So, I’ve got my costume, and I’ve got Toon-FX for telling my story.

Jerry’s helping me with some other stuff, but it’s still in R & D. He’s the only one who’s going to know my true identity, for now.

As far as my superhero name goes, I have to admit that I’m stuck. Ideas so far:

• The Reductor
• JoyWreck
• The Groundskeeper
• Captain No One
• The Devolver
• Junk-Man
• The Eco-Avenger

Uh, yeah. I hate them. But I was thinking that maybe I could get some help for you guys out there on the interwebs.

What’s the perfect superhero name for a guy trying to stave off the environmental apocalypse, and impress an unimpress-able girl?

On my blog, Becky already recommended EnvIronMan. Thoughts?

And yes, I know who Captain Planet is, so you can save the hilarious Planeteers jokes.

The question was: what would scare JoyTech?

What would scare a company that wants people to buy all the useless junk they can possibly buy?

Last summer, Aurora got me reading about this thing called VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY. It’s basically a movement of people who minimize their consumption to make the world, and their lives, better.The idea is that if you need fewer things, you need less money, and if you need less money, you don’t have to work as much, and if you don’t have to work as much, you get to spend more time doing the things that are really important.

Stop buying junk, stop producing junk, and start focusing on what’s really important. Sounds pretty scary to me.

Voluntary simplicity is also about cutting down your environmental footprint. I like this because I don’t want to be a superhero like Iron Man. He was supposed to be a genius, but he didn’t care how many resources it took to make and use his powered armor suits.

To be fair, Stan Lee did create Iron Man in the 1960s, back when people still thought nuclear power and wonder bread were the future.

Duane Elgin, who writes about voluntary simplicity, describes it as “a manner of living that is outwardly more simple and inwardly more rich, a way of being in which our most authentic and alive self is brought into direct and conscious contact with living.”

Am I the only one who sees the superhero reference here? Because that’s what being a masked adventurer is all about – LIVING, DOING, creating a new identity that makes you the most real person you can be…

I want my disguise to be something that brings out my authentic superhero self, and makes a statement about what I’m representing.

No capes, no tights, no flashy junk – but maybe something made out of junk - all the weird old stuff that I find on the street that can be reused in a cool way.

Something that looks like it came back from the end of the world.

Yeah.

Every superhero needs a disguise, and every superhero disguise needs to:

1. Conceal his identity.
2. Help him do his job, by:

• Being aerodynamic, for speed and agility, OR
• Being equipped with protective armor, OR
• Being equipped with hi-tech weaponry, OR
• Enhancing his super power, OR
• Making him appear scary, dangerous, or ultra-cool to his enemies.

As I have no superpowers, and choose to use no hi-tech weaponry, and do not possess speed significant enough to benefit from aerodynamic spandex, I have to ask myself – what would scare the crap out of JoyTech?

So it looks like The Watchmen movie is really going to happen. After about a million years of rumors. Should be interesting, since everybody knows that the movie has taken so long to make because it’s a story that can only really be told in graphic novel format.

Why, you ask? Because:

1. Tons of stuff happens that requires billions of dollars in special effects to do right in a movie, and even then, let’s just say I’m skeptical of how they’re going to pull it off.
2. The words and images each tell a different part of the story. The whole story can only be fully understood with the two together – in film, it’s difficult to create this degree of IRONY (word of the day!).
3. Superheroes need secret identities. Toonifying yourself protects that identity. By using a cartoon format, graphic novels make a statement about the fundamental tragedy of the superhero:

He must always hide who he truly is from those he has sworn to protect, a.k.a. Aurora would kill me if she knew what I was planning

I’ll tell her at the right time, once I can say that I’ve actually DONE SOMETHING.

So I’m going to try to spread the word here, using this software, Toon-FX, to create some cool graphics.

And I know it’s not Frank Miller, buy hey, not everybody is a good illustrator. In fact, most people are really terrible illustrators. That’s why I like Toon-FX. It’s like Alan Moore, who says that anybody can be a superhero. Toon-FX lets anybody tell a story with cartoon graphics.

I’m not going to be stupid about this. Becoming a superhero takes some planning. I need to figure out:

• What my superhero name is going to be.
• What kind of disguise I’m going to wear.
• What kind of resources I have at my disposal, because, like Batman, I don’t actually have a super power.
• How I’m going to tell my story. This is really important, because getting the story out there is half of making a difference, right?

I can’t depend on a reporter for The Daily Ringer to tell the story for me, because JoyTech just bought the paper, but I think I have the perfect solution…

Here’s what I’ve been thinking:

The whole problem with JoyTech started when we got the Conurban Council. We got the Council because somebody needed to oversee the building of the highway around the conurbation area, but once it was built, they just stuck around. Everybody thought the Council would be good way to help the towns and cities get used to being one big megalopolis.

But all the Council did was let JoyTech come in and take over everything, and some people are happy about it, and some aren’t, and now there’s even more fighting between the different areas.

According to Jerry, Ring City needs somebody to:

1. Stop JoyTech from turning the whole area into a wasteland.
2. Get all the different neighborhoods together, and feeling like one big city.

That’s what Aurora wants too, but the way she’s going about it, nobody’s ever going to listen.

Somebody needs to take action, and I’ve been thinking really, seriously, why not me?

Another fight with Aurora this morning before school. Boils down to this: My whole entire life I’ve never done anything or helped anybody. And it’s true. Do you know how lame that is?

Movies and comics and games are all about the same thing: people who DO stuff. Which is tricky, because when you watch shows or play vids, it can make you feel like you’re doing stuff, even when you’re not.

I’ve been reading more about Juvenal, the Roman poet who Alan Moore thinks is so great, and he said something else smart. He said that people are only interested in bread and circuses, which means they don’t care about anything as long as they’re being entertained.

Not me. I want something more.

Jerry was right. People are idiots. And the people at my school are the biggest idiots in the world.

They’re all convinced that JoyTech is great for creating jobs and promising to clean up Ring City. Everyone listens when Aurora talks, but even on Earth Day, they don’t want to be bothered to really THINK about what we can do in our own city to help the planet.

On Monday, I left a stack of pamphlets in the caf for people to check out. Then yesterday, I see none other than New Guy drop the whole stack in the mud outside the smoking doors. Which everyone thinks is hilarious, of course.

WTF? Man, I knew that guy was jerk from the first second I laid eyes on him. But the worst is that Aurora totally defended him on it, and said it was an accident. Yeah. An accident.

I hate everybody.

Over the weekend, Aurora wouldn’t shut up about explaining to people that you have to do more for the environment than just recycle. She’s mad because JoyTech wouldn’t give her a straight answer about their waste creation problems.

Normally, I just nod while she goes off about this stuff, but even I have to admit that there’s something seriously messed up going on. Plus, Aurora’s usually too busy on the weekends to hang out, so how could I resist when she asked me to help her make some pamphlets, and hand them out at school?
Jerry said it was useless, but we’ve got a secret weapon.

I thought that if we could show people what’s going on, by telling a story, like they did with Jericho, or like Alan Moore did with V, then they’d understand, so I used this program called Toon-Photo to turn Aurora’s writing into a kind of mini-comic. All you have to do to get people to listen is make the information entertaining, right? It took me all weekend, but it was worth it.

Wish us luck!