#Mike Johanns

[politicaldilfs]

Nebraska Governor DILFs

Ben Nelson, Bob Kerrey, Frank B. Morrison, Norbert Tiemann, Pete Ricketts, Arthur J. Weaver, Charles Thone, Charles W. Bryan, Dwight Griswold, J. James Exon, Robert Leroy Cochran, Dave Heineman, Dwight W. Burney, Jim Pillen, Victor Emanuel Anderson, Mike Johanns, Ralph G. Brooks, Val Peterson

[extraordinary-heroes]

Artist Showcase: Mike Mignola

[lowcountry-gothic]

From the World of Hellboy: B.P.R.D. Omnibus cover art, by Mike Mignola.

[soulpunchftw]

Hellboy AU where the BPRD gang learns about the monsterfucker fandom

Hellboy thinks it’s the funniest damn thing ever and fully embraces his status in the community

Johann is distraught that they mostly ignore him

Abe is driven catatonic after stumbling across fanart of him

[chernobog13]

Moe, Larry and Curly ready to throw down in Hellboy ll: The Golden Army (2008).

[ordheist]

a Krauss for u

[marvelousmrm]

Captain America #263 (DeMatteis/Zeck, Nov 1981). Marvel has such a peculiar relationship with movie studios. They were trying to get features of their characters produced for decades before Blade, and yet their comics repeatedly depict the studios as dangerous traps commandeered by villains.

[inkedwolfie]

Happy Valentine’s Day! I made some Hellentine cards ❤️🔥

[clownistyping]

May I please have some head canons with Liz,Abe and Kraus on signs that they got some mega feels for an S/O? I wonder if they treat them differently and such uwu 💕

My life has changed again ever since I last posted lmao, that's for another post. enjoy the symbolism gifs bc its too hard to find gifs of these three

Liz (movie version) 

She's a mess, she's sure that the feelings are one sided. But a piece of her is still burning bright to believe that there's a chance you like her back. 

She hides from you and becomes a bit of a stalker, not in a weird way. Like photos on the wall, she boy does she daydream.

She gets help from Professor Broom in how to go about confessing her feelings. Too embarrassed to go to Hellboy since they had a past relationship. (I can't erase what they had) 

She writes letters to you, they always have a crisp edge to them. But it's the one letter that's basically ash that you can tell meant the most from her. Her confession of admiration to you. 

When you do accept it, she has to take a cold shower because she's so overjoyed. 

But then she's terrified, what if she hurts you? Or even worse? It's the last thing she wants but the first thing on her mind. But your comforting words help her immensely. She's never felt so safe. 

Abe (movie version)

Him and Liz are big writers to be honest, so he's writing sonnets and poems inspired by his admiration and love for you. But he goes out of his way to be with you. 

Checks on you daily, make sure you're eating and well rested especially before a mission. 

Abe loves just being with you, albeit even if you can hear how fast his heart is racing. Especially when you lean closer to hear the story he's reading. Or the retelling of a mission with hellboy. 

He brings you gifts from the missions that take him far off, whatever he knows you like. He brings you. And by the fifth gift, you start to get the hint. There may be more than friendship behind the gifts. 

But still, he's scared of ruining this friendship.

So it's you that steps up and he's shocked when you said you know he likes you. 

'Was it really that obvious?' My brother in Christ, you made a scrapbook. 

But he's giddy, he does the same as he did before the start of the relationship. But now, he can't stop saying 'I love you'

Kraus (can be movie or comic)

He's never had such a bad stutter before until he realized his love for you. 

How can someone ever love a gas bag like him? He's constantly belittling himself even though he seems to be a confident being. He's far from it. 

He's afraid, but he wants it. Craves being with you. 

Being with you, just standing in the same room. Both takes his breath away and makes him so happy. 

He doesn't stop talking about you, like oh my god bro we get it. You like (Y/N) shut the hell up. 

But when told to make a move on you, he steps back a million times. Saying no one could be with him. He's arrogant, he's selfish. He's insecure. He's. 

It's only when you tell him how much you enjoy being with him. Does it click for him. 

It's real, you do like him. He is loved. And he loves you. 

He buys you so many gifts oh my god. 

