotic-related diarrhea). When it became clear that Jack did not have C. diff and was not improving, his father brought him to Princeton-Plainboro Hospital demanding that he be seen by House. Cuddy, as always, acquiesced (she has become the Neville Chamberlain of hospital administrators. Didn’t she used to have a backbone?)

House wants the team to start over from the beginning with the history and physical. While performing the physical exam, Cameron feels a left-sided abdominal mass. This is confirmed by an x-ray and revealed to be a fecal impaction (a big hard ball of poop) revealing that Jack is severely constipated. This is a new finding, as previous x-rays were normal. The team decides that this represents toxic megacolon due to Hirschprung’s Disease (a congenital condition caused by missing nerves in one section of the intestine). They want to perform a barium enema and colon biopsy to confirm. Jack feels much better after the procedure and disimpaction and is laughing and joking. Suddenly he begins staring straight ahead and then breaks into a convulsive seizure. Foreman gives him some diazepam (Valium — among its other uses, it is good at stopping seizures). An examination of the eyes reveals swollen optic discs, a sign of intracranial hypertension. Foreman orders furosemide (Lasix – a diuretic, i.e. “water pill”) and then orders more diazepam and then some phenytoin (Dilantin — another seizure medication). He is worried that Jack’s intracranial pressure will get so high the brain will herniate, so he rushes him into surgery where Chase drills burr holes in the skull to relieve the pressure.

Jack is looking a little better after the operation, but the team notices that he is building up fluid in his brain and abdomen again. Closely examining the head CT, Foreman notices an irregularity in the way the fluid is building up and finds this suspicious for early brain cancer. House concurs. A biopsy is taken, but it is negative. Now House suspects that Jack has adenocarcinoma (cancer) of the stomach, and this is what is causing his symptoms. Jack has another bad seizure, but this time with a normal intracranial pressure. The team gives him some diazepam to stop the seizure and proceeds with the scope — but there is no sign of gastrointestinal cancer either. In the meantime, Jack has fallen into a coma. Chase suggests the cause may be infection caused by an antibiotic resistant germ, but all the cultures have been negative. Cameron suggests that Jack may be having abdominal epilepsy — in other words, he has seizures, but they show up as severe stomach pain, and this then in turn led to his other symptoms. House agrees and Jack is started on gabapentin (Neurontin, an anti-seizure drug). An EEG (brainwave) evaluation is started but reveals no seizure like activity. However, Cameron notices that Jack has developed a rash all over (and I mean all over) his body.

The differential diagnosis of Jack’s condition now includes an allergic reaction to his medications, autoimmune disease (lupus and vasculitis), or polyarteritis nodosa (another type of autoimmune disease). House considers starting Jack on Prednisone to treat the polyarteritis, but when Cameron tells him that the rash is also on the genitals, he deduces that Jack has Degos disease, an incurable terminal disease caused by inflammation and blockage of small and medium sized blood vessels. House breaks the news to Jack’s father and lets him know that Jack has less than a day left to live. Jack’s father decides to invest all his assets in extremely risky ventures, knowing he will lose everything. He has decided that by doing so well in business, he has tempted fate and his family is suffering. Therefore, if he is ruined financially, his karma will even out and Jack will improve. House mocks him, but doesn’t stop him (and apparently makes some money on it). As the financial papers are signed, Jack has a cardiac arrest and flatlines. The team is able to resuscitate him, but it’s touch and go. Talking with Wilson a short time later, House has one of his patented aha! moments and realizes that Jack does not have Degos, but has Primary Antiphospholipid Syndrome. They give him some heparin and immunoglobulin and he miraculously recovers.

The medicine had some problems this week. As usual, major complaints are in red, minor in blue, nit-picking in green:

I’m no neurosurgeon, but I don’t think you just whip out your trusty Ryobi cordless and drill a burr hole like that.
At the very least, clean the skin first — I don’t want any nasty skin bacteria pushed into brain which is what you are drilling into.
Also, a sudden drop in an increased intracranial pressure is likely to cause a brain herniation — the very thing they were trying to avoid.

This is the second episode of the season (and we’re only four episodes into the season) where the misdiagnosis of the patient was made by biopsy.

