The Dissector Special #03.I got your Autopsy Awards nominees right here! The voting will be via e-mail, because I couldn't manage to set up them damn web polls... Send your votes to lordmagnusen at gmail.com, in the following form (each nomination has a code): "W01, A03, C02..."
Some of the awards are not subject to vote, as they are given solely on a numeric basis (most Dissected company, etc), or specially awarded for extraordinary "merit". Of course, the text for each dissection is the original one from when they were published, but I've added (mostly) new comments for all. Let's get started with the Best Writing Dissection nominees:
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W01-"UNITED SOCIALIST SOVIET KINGDOMS."-#12COMMENT: This is the worst historical-related plot nit I've ever found.
TITLE: Books Of Doom.
ISSUE: 05 of 06.
CULPRIT: Ed Brubaker (writer).
DISSECTION: From page 10, I quote Gustav the gipsy "The King has the backing of the Russians now." WTF????!?!?!??! Since this "Russians" they speak of are the USSR (we know it's so, because they refer to them as the Soviets on page 23), and the Soviets would have NEVER, EVER, backed a monarch, this is so hare-brained a plot device I can't even begin to think what the hell Brubaker is aiming at.
DISSECT-O-METER: This gets 10 Bazzars, it's as stupid as saying that there's a KKK chapter formed by black people...
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W02-"GOTHAM CITY, CITY STATE?"-#17COMMENT: This goes to show how some people have no idea how the world works...
TITLE: 52.
ISSUE: Week 14.
CULPRIT: Travis Lanham (letterer) and/or Greg Rucka (writer most likely in charge of this section).
DISSECTION: When Renee Montoya's passport is stamped in Khandaq (page 2, panel 8), it reads "U.S. Embassy, Gotham City, United States"... wtf? I thought Gotham went back to being part of the USA after the No Man's Land. Since when countries have embassies in their own cities?
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars, big mistake, but not story-affecting.
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W03-“NINJAS, SMINJAS!”-#23COMMENT: One of the many examples of why Chris Claremont should have retired.
TITLE: Exiles.
ISSUE: 93.
CULPRIT: Chris Claremont (writer).
DISSECTION: Now, don't get me wrong, I'm very happy that Claremont is back on his feet. But he keeps on making stupid mistakes that could be avoided with a little research and attention to detail. In this issue, he confuses the word "ninja" (you know, those sneaky guys who kill people) with "gaijin" (a somewhat derogatory term Japanese use for foreigners).
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Chris, it's NINJAS, for God's sake!
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W04-“FASTER THAN A RAY OF LIGHT!”-#23COMMENT: This just left me speechless.
TITLE: Battlestar Galactica V4.
ISSUE: 08.
CULPRIT: Greg Pak (writer).
DISSECTION: This series sucks. Not only the art is horrible, but the plot is very, very, lame. On top of all that, on page 19 a ship filled with old Cylon Centurions and one number 8 jumps towards "the heart of the Cylon Empire", and arrives "Ten seconds later on the other side of the universe."
What?!?!? An FTL in the new BSG universe, not even a Cylon FTL, can't travel to the other side of the galaxy, let alone the OTHER SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE in ten seconds.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Come on!
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W05-"MATH IS DIFFERENT IN THE FUTURE."-#30COMMENT: Something doesn't add up...
TITLE: (Supergirl And) The Legion Of Super-Heroes V5.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Tony Bedard (writer) and/or Travis Lanham (letterer).
DISSECTION: Legion of Super-Heroes election results (page 9): Brainiac 5: 7%, Cosmic Boy: 23%, Lightning Lad: 26%, Supergirl: 54%. So, it adds up to 110%! What?
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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W06-"MY, MY, HOW YOU'VE GROWN!!"-#37COMMENT: Physics, and how writers disregard them for fun and profit.
TITLE: Batman/Lobo: Deadly Serious.
ISSUE: 01 of 02.
CULPRIT: Sam Kieth (writer/artist).
