title: Proverb

text: However, people will often quote only a fraction of a proverb to invoke an entire proverb, e.g. "All is fair" instead of "All is fair in love and war", and "A rolling stone" for "A rolling stone gathers no moss."


title: Proverb

text: The grammar of proverbs is not always the typical grammar of the spoken language, often elements are moved around, to achieve rhyme or focus.


title: Proverb

text: Another type of grammatical construction is the wellerism, a speaker and a quotation, often with an unusual circumstance, such as the following, a representative of a wellerism proverb found in many languages: "The bride couldn't dance; she said, 'The room floor isn't flat.'"


title: Proverb

text: Because many proverbs are both poetic and traditional, they are often passed down in fixed forms. Though spoken language may change, many proverbs are often preserved in conservative, even archaic, form. In English, for example, "betwixt" is not used by many, but a form of it is still heard (or read) in the proverb "There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." The conservative form preserves the meter and the rhyme. This conservative nature of proverbs can result in archaic words and grammatical structures being preserved in individual proverbs, as has been widely documented, e.g. in Amharic, Greek, Nsenga, Polish, Venda, Hebrew, Giriama, Georgian, Karachay-Balkar, Hausa, and Uzbek.


title: Proverb

text: In addition, proverbs may still be used in languages which were once more widely known in a society, but are now no longer so widely known. For example, English speakers use some non-English proverbs that are drawn from languages that used to be widely understood by the educated class, e.g. "C'est la vie" from French and "Carpe diem" from Latin.


title: Proverb

text: Proverbs are often handed down through generations. Therefore, "many proverbs refer to old measurements, obscure professions, outdated weapons, unknown plants, animals, names, and various other traditional matters."


title: Proverb

text: Therefore, it is common that they preserve words that become less common and archaic in broader society. Archaic proverbs in solid formsuch as murals, carvings, and glasscan be viewed even after the language of their form is no longer widely understood, such as an Anglo-French proverb in a stained glass window in York.


title: Proverb

text: Proverbs are often and easily translated and transferred from one language into another. "There is nothing so uncertain as the derivation of proverbs, the same proverb being often found in all nations, and it is impossible to assign its paternity."


title: Proverb

text: Proverbs are often borrowed across lines of language, religion, and even time. For example, a proverb of the approximate form "No flies enter a mouth that is shut" is currently found in Spain, France, Ethiopia, and many countries in between. It is embraced as a true local proverb in many places and should not be excluded in any collection of proverbs because it is shared by the neighbors. However, though it has gone through multiple languages and millennia, the proverb can be traced back to an ancient Babylonian proverb (Pritchard 1958:146). Another example of a widely spread proverb is "A drowning person clutches at [frogs] foam", found in Peshai of Afghanistan and Orma of Kenya, and presumably places in between.


title: Proverb

text: Proverbs about one hand clapping are common across Asia, from Dari in Afghanistan to Japan. Some studies have been done devoted to the spread of proverbs in certain regions, such as India and her neighbors and Europe. An extreme example of the borrowing and spread of proverbs was the work done to create a corpus of proverbs for Esperanto, where all the proverbs were translated from other languages.


title: Proverb

text: It is often not possible to trace the direction of borrowing a proverb between languages. This is complicated by the fact that the borrowing may have been through plural languages. In some cases, it is possible to make a strong case for discerning the direction of the borrowing based on an artistic form of the proverb in one language, but a prosaic form in another language. For example, in Ethiopia there is a proverb "Of mothers and water, there is none evil." It is found in Amharic, Alaaba language, and Oromo, three languages of Ethiopia:


title: Proverb

text: The Oromo version uses poetic features, such as the initial "ha" in both clauses with the final "-aa" in the same word, and both clauses ending with "-an". Also, both clauses are built with the vowel "a" in the first and last words, but the vowel "i" in the one syllable central word. In contrast, the Amharic and Alaaba versions of the proverb show little evidence of sound-based art.


title: Proverb

text: However, not all languages have proverbs. Proverbs are (nearly) universal across Europe, Asia, and Africa. Some languages in the Pacific have them, such as Maori. Other Pacific languages do not, e.g. "there are no proverbs in Kilivila" of the Trobriand Islands. However, in the New World, there are almost no proverbs: "While proverbs abound in the thousands in most cultures of the world, it remains a riddle why the Native Americans have hardly any proverb tradition at all." Hakamies has examined the matter of whether proverbs are found universally, a universal genre, concluding that they are not.