While writing the script for the classic film noir The Big Sleep, the screenwriters couldn’t figure out who murdered the chauffer. They called up Raymond Chandler, who wrote the original book, and ultimately he admitted the plot was so complex that he didn’t know either. I think this happens in House a lot when the writers get lost in their own plot. Case in point — the seizures: First they suggest the increased intracranial pressure is causing the seizures (could happen). Then they suggest electrolyte imbalances could cause the seizures (could happen) — but if the latter is the case, then what caused the increased intracranial pressure in the first place?
The team kept referring to the abdominal fluid returning or recurring. What did they do to remove it in the first place?

Furosemide is, at best, a second-line agent for treating increased intracranial pressure. If you’re going to use a diuretic, acetazolamide is the best choice. Mannitol is a good choice as well.
Cameron’s suggestion of intubation and hyperventilation was another good option.

Phenytoin 500MG is not an unreasonable dose to break a seizure in patient who weighs 60-80 pounds.
I notice Cameron only ended up giving 50MG. Was this a continuity error in the script, or willful disobedience on her part? And 50MG would be an appropriate dose for an 6-10 pound child, way too little for this kid.

If your patient with C.diff is a previously healthy kid, with no recent antibiotic use, and no record of C.diff exposure, and he requires oxygen, then your C.diff case does not have C.diff.

I defy anyone to get a good fundoscopic exam on a seizing patient in the middle of a brightly lit room. Can’t be done.

You’d think after six years, Jennifer Morrison would know how to pronounce ascites.

Labs don’t run extra blood tests without an order. Especially tests that require prep, like fasting before a cholesterol test.
Here is another example of the writer’s trying to have it both ways. If the lab ran the tests, then there would be a computer file with results, not just a single piece of paper. But if Chase ran the test himself so there was not a full computer record, then who ran the extra tests?

I thought the medical mystery was interesting this week and deserves a B. The final solution fit fairly well, though I think Degos fit better. I give it another B. The medicine overall was average, though there were some positive signs — like the team actually performing a history and physical. I give it a C+. The soap opera was okay. Nothing great, but nothing out of character either. It earns a C.

Last week’s House review
A list of all prior House reviews

Amazing Spider-Man #600

When evaluating the pupillary response in a patient, have them take off their sunglasses first.

Invincible Iron Man #14

We already know that Norman Osborn is no good at anatomy, but it turns out he is clueless at computer science as well. Here, when he is trying to convince the Russians to allow him in their county to look for fugitives Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, he refers to “picobytes of…data.”

There is no such thing as picobyte — it is impossible. A byte is made up of 8 bits*, and a bit is as small as you can subdivide a byte. A “picobyte” then, would refer to one trillionth (10^-12) of a byte, which is orders of magnitude smaller than a byte can be divided.

I assume Osborn meant to say “petabyte” (a quadrillion bytes) — or maybe he meant Pikabyte, the loneliest of the Pokemon.

*There have been computer systems in which a byte is more or less than 8 bits, but 8 bits is standard now, and it was never more than 36 bits-per-byte.

from the cover of Angel #23 (by Lynch and Urru)

What’s the error in this picture taken from the cover of Angel #23. It may be a little subtle, but once you catch it you’ll kick yourself. (And for the record, the interior art does not share the same mistake.)

Previous picture quizzes

Worried about global warming? Spending sleepless nights fretting over the mass extinctions of animal and plant species not to mention the destruction of vast areas of their native habitats? Looking up at the sky everyday to check for holes in the ozone layer?

Once you read the public service ad you won’t worry any more, because you’ll realize: mankind — we’re #1!

This PSA is found in DC comics from June 1958 as well as October 1962 (Woohoo! Even better! We’re #1 twice!). As always, this public service ad was written by Jack Schiff, this time with infrequent PSA collaborator Bob Brown on art.

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Tags: comics psa nature jack schiff bob brown

Power Girl #5 “Space Girls Gone Wild”
Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, writers
Amanda Conner, penciler

Power Girl is caught in the middle of the explosion of a spaceship that crashed in a city park. The local police, firefighters, and EMTs rush in survey the damage, provide first aid, and move her out of the crater.

They’ve got her on oxygen and they’re using a backboard, so everything’s good right?

Not quite. They forgot to secure Power Girl’s head/neck and if there’s any damage to the cervical spine or cervical spinal cord, this could be a big problem (what sort of problem? Quadriplegia). The image above shows the danger perfectly. Look at the angle her head is at compared to the rest of her body.

Here’s an annotated version to make it even clearer:

I suspect the rescue personnel were a little distracted.