DISSECTION: Meh. That's what this book's caused in me so far, it's readable, but nothing out of the ordinary. Only one nit, but a fairly big one; on page 48, the entity that possesses women (the one Lobo and Batman are fighting) tells her current host that she's "entering another orbit" and that her "body mass will change with it." Sam, it's your weight that changes with gravity, not your mass, since weight is a product of your mass times the gravity of the place you are in. For those of you who never paid attention in junior high physics, experiencing changes in your mass would mean that you actually grow or shrink. Colloquially, we refer to mass as "weight", but I'd never seen it the other way around.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
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W07-"SCIENCE IS HARD!"-#42COMMENT: Ah, biology is also neglected!
TITLE: Justice League Of America.V2.
ISSUE: 13.
CULPRIT: Dwayne McDuffie (writer).
DISSECTION: On page fourteen, Poison Ivy attacks Green Lantern (John Stewart) by multiplying part of his intestinal flora (mycobacterium paratuberculosis, to be precise)... but intestinal flora, despite its name, it's made of plants, it's made of bacteria.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, dammit, if you wanna do science fiction, read up on science. Anyone who's finished high school and paid some attention should know that intestinal flora is made of bacteria.
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I already know which is my favorite. Let's go on with the nominees for Best Art Dissection:
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A01-"REACH OUT AND TOUCH..."-#07COMMENT: I sometimes wonder if pencillers actually read the scripts they're working on.
TITLE: X-Men V2.
ISSUE: 182
CULPRIT: Salvador Larroca (penciller).
DISSECTION: Larroca is almost back at his previous standards, but he screwed up big time here... on page 19 he draws Pulse and Rogue talking to each other, and Rogue "realizes" he's touching her (his hand on her arm). Thing is, they're both wearing full bodysuits.... Nothing happen because apparently Pulse's powers cancel Rogues... or MAYBE it's BECAUSE they're NOT ACTUALLY TOUCHING!!!!
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars, Larroca really screwed up here.
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A02-"HELP! I'M SHRINKING!"-#13COMMENT: This is just... well.... it's like drawing a Wolverine that stands 7 feet tall...
TITLE: X-Men: The 198.
ISSUE: 04 of 05.
CULPRIT: Jim Muniz (penciller).
DISSECTION: Page 20. Panel 3. Shadowcat's shoulder. Lockheed. Muniz, get this straight: LOCKHEED IS NOT THE SIZE OF A HUMAN HEAD, MUCH LESS THE SIZE OF A HUMAN FIST AS YOU DREW HIM HERE!!!! Not only you're repeating the mistake you did last issue, you're worsening it!
Here's a tip: before using a character in a book you're drawing, look at the references, at least read a single comic where that character has appeared, or check the character’s Handbook entry.
DISSECT-O-METER: God, this only gets 10 Bazzars because I can't give it an 11... I'm so tempted to make an exemption....
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A03-"I ALWAYS PRACTICE SAFE VIGILANTISM."-33COMMENT: There seems to be at least one error each week in Countdown, and this has been the worst. Oh, it was my first (and only, so far, 20 Bazzars).
TITLE: Countdown.
ISSUE: 40.
CULPRIT: Manuel GarcÃa (penciller) and Thomas Chu (colorist).
DISSECTION: Oh. My. God. Look at the image below, this is supposed to be the Question, aka Renee Montoya:
ARGH! DAMMIT! Have GarcÃa or Chu NEVER read a Question comic? Did they even read 52? Where they at least given reference materials on how the Question's mask is supposed to look like? It doesn't bloody look like the answer to any of those questions is yes. First of all, even if we leave aside the exaggerated depth of the eyes on the mask, there's too many wrinkles, it looks too much like a mask, and not like real-looking artificial skin.
Second, both for Vic Sage and for Montoya, the Mask stops where their hairline starts, so it looks like a featureless face. This looks like Montoya is wearing an opaque condom on her head with her pony tail coming out of the hole. Lastly, and not worse than the shape of the mask, is the color Chu's given this. Again people, it's SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE A FUCKING FEATURELESS FACE, LIKE REAL SKIN!!!! Not like an obvious rubber mask!
For the umpteenth time, LOOK AT THE FUCKING REFERENCES FOR THE CHARACTERS YOU'RE GOING TO DRAW OR COLOR!!!
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, in fact, this is going to count double. Yes, double, as if it was a 20, fuck dammit all to hell!