title: Proverb

text: Proverbs are used in conversation by adults more than children, partially because adults have learned more proverbs than children. Also, using proverbs well is a skill that is developed over years. Additionally, children have not mastered the patterns of metaphorical expression that are invoked in proverb use. Proverbs, because they are indirect, allow a speaker to disagree or give advice in a way that may be less offensive. Studying actual proverb use in conversation, however, is difficult since the researcher must wait for proverbs to happen. An Ethiopian researcher, Tadesse Jaleta Jirata, made headway in such research by attending and taking notes at events where he knew proverbs were expected to be part of the conversations.


title: Proverb

text: Many authors have used proverbs in their writings, for a very wide variety of literary genres: epics, novels, poems, short stories.


title: Proverb

text: Probably the most famous user of proverbs in novels is J. R. R. Tolkien in his "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" series. Herman Melville is noted for creating proverbs in Moby Dick and in his poetry. Also, C. S. Lewis created a dozen proverbs in "The Horse and His Boy", and Mercedes Lackey created dozens for her invented Shin'a'in and Tale'edras cultures; Lackey's proverbs are notable in that they are reminiscent to those of Ancient Asia – e.g. "Just because you feel certain an enemy is lurking behind every bush, it doesn't follow that you are wrong" is like to "Before telling secrets on the road, look in the bushes." These authors are notable for not only using proverbs as integral to the development of the characters and the story line, but also for creating proverbs.


title: Proverb

text: Among medieval literary texts, Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde plays a special role because Chaucer's usage seems to challenge the truth value of proverbs by exposing their epistemological unreliability. Rabelais used proverbs to write an entire chapter of Gargantua.


title: Proverb

text: The patterns of using proverbs in literature can change over time. A study of "classical Chinese novels" found proverb use as frequently as one proverb every 3,500 words in the "Water Margin" ("Shuihu zhuan") and one proverb every 4,000 words in "Wen Jou-hsiang". But modern Chinese novels have fewer proverbs by far.


title: Proverb

text: Proverbs (or portions of them) have been the inspiration for titles of books: "The Bigger they Come" by Erle Stanley Gardner, and "Birds of a Feather" (several books with this title), "Devil in the Details" (multiple books with this title). Sometimes a title alludes to a proverb, but does not actually quote much of it, such as "The Gift Horse's Mouth" by Robert Campbell. Some books or stories have titles that are twisted proverbs, anti-proverbs, such as "No use dying over spilled milk", "When life gives you lululemons," and two books titled "Blessed are the Cheesemakers". The twisted proverb of last title was also used in the Monty Python movie Life of Brian, where a person mishears one of Jesus Christ's beatitudes, "I think it was 'Blessed are the cheesemakers.'"


title: Proverb

text: Some books and stories are built around a proverb. Some of Tolkien's books have been analyzed as having "governing proverbs" where "the acton of a book turns on or fulfills a proverbial saying." Some stories have been written with a proverb overtly as an opening, such as "A stitch in time saves nine" at the beginning of "Kitty's Class Day", one of Louisa May Alcott's "Proverb Stories". Other times, a proverb appears at the end of a story, summing up a moral to the story, frequently found in Aesop's Fables, such as "Heaven helps those who help themselves" from "Hercules and the Wagoner". In a novel by the Ivorian novelist Ahmadou Kourouma, "proverbs are used to conclude each chapter".


title: Proverb

text: Proverbs have also been used strategically by poets. Sometimes proverbs (or portions of them or anti-proverbs) are used for titles, such as "A bird in the bush" by Lord Kennet and his stepson Peter Scott and "The blind leading the blind" by Lisa Mueller. Sometimes, multiple proverbs are important parts of poems, such as Paul Muldoon's "Symposium", which begins "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it hold its nose to the grindstone and hunt with the hounds. Every dog has a stitch in time..." In Finnish there are proverb poems written hundreds of years ago. The Turkish poet Refiki wrote an entire poem by stringing proverbs together, which has been translated into English poetically yielding such verses as "Be watchful and be wary, / But seldom grant a boon; / The man who calls the piper / Will also call the tune." Eliza Griswold also created a poem by stringing proverbs together, Libyan proverbs translated into English.


title: Proverb

text: Because proverbs are familiar and often pointed, they have been used by a number of hip-hop poets. This has been true not only in the USA, birthplace of hip-hop, but also in Nigeria. Since Nigeria is so multilingual, hip-hop poets there use proverbs from various languages, mixing them in as it fits their need, sometimes translating the original. For example,


title: Proverb

text: Some authors have bent and twisted proverbs, creating anti-proverbs, for a variety of literary effects. For example, in the Harry Potter novels, J. K. Rowling reshapes a standard English proverb into "It's no good crying over spilt potion" and Dumbledore advises Harry not to "count your owls before they are delivered". In a slightly different use of reshaping proverbs, in the Aubrey–Maturin series of historical naval novels by Patrick O'Brian, Capt. Jack Aubrey humorously mangles and mis-splices proverbs, such as "Never count the bear's skin before it is hatched" and "There's a good deal to be said for making hay while the iron is hot." Earlier than O'Brian's Aubrey, Beatrice Grimshaw also used repeated splicings of proverbs in the mouth of an eccentric marquis to create a memorable character in "The Sorcerer's Stone", such as "The proof of the pudding sweeps clean" (p. 109) and "A stitch in time is as good as a mile" (p. 97).