Zombie Terry Long

And if you don’t know who Terry Long is, consider yourself lucky.

It’s once again time to visit with Binky and his strangely-garbed young brother Allergy to learn something important from a public service ad. This week, Binky teaches his younger brother how to make friends.

The advice is nothing new: Talk to new people.

There is something ironic about Allergy not wanting to talk to someone “square” — has he looked in the mirror lately?

Given the usual grasp of slang of Silver Age comic book writers (and I’m looking at you in particular, Bob Haney), I suspect that by the time this PSA was published, kids had long since stopped saying “square.”

This PSA is one of DC’s double hits: PSAs that proved popular enough (or deemed important enough) to be published twice. It can be found in DC comics from both July 1957 and July 1965. This particular page was scanned in from Adventure Comics #238. As always, Jack Schiff handled the scripting of this PSA, with Bob Oksner (the artist from the Binky comic) providing the art.

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Tags: comics psa binky allergy friends jack schiff bob oksner

New Avengers #57
Brian Michael Bendis, writer
Stuart Immonen, penciler

New Avengers #57 is the type of comic I like, but don’t see very often: a comic which addresses the effects of super-powers on a character’s medical care. In this case, the issue looks at Luke Cage and his unbreakable skin.

The New Avengers have just been handed a serious defeat at the hands of the Wrecking Crew and some of the villainous cohorts. It wasn’t strictly the Avenger’s fault, they were taken by surprise by some super-power draining technology the Wrecking Crew got their hands on. When the Dark Avengers also showed up, the New Avengers snuck out in the subsequent confusion. Most of the team suffered scrapes and bruises, but Luke Cage appears to be suffering from a heart attack. His teammates rush him to underground “doctor” Night Nurse.

Night Nurse is in serious trouble, and she recognizes it. All three reperfusion techniques require either IV access or a surgical incision. This means that Cage’s invulnerable skin prevents him from receiving the necessary treatment. She tells the team he needs specialty medical care — which is true, and would be true even if his skin weren’t invulnerable. Heart attack patients need to be treated in a facility where there is access to reperfusion techniques.

Even though she can’t break Cage’s skin, there are still treatments that Night Nurse can carry out to minimize the damage from his heart attack:
1. She can give him oxygen. And she does — she also intubates him, which is probably overkill, because there’s no evidence that he is having breathing difficulties. (And the nasogastric tube probably falls in that overkill category as well)
2. She can given him an aspirin, which has surprisingly powerful anti-platelet activity (and more platelets = more clot). Chewing the aspirin is best to get in into the bloodstream quickly.
3. She can give him nitroglycerin, which widens the blood vessels and lowers the blood pressure.
4. She can give him some painkillers. A little IV Morphine is usually recommended for heart attacks — because it also acts as vasodilator and antianxiety agent — but she could certainly give him some pain relieving pills.

Finally, Night Nurse should also place him on a heart monitor and be prepared to defibrillate because it is not uncommon to see nasty and potentially fatal arrhythmias occur with heart attacks (and to her credit, she does place him on a heart monitor).

First off, John Rozum writes some excellent “medical speak” so if you want to know how a comic book Emergency Room scene should sound, check out the Hangman backup story in The Web #1. He knows his stuff (or he knows somebody who knows their stuff and is smart enough to listen to them).

However, that brings us to this scene:

scene from the Hangman backup in The Web #1 (by John Rozum and Tom Derenck)

Spot the error in this Emergency Room scene. It’s a fairly significant oversight; no nit-picking here.

Previous picture quizzes

I’ve had this public service ad for a while now — the Comic Treadmill sent it my way several years ago — but I’ve never gotten around to using it because for some reason it strikes me as a particularly odd PSA.

I can’t really put my finger on why I feel that way, but I think it has to do with how the teacher explains the situation to the class. There’s no reason the teacher needs to share with them precisely what’s wrong with Tod — if she even knows herself — because it’s none of their business. Still, the way she phrases her explanation seems awkward — if not vaguely creepy.

The moody art by Bernard Baily isn’t helping either.

You can pretty much sum up the lesson of this PSA in one panel: Don’t be a d*ck.

(If you Google “Invisible Handicap,” you’ll find a lot of conditions that lay claim to it: deafness, multiple sclerosis, dyslexia, fibromyalgia, depression, and autism, just to name a few.)