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Yes, I know, there's less nominations for this category... most have three, except for a couple of the categories, where I just couldn't choose. On with the nominees for Best Coloring Dissection, with my all favorite nit of all times:
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C01-"THE INCREDIBLE COLOR-CHANGING CAPE"-#02COMMENT: This is wonderful, other nits that came after it got 10 Bazzars, but this will always be my favorite. Jeromy Cox, the culprit, will visit us every now and then. In retrospect, this probably should have gotten a 10, but I was too meek back then, too much in control of the Nitpicker, as the beast called itself those days.
TITLE: Teen Titans V3.
ISSUE: 29.
CULPRIT: Jeromy Cox (colorist).
DISSECTION: Alright, we all know that before Tim Drake, Robin's costume sucked ass. The scaly green speedos, the bare legs (or skin-colored pantyhose in Burt Ward's case), the insufferably bright colors of the yellow cape and red tunic, all that made for one of the worst costumes in comic book history. So when Robin II (Jason Todd, previously thought dead), currently Red Hood, decided to make some changes to his old costume (same one Dick Grayson wore before him), I thought, ok, that's cool.
You see, Jason is all nutso, and appears in his Red Hood garb before Robin III (the aforementioned better-costumed Tim Drake), but takes off his villainous costume to reveal a Robin suit underneath, and challenges Tim to a fight. How the heck did he keep that cape from bulking up on the back of his tight leather jacket, is beyond me. Thing is, Jason decided he was leg-shy, and threw in a pair of yellow tights to cover his legs (maybe he hadn't shaved) and instead of the elf-slippers, a pair of elf-boots.
Apparently, as we see in page, he borrows a page from Tim's book, and also wears a yellow-on-the-inside and black-in-the-outside cape. Makes sense, you can hide in the shadows better (never mind the yellow tights). But... on the next page, his cape is yellow, inside and out. But... in the last panel of that page, it's black outside, yellow inside again!
In page 10's first panel it's all yellow, then in the third panel it's yellow inside, black outside (although that could be a shadow), because in the last panel it's yellow outside again. It's still all yellow for all of page 11, and when we see it again on page 14, and apparently it's still all yellow in pages 15 through 17, and then he's gone. What gives?
DISSECT-O-METER: I'm tempted to give this a 10, but it's not a nit that affects the story. Still, it's pretty major, so it gets the highest score so far, the first-ever 9 Bazzars!
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C02-"I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE GREEN OR WHITE!"-#07COMMENT: Ah, Jeromy Cox and his crazy coloring... he's the only person with more than one nomination!
TITLE: Teen Titans V3.
ISSUE: 32.
CULPRIT: Jeromy Cox (colorist).
DISSECTION: On page eight, panel six, Beast Boy's communicator (I really prefer Changeling, Beast Boy sounds like a Legion Of Super-Heroes name, which I love, but this is the Titans) beeps in the middle of his meeting with the Doom Patrol; and in panel seven, they do a close-up of his hand holding the device... and his skin is not green, it's white (ok, not chalk white, but Caucasian).
DISSECT-O-METER: This is a big mistake, it gets 8 Bazzars.
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C03-"I ALWAYS PRACTICE SAFE VIGILANTISM.-#33COMMENT: Same thing as before, but from a coloring point of view.
TITLE: Countdown.
ISSUE: 40.
CULPRIT: Manuel GarcÃa (penciller) and Thomas Chu (colorist).
DISSECTION: Oh. My. God. Look at the image below, this is supposed to be the Question, aka Renee Montoya:
ARGH! DAMMIT! Have GarcÃa or Chu NEVER read a Question comic? Did they even read 52? Where they at least given reference materials on how the Question's mask is supposed to look like? It doesn't bloody look like the answer to any of those questions is yes. First of all, even if we leave aside the exaggerated depth of the eyes on the mask, there's too many wrinkles, it looks too much like a mask, and not like real-looking artificial skin.
Second, both for Vic Sage and for Montoya, the Mask stops where their hairline starts, so it looks like a featureless face. This looks like Montoya is wearing an opaque condom on her head with her pony tail coming out of the hole. Lastly, and not worse than the shape of the mask, is the color Chu's given this. Again people, it's SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE A FUCKING FEATURELESS FACE, LIKE REAL SKIN!!!! Not like an obvious rubber mask!
