Comics and Meat

My good friend TheChrisBrown opened up his own comic book shop about a year ago ( or more accurately, he took over an existing one, but whatevs), and we've all been way proud of him. Not only is he you know, like independently employed, but he's doing it in a business that speaks to his geekier tastes.

Anyway, he produced a series of commercials for the store, for local TV. These are all full of geeky comic book superhero humor, and acted by a bunch of people I know. For instance:

Comics and More/Spiderman vid.


TheChrisBrown is the guy with the mohawk behind the counter.

He has another one in production that he told me about the other night. It should be the best yet.

In other, meatier news:

I don't always approve of the ends, means or methods of the folks at PETA, but this time they seem dead on. 

It seems that they are offering a $1 million prize for the "first person to come up with a method to produce commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices by 2012."

It's a really gutsy move for PETA, essentially they are saying that they are willing to give up their war against meat, should a way be discovered that meat can be grown in a vat, having never been a breathing creature that could feel pain. It's apparently causing huge rifts in PETA's ranks, as many of them object to eating flesh, even if it was never really an animal.

It's an interesting dilemma that we may need to consider. What if, in the future, meat were able to come from a lab? Theoretically, it would be healthier; all organic, as the controlled environment wouldn't need chemicals, hormones or antibiotics to grow big vats o' beef.

But then again, the result would still be a slab of meat from a vat. Sort of like Spam.

It would be cruelty free, no animal would ever feel pain. It could also revolutionize the culinary field. Gourmet cuts like veal and filet mignon could be grown en masse, as could, conceivably, cuts like shark fin that the Japanese black market goes after. Many taboo meats from other cultures would be available, like dog or horse, and even whale meat would be obtainable in this fashion. 

Hell, why not human flesh? If it could be grown in a lab in this way, why not? What's the harm? Would you want to try it, even just for the sake of seeing what it tastes like? I mean, I tried Haggis, chicken feet, tripe, sweet breads... what if vat-grown people became available, even as a novelty? Would there be harm?

All I know is this: once they perfect the art of lab meat, I need somebody to grow me a meat sweater.