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Tags: comics psa binky handicap invisible bernard baily

Last week, I discussed a vaccination that prevented you from becoming a zombie. Tonight’s subject is the opposite: a vaccination that turn you into a zombie (actually, it turns you into a mindless super-strong drone, but close enough). This comes from the Pyroman story “The Saboteurs of Steel” in America’s Best Comics #4 (1943).

Evil gangster Ornitz sneaks into a nearby Army base and slips his mind control serum into the paratyphoid vaccine. The next day, the soldiers are vaccinated…

…and they all become the invulnerable super-strong mindless slaves of Ornitz who uses them to take over the Army base.

Can Pyroman stop Ornitz and his army of Army men? Of course he can, this is his story after all. To understand how he does it, it helps to understand the story as a whole:

Paratyphoid fever is similar to the more famous typhoid fever, though it is usually milder. It is caused by a bacteria from the Salmonella family, which is found in contaminated water. It is rare in the United States, Canada, and Europe but fairly common in developing nations. There is a vaccine available, but it not used very often as it is only partially effective.

As the vaccination is labeled “serum,” I suspect the soldiers are getting an immune globulin injection to ward off paratyphoid, and not actual paratyphoid vaccine. In immune globulin injections, the patient receive an injection of antibodies against the disease. These antibodies will circulate for several months, protecting the patient, before eventually breaking down. The patient does not gain any permanent immunity from the injection. This is known as passive immunity, as opposed to active immunity, which occurs when patients are exposed to the germ in question and develop their own antibodies. Active immunity can occur by natural exposure, or by vaccination. All the vaccines routinely given in the United States induce active immunity.

Here’s the end of the story from the last post. It’s nicely symmetrical: one doctor sends Mr Mxyztplk to Earth, but another one sends him home:

OK, it’s Superman pretending to be a doctor (and pharmacist), but that counts as much as that quack from the Fifth Dimension.
And they managed to work in a “doctors have bad handwriting” joke.
Should Superman be practicing medicine without a license (or dispensing drugs?) Or does that really apply here.
Nice to see there’s another Super-Pharmacist besides Bob Benton.

You think our doctors use strange and frightening tools and instruments? See what the doctors are using over in the Fifth Dimension:

Here’s an ad from Action Comics #70 (March 1944) where Superman exhorts his readers to send a dime to help win the fight against infantile paralysis (i.e. polio). This is back when the March of Dimes lived up to its name, and collected dimes to fund polio research.

Click on the image for the full ad

As a added bonus, if you sent your dime in to Superman, you were automatically enrolled in the Supermen of America Club and scored some serious swag including a membership card, certificate, and secret decoder. Best of all, you received an autographed picture of Superman, signed “Clark Kent (Superman)” — which pretty much defeats the whole concept of the secret identity.

Giving credit where credit is due, endemic polio was eradicated from the United States starting with the introduction of the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines in the 1950s — research that was partially funded by the March of Dimes.

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Tags: comics medicine psa superman polio march of dimes

It’s time to check in again on super-pharmacist and super-hero Bob Benton, this time is a story from Exciting Comics #45 (March, 1946)

All is not right in the home town of Bob Benton (a.k.a. The Black Terror). Several city officials have been found dead of unknown causes. In each case, a strange flower was found beside the body. Benton suspects the flower is a clue and he diligently searches his botanical reference books, but is unable to identify the plant. Meanwhile, the coroner calls Benton after he discovers an unknown poison in the blood of one of the victims. Benton, despite his years of pharmacy training, is also unable to identify the poison.

Arriving back at his pharmacy, he discovers a mysterious package has arrived — a package containing a beautiful flowering plant. The neighborhood cat wanders in and brushes against the plant — and then suddenly falls dead. Benton matches the mysterious flowers found at the murders to the plant and belatedly realizes that the mysterious plant is not just a clue, but the source of the poison. Looking closely at the plant under the microscope, he identifies it as a new variety of gentian, which he claims is closely related to the curare plant.

He tracks down the source of the plants and discovers that the murderer was the city Parks Commissioner who was using the flowers to kill off his rivals so he could take over the city. There is a pitched battle between the Black Terror and the commissioner and his goons. The Black Terror triumphs (this is his story, after all) and the commissioner dies, falling prey to his own poison plants — yet another victim of the Golden Age sense of poetic justice.