For the umpteenth time, LOOK AT THE FUCKING REFERENCES FOR THE CHARACTERS YOU'RE GOING TO DRAW OR COLOR!!!
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, in fact, this is going to count double. Yes, double, as if it was a 20, fuck dammit all to hell!
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My vote is already cast. Let's go with the nominees for Best Lettering Dissection:
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L01-"I DON'T THINK WE'RE SUPOSSED TO MENTION THAT IN FRONT OF TONY, HE MIGHT GO AND TELL HIS DRINKING BUDDIES..."-#08COMMENT: Lettering gone wild!
TITLE: New Avengers.
ISSUE: 16.
CULPRIT: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Albert Deschesne (letterer).
DISSECTION: On page 9, last panel, Ms. Marvel talks to Captain America and mentions "(...) the whole House of M thing.", but the words "House of M" are striked-out with a red line. This happens again in the first panel of page 10, but then in that same page, in the third panel "House of M" is normal; then in panel six it's striked out again.
All the sentences except one work without the words "House of M", so I'm guessing that at the last minute Brian Michael Bendis (the book's writer) decided that the conversation between Ms. Marvel and Cap should be sort of more secretive, and told the letterers to remove the words; they striked them out in red to remember to remove them... but didn't remove them. And they missed one, because that phrase didn't make sense without it...
DISSECT-O-METER: This is kind of big, so it gets 7 Bazzars.
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L02-"COCONUT PLANTATIONS ARE ILEGAL IN THE DC UNIVERSE."-#16COMMENT: Languages people, languages.
TITLE: The Question Quarterly.
ISSUE: 1.
CULPRIT: Dennis O'Neil (writer) or Willie Schubert (letterer).
DISSECTION: On page 11, Vic Sage (aka The Question) tells a criminal who's captured him "And you're (...) growing COCO plants." and the criminal answers "Which get processed into a very profitable commodity." Uh... I think they meant COCA, which gets processed for cocaine (but you can also make legal and benign products out of coca... like Coca-Cola), as it's later stated that the guy is a drug lord. Coco is coconut.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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L03-"OH D?OS M?O!"-30COMMENT: It's incredible nobody realized something was wrong.
TITLE: Blue Beetle V7.
ISSUE: 16.
CULPRIT: Phil Balsman (letterer), and maybe also John Rogers (writer).
DISSECTION: When I pick up Blue Beetle, not only do I know it's going to be a good read, I also know it's going to have at least one Spanish language related nit!
In this case, on page 10, panel two, Paco starts reciting the Hail Mary in Spanish, but he says "Dios et salve, Mar? a (...)" instead of "Dios te salve MarÃa(...), which means "God save you Mary", the equivalent of "The Lord is with thee".
Two things are wrong here, the first is "et" instead of "te"; and the second one is the tilde on "MarÃa" being replaced by "? ". This is something that happens sometimes with fonts or programs with character sets that don't include Latin characters such as the accented vowels (I think that's the reason).
In any case, I'm going to give props to John Roger for trying to get this right. In this case, it seems like an honest error. It's still funny, so I'm gonna show you the image. Even if you don't speak Spanish, you can notice there's something wrong there:
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars (it's an honest error, but still, how could you not notice there's a question mark in the middle of a word?).
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L04-"WHA?"-39COMMENT: They even make impossible things happen!
TITLE: Uncanny X-Men.
ISSUE: 490.
CULPRIT: VC's Joe Caramagna (letterer).
DISSECTION: On the credits for the Endangered Species story, colorist Raúl Treviño's first name is incorrectly given as having the tilde on the "R", something that's not only wrong, but impossible.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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Some jewels there, huh? Now let's check out the nominees for Best Other Dissection:
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O01-"THEY SHOT MFK!"-#21.COMMENT: The best example of editors not doing their job, continuity-wise.
TITLE: Amazing Spider-Man.
ISSUE: 539.
CULPRIT: Axel Alonso (editor).
DISSECTION: When Spider-Man has Mary Jane register Aunt May (shot down by the Kingpin's sniper) in the hospital, he tells her to use May's maiden name "Fitzgerald"... but as far as we know, her maiden name is "Reilly". What gives?
Credit where credit is due, I did not realize this on my own, I only realized it after I read
this post on
Newsarama. Thanks BradE!!!!
