Known as StarlorSummers to his Buzznet brethren, Karim has a lot to say about the world of comic books and film—and his friends know that a witty comment, a brilliant haiku review, or an astute observation about everything nerdy is always just a moment away. We found out some surprising facts about his life in Brooklyn, his own fictional character, and what he considers the worst movie of all time. —Mark Oshiro, Community Manager, panasonicyouth
 
How much have comic books and comic book characters played into your development as a person?
 
A lot, actually. I think comic books get a bad rap, as far as literature goes, in that people don't consider them serious because of all the “wearing-your-underwear-outside-your-pants” and such—but I'd put the Dark Phoenix saga up there with Shakespeare any day, as far as a work of written genius. So what if it has telekenetic firebirds and explosions? It has a great storyline!
 


As for me personally, I think reading tons of comic books growing up helped me improve my vocabulary. (Hence my grammar Nazi-dom and tendency to use words like "ka-pow!" when making a point). I also learned some key life lessons, like: "With great power comes great responsibility,” that radiation will give you strange and mysterious powers, and that you shouldn't bully a nerd because he’ll turn into a nine-foot-tall green monster who’ll beat the crap out of you. These are important things to know!
 
This might seem like an overly simplistic question, but what is your favorite comic book? Why?
 
X-Men. Definitely. I think I always related to the characters in X-Men because they're outcasts. Even among super-heros, they were the kids who just didn't fit in. At the time, I was kind of an introverted kid with an overactive imagination. As I got older I realized that everybody thinks they're a huge weirdo, so I guess it wasn't just me. I always liked that the message of X-Men was that you shouldn't hate or fear people just because they're a little different from you. And, at the same time, if you are the one who's different, then you shouldn't be ashamed of it. Embrace your weirdness! That and the X-Men's Blackbird was like the most kickass superhero jet ever.


 
You got your Buzznet user name from the name of a character in a work of fiction you're writing. Who is Starlor Summers and how much is he like you?
 
I think we're probably polar opposites. I'm writing this series of short stories that's going to be like a spoof of The O.C. and 90210 and all those type of shows. [It’s] about some high school kids and such. One of the female characters is named Starlee Summers and Starlor is her older brother who comes home from college to visit. He's basically supposed to be like annoyingly perfect. Like, it's raining out, but a single shaft of golden sunlight shines down through the clouds onto him, and little forest creatures start frolicking around. That kind of perfect. So the main character in the story finds him a bit annoying and some tension grows from that. And me, on the other hand, I'm just *almost* perfect, so that's the main difference.
 
From one cyclist to another, what's it like to bike in Brooklyn?
 
Dangerous. You have to be aware of cars, car doors suddenly flinging open and guns left carelessly lying in the street. It's a mess. It's fun though just because there's so much to see at all times. I like [the] Park Slope [neighborhood] because it's a quieter neighborhood, but there are also tons of restaurants, bars and crap. I may be moving to Williamsburg or Greenpoint later this year, though.
 
Your "Crappy Haiku Movie Reviews" are wonderful. What inspired you to start doing them? How much of your life is spent watching movies, and why?


 
I like stuff that's so bad it's actually brilliant. I think one day I was playing around with the idea of bad poetry and I wanted to write really intentionally bad haiku, but I needed something to base them on, and it ended up being movie reviews. And thus the crappy haiku movie review of the week was born! Like almost all of my good ideas—all three of them—it was something very random that I just took and ran with.
 
As far as movies, believe it or not, I'm actually not a huge movie buff. I have pretty specific tastes in movies in that I like: action movies with a lot of shootouts and explosions and crap. One cool thing about writing the crappy haiku is that people have suggested great movies that I ended up watching that I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.
 
You've seen a lot of bad movies. What's the absolute worst? Say... Like the film equivalent to Brokencyde.
 
There are two types of bad movies. One is like, "OMG, dude, you have to see this movie! It's sooooo bad!" And the other makes you want to projectile vomit through your nose before the opening credits have finished. I think I've blocked most of the latter out of my mind as a psychological defense mechanism, but as far as “so-bad-it's-good bad movies,” I'd have to go with the classic Plan 9 From Outer Space—with Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (about a giant computer-generated shark that roars) coming in at a close second. Ka-pow! 


(That's actually Karim!)