[the-gershomite]

B.P.R.D. The Ectoplasmic Man -June 2008-

Dark Horse comics one shot

story by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi

art by Ben Stenbeck

letters by Clem Robins

cover art by Mike Mignola

cover colors by Dave Stewart

[extraordinary-heroes]

Hellboy & The B.P.R.D by Duncan Fegredo

[donospl]

Europe Jazz Media Chart - Grudzień 2024

Wybór nowości muzycznych, dokonany przez grupę czołowych europejskich magazynów i witryn jazzowych. A selection of the hot new music surfacing across the continent by the top European jazz magazines and websites. Mikołaj Trzaska Eternity For A While (Instant Classic) Krzysztof Komorek, Donos kulturalny, Polska Unleashed Cooperation Trust (Multikulti Project) Victor Benusan, jazzdergisi.com,…

[younes-ben-amara]

إثرَ تَشيْطُن المنصّات صار الويب مجرد 5 مواقع ضخمة كلُّ واحد منها مليئ بلقطات شاشة من الأربعة الأخرى

ما هذه المجموعة من المختارات تسألني؟ إنّها عددٌ من أعداد نشرة “صيد الشابكة” اِعرف أكثر عن النشرة هنا: ما هي نشرة “صيد الشابكة” ما مصادرها، وما غرضها؛ وما معنى الشابكة أصلًا؟! 🎣🌐 🎣🌐 صيد الشابكة العدد #104 مرحبًا والسلام عليكم وجمعة مباركة*؛ بسم الله. *انطلقت بعون الله تعالى في العدد يوم الجمعة لذا إن نشرته في غيره فلا بأس: جمعة مباركة على أية حال. 🎣🌐 صيد الشابكة العدد #104🔄 دورة حياة المنصات:…

[marvelousmrm]

What If… #26 (Barr/Trimpe, Apr 1981). Steve follows through on his presidential bid, so Red Skull conquers a nation to keep up with his rival.

[punctuationbreakdown]

About that Scientology connection...

One of the details that came to light this week in the latest article detailing the horrific allegations against Neil Gaiman (which I believe are true, to be clear, but not the primary focus of what I'm writing about here) is the extent of his ties to the Church of Scientology. I was most engaged with Neil's work as a teenager and in my early 20s, and I didn't recall seeing mention of the connection at the time (granted, that was more than a few years ago!). I couldn't let it go after reading the Vulture article, so I started to dig a bit and found a lot of information being shared on Reddit and even further digging uncovered archived forum posts from over a decade ago by former CoS members.

There are a lot of details in this article by Mikey Crotty, who appears to be an independent comics journalist, which was published by Mike Rinder on his blog in 2023. Rinder was famously an executive in the "church" in Australia and ran SeaOrg (the elite force of CoS, essentially, and responsible for internal discipline within the broader org) before ultimately leaving the organization and speaking out as loudly as he could about the abuses he had been complicit in as a member (at great personal risk, as anyone who is familiar with the tactics used against former CoS members will know).

The piece was written as an exposé about Gaiman's novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which was semi-autobiographical. Crotty discusses details about Gaiman's family, Gaiman's participation in CoS, and the coverup his father orchestrated for an apparent suicide of a student of Scientology who had immigrated to the UK and was living with the Gaimans at the time. This suicide is written into The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

Neil's father, David Gaiman, was head of worldwide communications for the Church of Scientology in the 60s, and was leading the PR spin to protect the organization from increasing legal scrutiny in the UK at the time. Around the same time, a suicide occurred while a young man, Johannes Scheepers, was living with them (the Gaiman's took in CoS students as lodgers at their home on a regular basis, apparently). The Gaiman family launched a campaign to depict him as a broken down gambler to avoid further scandal for the organization. The logic doesn't quite add up, and it's more likely that Johannes was a new adherent who had been badly taken advantage of. You can read more details in the article I linked. Crotty makes the case that not only were the Gaimans lying about the death of the student, even going so far as to claim he wasn't actually lodging with them, but that Neil then went further to spread these lies in the form of fiction decades later (we now know this book was written as a result of the prompting of Amanda Palmer, who was encouraging him to confront his childhood experiences with CoS per the article in Vulture).

The article also points out evidence of Neil's continued involvement with Scientology:

Neil Gaiman’s history with Scientology is very murky; deliberately so. His family are practically Scientology royalty in the UK, he met his first wife Mary McGrath while she was studying Scientology and lodging at Harrow House and he himself worked as a Scientology Auditor for several years in the Eighties and was a Director of a Scientologist’s property company ‘Centrepoint’ until 1999.  He now won’t discuss his own Scientology connections and states, without any details, that he’s no longer a member of the Cult that supported Apartheid up until the mid eighties, believes homosexuals are deviants and mental illness is a manifestation of personal failure in the sufferer’s current or past life; beliefs which are anathema to most of Neil’s adoring audience. His connection to Scientology and apparent departure from the cult first went public as part of a court case in 2002 where when asked “Are you still involved with the Church of Scientology?” Neil said “I don’t understand the question”, subsequently asked “Are you still a member of the Church of Scientology?” he replied “I don’t consider myself as such”. Even then his admission that he worked for the Church for 3 years is somewhat confusing: “I worked for a 3 year period after getting out of school as a ‘Counsellor’ for the Church of Scientology”; in fact he actually worked as an ‘Auditor’ in a process made famous in the award winning 2015 Documentary ‘Going Clear’ which explains how officials in the Church of Scientology keep in-depth records on everything its members say during private ‘auditing’ sessions and then use their secrets against them. Renowned Journalist and author on Scientology Tony Ortega says that Gaiman “became a Class VIII auditor, and even ran the Birmingham “org” as its ED, executive director. “. While there is no contradiction in Neil’s actual admission of working for Scientology up till the late Nineties and subsequently leaving the cult and its beliefs sometime in the early Noughties, conflicting details arise in the period since, when Neil has insisted he’s not a Scientologist. According to public records he was a shareholder in the family firm G&G Foods, which produces the vitamins used in Scientology’s highly criticized Narconon and De-Tox practices, since 2011. He transferred approximately a quarter of a million shares to Scientologist shareholders in 2013. There’s the book ‘Ocean’ also from 2013 and then there’s also his production company ‘The Blank Corporation’. ‘The Blank Corporation’ is Neil’s production company which works on all his adaptations such as ‘Sandman’, ‘Anansi Boys’, ‘Good Omens’ and the upcoming ‘Ocean at the End of the Lane’ in partnership with Netflix, Amazon, Warner Bros, the BBC and others. According to the website and any interviews, Neil founded ‘The Blank Corporation’ in 2016 with his Vice President and former P.A. Cat Mihos. According to the official Companies registration however, the company was actually set up by Neil and then wife (and still devout Scientologist) Mary McGrath in 2000. The company is still registered to a Scientologist’s P.O Box in Wisconsin, where Mary McGrath still works for the Church of Scientology. One company; two very different stories, it’s just another mystery, like what really happened to cause Johannes Scheepers to take his own life in 1968.

I want to note that based on what I've read, being a Class VIII auditor is the highest level you can go as an auditor in CoS without becoming a member of SeaOrg. Auditors are individuals who are key to the brainwashing process members of CoS undergo; they utilize the org's "technology" to identify past sins by doing intensive interrogation sessions with members. This means Neil was well trained in how to psychologically interrogate org members and held a position of relative power over them as he documented their dearest secrets for the org (primarily to blackmail them with should they ever want to leave, based on CoS records and former members' experiences).

I found forum posts where others reviewed public records that confirmed the majority of these claims, although unable to confirm the PO Box in Wisconsin. His sister, Lizzy Calcioli, is the current company director of G&G, which supplies pseudoscientific vitamin treatments to drug rehabilitation seekers that are horribly abused by Narconon (CoS does not allow actual medical intervention or medical practices in its org). According to public filings, Neil still owns shares in G&G.

There is also this interview from 2010 with the New Yorker, in which Neil claims he is no longer a member of CoS, but expresses sympathy with them:

These days, Gaiman tends to avoid questions about his faith, but says he is not a Scientologist. Like Judaism, Scientology is the religion of his family, and he feels some solidarity with them. “I will stand with groups when I feel like they’re being properly persecuted,” he told me.

It is also well known that celebrity members of CoS are encouraged/allowed to lie about their connection to it in order to support their monetary success. Because of course they're going to contribute back to the organization through that success, which it appears Neil has done.

Additionally, we know from public accounts of CoS's practices and leaked documents that once someone leaves the organization, they are not allowed to continue to associate with anyone within the cult. Isolation of former victims is one of the many tools used against them. The fact that Neil maintained a marriage for decades to an active member who still works for CoS, as well as relationships with his family members who are leaders in CoS, indicates he is either still on the books as a member or is contributing to CoS in order to avoid alienation from his family. Any sympathy a desire to remain connected with his family might conjure is misguided in my opinion, because we know that he's likely profiting off of shares in a company that takes advantage of and contributes to the traumatization of vulnerable patients as a CoS affiliated business.

Had I known Neil Gaiman was so closely connected to the "church" sooner (one degree away from L. Ron Hubbard himself as a child!), I would not have supported his work in the way that I did in the past. And I think he knew that a significant portion of his audience would respond the same way, which is why he obfuscated and downplayed those connections.

His alleged ongoing involvement also changes the way I perceive his actions - Deception and manipulation is, by former member's accounts, standard procedure for leaders within Scientology. It should come as no surprise that he will continue to deny any evidence, attempt to blame his victims, and lie lie lie to avoid potential consequences. It is, after all, the example he was given and trained in as an active participant in a destructive cult that he has never publicly disavowed and that he appears to continue to support.

I think this information should be taken into account as former (hopefully) fans react to his responses to these accusations. I wish for peace for the victims who are now speaking out, and I hope they are able to reach the resolution they deserve.