The New Colossus

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British Knights Shirts at Topatoco!

HijiNKS ENSUE British Knights Shirt At Topatoco

I think the Mayor of Detroit is being a little short-sighted in rejecting a statue of Robocop in his city. From what I can gather from alarmist headlines and hearsay, Detroit is an apocalyptic wasteland governed by packs of stray dogs. The “Mayor” serves at their pleasure and only in a ceremonial capacity. A statue of Robocop right in the middle of downtown would remind the looting and pillaging citizens of the possibility of a brighter tomorrow. A future where, if you commit a crime, a cyborg will shoot you with a machine gun. And what about jobs? Since American cars get 4 miles to the gallon and blow up if you so much as look at them, one can only assume the job situation in The Motor City is pretty dier. Instead of a simple statue, the Robocop tribute could be a full on RocoComplex! Imagine it!  A 400 ft. tall colossus straddling both halves of the city, with floor after floor of housing, government offices, shopping, parking garages, and a 40 story penthouse up in his helmet that overlooks the city from his visor. This could transform Detroit forever. Every day at Noon an Earth-shattering “FREEEEZE DIRRRT BAAAGGGG!” would bellow from his face, letting the city know it was safe from the canine menace below. Oh, yeah… once the people move into the RoboComplex, the wild dogs really start to tear shit up at street level.

Batman and Robin was also filmed here in Dallas. I propose a 40 ft. tall codpiece overlooking the arts district. Who do I talk to about this?

UPDATE:

COMMENTERS: What other towns need statues based on their famous movies? How about a Lethal Weapon tribute in L.A.? It could say, “I’m getting to old for this shit,” in Latin under bronze busts of Riggs and Murtaugh. Or maybe a right outside of N.Y.C. and L.A. there can be a granite tribute to Snake Pliskin escaping each city. Personally I want to see a monument to the Ghostbusters bringing the Statue of Liberty to life in Ghostbusters 2 erected on Staten Island on top of the regular Statue of Liberty. Actually it should be just at the edge of Staten Island, stepping into the water. “Your love! Keeps liftin’ me! Your love is liftin’ me, HIGHER AND HIGH-ER!”

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45 Comments

  1. Man I wish this would happen, as a one time Detroiter this would be a neat thing to have some were around town, maybe near the new Joe, but the city needs to spend every dime it can find on schools and police, still lacking funding majorly. Also, I really like the expression on Joel's face in the last panel, as if he knew were Eli was going.

  2. I'd buy that for a dollar!

    But seriously Robocop statue would've been awesome. Besides not like it would make Detroit any worse.

      • No, now there's whatever movie George Clooney is filming in town, that people are freaking out about the possibility of being an extra in it. That movie, yeah.

        • "The Ides of March"
          An idealistic staffer for a newbie presidential candidate gets a crash course on dirty politics during his stint on the campaign trail. Based on the play by Beau Willimon.

          I might still lean towards Rain Man:)
          But it's better than Champaign-Urbana, which has had no films filmed in it.

  5. I'm a Chicagoan & have spent half my life wondering where our Blues Brothers statue is.

    Like, for realz.

    (With runners up being Ferris Bueller, Rob from High Fidelity, The Untouchables, & Elisabeth Shue from AiBS)

    • I second a Blues Brothers Statue for Chicago! How about one to commemorate the massive pile up near the end? That would not only be hilarious and awesome (and take up a couple of blocks) but would also make a nice play area, you know, for kids! (sorry, that's been stuck in my head for hours)

      • Well there is the rotting husk of the mall they drove through. Aparently it went to shit not long after the movie and now stands empy and rotting, much like Detroit.

    • Come on… High Fidelity is not even worth mentioning.

      Then again… Peoria – I think there's a road named after Richard Pryor – unless they voted that down. I don't remember. But some of the movie about him was shot there.

    • The Blue Brothers statues should be a car crashed into the first floor of the Daley Center.

      Any commemorative statue to AiBS belongs in Toronto, where it was probably actually filmed. I can think of no other movie set in Chicago that had less of a sense of place. That scene where they are talking to the prostitute and you can see the Stone Container building in the background? For the Stone Container Building (the one with the diamond-shaped top) to be seen at that angle, the characters must have been standing in the lake. Also? No Thor's Garage on lower Wacker. </rant>

      Meanwhile… how about My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Or My Best Friend's Wedding? Or a mashup of the two?

    • LOL – yeah, I can just imagine loads of emo/gothy girls/women making pilgrimages to sit at the feet of the 'perfect faced' Edward.

      Do you live somewhere hot, cos if they do it in wax, it'll at least be fun to finally see a Twilight vampire reacting to the sun in the normal vampire way!

  9. The only thing noteworthy that has been filmed in D.C. is Silence of the Lambs. But I think that could make a pretty sweet statue up on the national mall.

  12. Detroit so needs a statue of RoboCop, in fact at this point Detroit just needs RoboCop. 🙂

    Dude, you may be onto something with Dallas. After all they are about to remake the TV Series for TNT I believe. Maybe us Texans can petition for a statue of JR Ewing. They could permanently place it where Big Tex typically stands at the State Fair and when people enter he could say "Howdy" and give them trivia about the Dallas TV Series. 🙂

  13. I'd suggest that Baltimore could get a statue celebrating The Wire, but I think the city itself is doing just fine as a monument.

    Of course, we could always get a John Waters statue and leave offerings of beehive wigs and pink flamingos.

    • I think Baltimore should get a giant rat or roach statue.
      An R.O.U.S., if you will.

      Not dissing Baltimore, btw – I'm just a big John Waters fan. 😉

      • Man, diss away! I'd say set up a Wire tribute, but chances are it would be stolen the first time the lights were shot out. The Wire was pretty true to life, but they toned it down a bit for TV. Shit's WAAAAY worse on the east side than that.

  17. I can't think of any major films that were filmed here in Champaign-Urbana; but we were the city that built Hal from 2001, according to the movies. I propose a big, black monolith with a giant red eye near the top of it.

  18. I'd say Durham should have a statue of "Bull Durham", but I bet we already have one. Raleigh could have … a commemorative Mulder family tombstone?

    "Huic fimus, quoque vetus sum"

  19. gee, it'd be nice to actually read the whole comic. Stupid ad dropping down from the banner covers half the strip and there's no 'close' box. WFT?

  21. Santa Cruz California needs an Alfred Hitchcock statue. The setting for Psycho was based on a buildings in Santa Cruz and The Birds was based on an actual incident that happened there in 61.

  23. If Detroit doesn't want a Robocop, maybe Flint, MI could get a statue of Michael Moore for "Roger & Me". Yeah, that'll go over well.

    Or course, for L.A. you could do a pre-emptive monument to "Blade Runner".

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