title: Proverb

text: Because proverbs are so much a part of the language and culture, authors have sometimes used proverbs in historical fiction effectively, but anachronistically, before the proverb was actually known. For example, the novel "Ramage and the Rebels", by Dudley Pope is set in approximately 1800. Captain Ramage reminds his adversary "You are supposed to know that it is dangerous to change horses in midstream" (p. 259), with another allusion to the same proverb three pages later. However, the proverb about changing horses in midstream is reliably dated to 1864, so the proverb could not have been known or used by a character from that period.


title: Proverb

text: Some authors have used so many proverbs that there have been entire books written cataloging their proverb usage, such as Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie, George Bernard Shaw, Miguel de Cervantes, and Friedrich Nietzsche.


title: Proverb

text: On the non-fiction side, proverbs have also been used by authors for articles that have no connection to the study of proverbs. Some have been used as the basis for book titles, e.g. "I Shop, Therefore I Am: Compulsive Buying and the Search for Self" by April Lane Benson. Some proverbs been used as the basis for article titles, though often in altered form: "All our eggs in a broken basket: How the Human Terrain System is undermining sustainable military cultural competence" and "Should Rolling Stones Worry About Gathering Moss?", "Between a Rock and a Soft Place", and the pair "Verbs of a feather flock together" and "Verbs of a feather flock together II". Proverbs have been noted as common in subtitles of articles such as "Discontinued intergenerational transmission of Czech in Texas: 'Hindsight is better than foresight'." Also, the reverse is found with a proverb (complete or partial) as the title, then an explanatory subtitle, "To Change or Not to Change Horses: The World War II Elections". Many authors have cited proverbs as epigrams at the beginning of their articles, e.g. "'If you want to dismantle a hedge, remove one thorn at a time' Somali proverb" in an article on peacemaking in Somalia. An article about research among the Māori used a Māori proverb as a title, then began the article with the Māori form of the proverb as an epigram "Set the overgrown bush alight and the new flax shoots will spring up", followed by three paragraphs about how the proverb served as a metaphor for the research and the present context. A British proverb has even been used as the title for a doctoral dissertation: "Where there is muck there is brass". Proverbs have also been used as a framework for an article.


title: Proverb

text: Similarly to other forms of literature, proverbs have also been used as important units of language in drama and films. This is true from the days of classical Greek works to old French to Shakespeare, to 19th Century Spanish, 19th century Russian, to today. The use of proverbs in drama and film today is still found in languages around the world, with plenty of examples from Africa, including Yorùbá and Igbo of Nigeria.


title: Proverb

text: A film that makes rich use of proverbs is "Forrest Gump", known for both using and creating proverbs. Other studies of the use of proverbs in film include work by Kevin McKenna on the Russian film "Aleksandr Nevsky", Haase's study of an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood, Elias Dominguez Barajas on the film "Viva Zapata!", and Aboneh Ashagrie on "The Athlete" (a movie in Amharic about Abebe Bikila).


title: Proverb

text: Television programs have also been named with reference to proverbs, usually shortened, such Birds of a Feather and Diff'rent Strokes.


title: Proverb

text: In the case of "Forrest Gump", the screenplay by Eric Roth had more proverbs than the novel by Winston Groom, but for "The Harder They Come", the reverse is true, where the novel derived from the movie by Michael Thelwell has many more proverbs than the movie.


title: Proverb

text: Éric Rohmer, the French film director, directed a series of films, the "Comedies and Proverbs", where each film was based on a proverb: "The Aviator's Wife", "The Perfect Marriage", "Pauline at the Beach", "Full Moon in Paris" (the film's proverb was invented by Rohmer himself: "The one who has two wives loses his soul, the one who has two houses loses his mind."), "The Green Ray", "Boyfriends and Girlfriends".


title: Proverb

text: Movie titles based on proverbs include "Murder Will Out (1939 film)", "Try, Try Again", and "The Harder They Fall". A twisted anti-proverb was the title for a Three Stooges film, "A Bird in the Head". The title of an award-winning Turkish film, Three Monkeys, also invokes a proverb, though the title does not fully quote it.