Curare is an arrow poison used by several South American native tribes. It can be derived from several different jungle vines, the most common being Strychnos toxifera (which is from the same genus as the plant that produces the poison strychnine, so that should tell you something).

Curare is a paralyzing agent, and, as the name suggests, it kills by paralyzing the respiratory muscles so the victim suffocates to death. The drug wears off after an hour or two, so if the victim were to receive artificial respiration for that period of time, they would survive. Derivatives of curare have been used as part of surgical anesthesia since the 1940s (to allow muscle relaxation during surgery), though they’ve largely been replaced by synthetic alternatives in recent years.

The plants from which curare can be derived and the common gentian share the same order (Gentianales), but are from completely different families and genera so calling them “closely related” is quite a stretch. In fact, gentian extracts are not poisonous, and have been used (generally unsuccessfully) as herbal remedies since the Greeks. Gentian extracts can also be found in various liqueurs, beers, and in the soda Moxie.

OK, I’ll give a little (just a little) away by mentioning that this is the first post-mortem psychic nosebleed I’ve posted.

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed irredeemable mark waid

Marvel Zombies 4 #1 “Midnight Sons, part 1″
Fred Van Lente, writer
Kev Walker, penciler

Morbius may be a snappy dresser and a brilliant biochemist, but he is clearly clueless about vaccines.

Generally speaking, there are five types of vaccines in common use:

Live attenuated vaccines
These are the only vaccines that could possibly cause a disease — but only certain vaccines, and only in certain rare instances. As the name suggests, these vaccines use live, but weakened, germs. The measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) falls in this category. It might cause a slight fever or body aches, but it will not cause measles, mumps or rubella.
The varicella (chicken pox) vaccine is also in this category. One in 20 of the recipients of this vaccine will develop a mild rash (usually 1 or 2 pox near the injection site), and a few children with a compromised immune system have developed a full chicken pox infection after vaccination, but there have been no reported deaths associated with the vaccine (unlike actual chicken pox, which prior to the use of the vaccine, killed about 100 people per year in the US).
The vaccine with the highest risk is the oral polio vaccine (OPV), which reverts to the wild-type fully infectious polio virus in about one in a million recipients. Luckily, the OPV hasn’t been used in the United States in nearly a decade (and realistically, before the vaccine, many more than one in a million children contracted polio).

Killed virus vaccines
These vaccines used dead germs to induce an immune response. Since the germs are dead, they can’t cause a disease. Killed vaccines include polio (the current injectable vaccine, not the oral one), hepatitis A, and the flu.

Subunit vaccines
In these vaccines, only a small part of the infectious organism is used — generally a surface protein. Since the entire organism is not present, there’s no way this type of vaccine can cause an infectious disease. Hepatitis B and the HPV vaccine (Gardasil) are examples of this kind of vaccine.

Similar is the conjugate vaccine. In these vaccines, part of the outer coat of an infectious bacteria is combined with a larger protein to make it more susceptible to the immune system. Again, since only part of the germ is used in the vaccine, it cannot cause disease.

Finally, there’s the toxoid vaccines, which are used to protect against toxins put out by certain bacteria such as Clostridium tetani (tetanus) and Corynebacterium diphtheriae (diptheria). Since no germ is used in the vaccine, there is no zero chance of developing a “full blown” infection.

So out of all the vaccines we routinely give, only two even have the “slight chance” Morbius mentions of causing the actual disease. But even that is overstating it: the varicella vaccine has only been shown to cause full blown chicken pox in immune compromised individuals, and the oral polio vaccine hasn’t been used in the United States since 2000. (And you’ll notice that both those diseases are viral, while Morbius specifically mentions bacteria [never mind, see comment #8 below]).

I hope you’re a better zombie fighter than immunologist, Morbius.

Welcome to Polite Dissent, my medical/television/comic book blog.

For medical reviews of the television show House, this is the best place to start. Reviews of the new season will start on September 21st, with the first review posted a few hours after the season opener airs.

For medical review of comic books, stroll through the archives, or start here. A look back at the classic medical comics of the ’50s and ’60s can be found during my annual Flashback Weeks.

Finally, for some true stories of medical training, look here.

Here’s an old comic book ad for an over-the-counter pill to stop bed wetting.

The medication is not manufactured anymore — in fact, the company that makes seems to be long gone — but I’m betting it was a medication with strong anticholinergic effects. This pill would, as the ad suggests, tighten up the bladder — but that class of medication can have a lot of unpleasant side effects as well (and the side effects are common enough to inspire a well-known mnemonic: “Hot as a Hare, Dry as a Bone, Red as a Beet, Mad as a Hatter, Blind as a Bat”).