Once more I go out of my way and point out an editor as the culprit. Why? Because in Newsarama's Cup of Joe for March 30, Axel Alonso said: "That was an error. Just slipped through the cracks. JMS emailed us to fact-check Aunt May's maiden name, and in a glitch, we gave him the wrong name. It was one of those "D'oh!" moments that just got past everyone here. We've fixed it for the second print and the trade."
Fitzgerald, as I found out the other day, is the maiden name of Mary Parker, Peter's mother. So, having too much Spidey knowledge actually made Axel and his people go wrong?
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, Reilly being May's maiden name is the whole point of the Spidey-Clone calling himself Ben Reilly.
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O02-"EVEN THE REST OF HER POWERS ARE INVISIBLE!"-#21.COMMENT: This book was a proof that a couple more proofreads before print, preferably by sober people, are a good idea.
TITLE: Civil War: Battle Damage Report.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Anthony Flamini (head writer/coordinator) and/or Ronald Byrd (writer), and Michael Hoskin (proofing coordination).
DISSECTION: Page 22, Fantastic Four's profile, the Invisible Woman's powers are described as "can render herself and other objects wholly or partially invisible by mentally bending all wavelengths of light in the vicinity around herself or the target in question."
Huh? What happened to her power to project force fields??!?! We're only talking about one of the most important characters in the Marvel Universe, heck, it's one of the first four characters we can call part of the Marvel Universe, and were not added to it by retcon.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Simply outrageous.
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O03-"52 UNIVERSES CERTAINLY ISN'T ENOUGH..."-#46COMMENT: Why do some people get jobs like "Creative Director" and are put in charge of stuff they know nothing about?
TITLE: All DCU titles I read the week of 10/24.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Richard Bruning (DC Creative Director, writer of that week's DC Nation).
DISSECTION: Bruning talks about Zuda, and says "What in the 52 multiverses..." There's not 52 multiverses, there's one multiverse, and 52 universes.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
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Now for the nominees for the first of the homegrown categories, Best Quote:
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Q01-"Electricity can only be replenished by whisky. This is actual physics. Don't argue with me, I am a doktor." Doktor Sleepless, Doktor Sleepless #1 (#33).COMMENT: Instant classic.
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Q02-"Look at the Concorde: you used to be able to cross the Atlantic in three hours flat. Then the cunts stuck the future in a museum." Billy Butcher, The Boys #9 (#35).COMMENT: Progress, crippled.
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Q03-"From the state of ridiculously tall and gorgeous amazons with perfect skin. Alba-chusetts, West Jessicabiel-burg. Stupid Alba-chussets." Brenda Del Vecchio, Blue Beetle V7 #18 (#37).COMMENT: Teen dialogue at its best.
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Q04-"Super-friction, Brainiac. Super-friction creates static electricity. Super-static-electricity creates... Shakkaboom. (...) My dream, my rules, you clockwork moron." Superman, Superman V1 #666 (#37).COMMENT: Silver Age retro is good, sometimes.
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Q05-"That is, without a doubt, the nastiest tasting stuff I ever put in my mouth." Wonder Girl II, Countdown #32 (#41).COMMENT: I love out of context quotes.
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Q06-"I'm getting lectured on CHILD SAFETY from a man who's gone through FOUR ROBINS?" Wally West (obviously to Batman), The Flash V2 (#46).COMMENT: You tell him, Wally!
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Alright, now for the last in-house category, the nominees for Best Moment:
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M01-Peter Parker pwns Kingpin (#33).
COMMENT: FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
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M02-Superman kills Lex Luthor with a superloogie (#37).
COMMENT: He indeed is a powerful visitor with mysterious powers.
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M03-Matter-Eater Lad shows you why pointing is rude (#37).
COMMENT: Makes me hungry, for some reason.
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M04-Tek-Knight humps a meteorite (#39).
COMMENT: Chika-chika-bow-bow.
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M05-Namor rips off Venom’s tongue (#42).
COMMENT: OW!
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M06-Earth Green Lanterns swear their oath (#44).
COMMENT: Way cool.
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OK, get voting, you have until Wednesday, November 28th, more or less, to do so. Catch you next Thursday with the regular column, hopefully. Remember, nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