Of course, the bed wetting only stops as long as you take the pill, so it’s not going to “cure” the problem like it apparently has in everyone in the testimonials the company thoughtfully included in the ad. If you’ve been wetting the bed for 23 years, no pill taken for a few days is going to fix the problem. Anticholinergic drugs can also cause dementia in older patients, so I’d be careful before giving it to the 76 year old lady (I’d also want to know why she suddenly developed bed wetting at age 76. Sure, it could be her advanced age, or it could be a sign of something more dangerous).

And what’s with the scare quotes? How is “Bed Wetting” different from bed wetting?

For the full size ad, click on the smaller version or the testimonials.

I’ve had several people ask me what I think, medically, of the game Batman: Arkham Asylum and I’m happy to oblige. If posting to the blog seem light this week, you can blame the game.

Overall, it’s a great experience. Though I’m a big fan of video games, it takes a lot for a game to really suck me in to its world completely, and Batman does that (the previous game that pulled this off was the first God of War). The setting, character design, and storyline are all appropriately creepy and the voice acting — especially Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill — is excellent. Playing the game, I really feel like Batman — I see a crowd of thugs and think, “I can take them, easy,” just like Batman should.

Admittedly, the game isn’t quite perfect:
Riddler’s voice seems flat and tinny, but I just blame this on him using a jerry-rigged radio transmitter.
The final confrontation with Harley Quinn was a definite anti-climax.
Once Poison Ivy joins the big baddies, the atmosphere becomes more cartoony and loses much of its creepiness.

Even with these (admittedly minor) flaws, I’d consider it the best solo super-hero video game.

Dark Elektra #1

A “cracked inner ear?” There really is no such term — most people would refer to it as a skull fracture or more specifically a temporal bone fracture.

Frankly, the whole sentence is awkward — she specifically mentions which arm bone is broken (the humerus), but doesn’t mention which foot bone was broken (there are quite a few; for all we know it could be a broken pinky toe; which is no big deal for anyone, let alone a resurrected ninja). Of course, this should really come as no surprise as the woman works for Norman Osborn, whose grasp of anatomy is rather poor.

I hate to disagree with Ivy, but her “homeopathic” would not even work on humans — unless you count the placebo effect — because the entire “science” behind homeopathy is pure quackery.

I suspect writer Kevin Smith meant to say “herbal” instead of “homeopathic”. It’s an all too common mistake, as is using the term homeopathic as a general term for non-traditional medicine (see also Vaughan and Bendis), but the terms are not interchangeable and mean very different things (not that you could tell by what is sold as “homeopathic medicine” in you local drug store).

Here’s a quick scorecard:
Herbal remedy — might work.
Homeopathic remedy — expensive water/quackery.

Today’s comic book public service ad is “Get a Grip on Your Gripes,” or as I like to call it: Junior High Psychotherapy.

Fred is angry because he lost his race at the track meet the day before. Now, he’s taking it out on those around him. Luckily his friend Joe steps in and commiserates with him about his loss and encourages him to do better next time, right? Wrong! Joe steps in and tells Fred to suck it up — it’s his own fault he lost, and to stop taking it out on other people. Sure, there’s some validity in what Joe is saying, but would it hurt to show a little sympathy? This is a comic book after all, and we all know what happens to people like Fred: they become super-villains.

This PSA is found in DC comics from January 1961. Jack Schiff handles the scripting of this ad, with Bernard Baily providing the art.

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Tags: comics psa psychoanalysis anger jack schiff bernard baily

I’ve spent too much time today playing Batman: Arkham Asylum to put up a proper post, so enjoy this not-really-taken-out-of-context panel (it’s from an old comic about a couple who fake typhoid fever to pull a scam, and, as twist endings would have it, end up catching the disease themselves).

You’re sitting quietly at home reading when the doorbell rings. You open it to discover that, sadly, it’s not a Girl Scout selling cookies, but instead an attack by fiendish fire-apes!

What is your best course of action?

A: Ignore them and return to reading Marvel Apes — they must be a figment of your imagination.
B: Two words: barbecue ribs.
C: Call Jane Goodall and complain.
D: Turn the water hose on them.
E: Distract them with a bananas.