title: Proverb

text: They have also been used as the titles of plays: "Baby with the Bathwater" by Christopher Durang, "Dog Eat Dog" by Mary Gallagher, and "The Dog in the Manger" by Charles Hale Hoyt. The use of proverbs as titles for plays is not, of course, limited to English plays: "Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée" (A door must be open or closed) by Paul de Musset. Proverbs have also been used in musical dramas, such as "The Full Monty", which has been shown to use proverbs in clever ways. In the lyrics for "Beauty and the Beast", Gaston plays with three proverbs in sequence, "All roads lead to.../The best things in life are.../All's well that ends with...me."


title: Proverb

text: Proverbs are often poetic in and of themselves, making them ideally suited for adapting into songs. Proverbs have been used in music from opera to country to hip-hop. Proverbs have also been used in music in many languages, such as the Akan language the Igede language, and Spanish.


title: Proverb

text: In English the proverb (or rather the beginning of the proverb), If the shoe fits has been used as a title for three albums and five songs. Other English examples of using proverbs in music include Elvis Presley's "Easy come, easy go", Harold Robe's "Never swap horses when you're crossing a stream", Arthur Gillespie's "Absence makes the heart grow fonder", Bob Dylan's "Like a rolling stone", Cher's "Apples don't fall far from the tree". Lynn Anderson made famous a song full of proverbs, "I never promised you a rose garden" (written by Joe South). In choral music, we find Michael Torke's "Proverbs" for female voice and ensemble. A number of Blues musicians have also used proverbs extensively. The frequent use of proverbs in Country music has led to published studies of proverbs in this genre. The Reggae artist Jahdan Blakkamoore has recorded a piece titled "Proverbs Remix". The opera "Maldobrìe" contains careful use of proverbs. An extreme example of many proverbs used in composing songs is a song consisting almost entirely of proverbs performed by Bruce Springsteen, "My best was never good enough". The Mighty Diamonds recorded a song called simply "Proverbs".


title: Proverb

text: The band Fleet Foxes used the proverb painting Netherlandish Proverbs for the cover of their album Fleet Foxes.


title: Proverb

text: In addition to proverbs being used in songs themselves, some rock bands have used parts of proverbs as their names, such as the Rolling Stones, Bad Company, The Mothers of Invention, Feast or Famine, Of Mice and Men. There have been at least two groups that called themselves "The Proverbs", and there is a hip-hop performer in South Africa known as "Proverb". In addition, many albums have been named with allusions to proverbs, such as "Spilt milk" (a title used by Jellyfish and also Kristina Train), "The more things change" by Machine Head, "Silk purse" by Linda Ronstadt, "Another day, another dollar" by DJ Scream Roccett, "The blind leading the naked" by Violent Femmes, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander" by Bobby Rush, "Resistance is Futile" by Steve Coleman, "Murder will out" by Fan the Fury. The proverb "Feast or famine" has been used as an album title by Chuck Ragan, Reef the Lost Cauze, Indiginus, and DaVinci. Whitehorse mixed two proverbs for the name of their album "Leave no bridge unburned". The band Splinter Group released an album titled "When in Rome, Eat Lions". The band Downcount used a proverb for the name of their tour, "Come and take it".


title: Proverb

text: From ancient times, people around the world have recorded proverbs in visual form. This has been done in two ways. First, proverbs have been "written" to be displayed, often in a decorative manner, such as on pottery, cross-stitch, murals, kangas (East African women's wraps), quilts, a stained glass window, and graffiti.


title: Proverb

text: Secondly, proverbs have often been visually depicted in a variety of media, including paintings, etchings, and sculpture. Jakob Jordaens painted a plaque with a proverb about drunkenness above a drunk man wearing a crown, titled "The King Drinks". Probably the most famous examples of depicting proverbs are the different versions of the paintings "Netherlandish Proverbs" by the father and son Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Pieter Brueghel the Younger, the proverbial meanings of these paintings being the subject of a 2004 conference, which led to a published volume of studies (Mieder 2004a). The same father and son also painted versions of The Blind Leading the Blind, a Biblical proverb. These and similar paintings inspired another famous painting depicting some proverbs and also idioms (leading to a series of additional paintings), such as "Proverbidioms" by T. E. Breitenbach. Another painting inspired by Bruegel's work is by the Chinese artist, Ah To, who created a painting illustrating 81 Cantonese sayings. Corey Barksdale has produced a book of paintings with specific proverbs and pithy quotations. The British artist Chris Gollon has painted a major work entitled "Big Fish Eat Little Fish", a title echoing Bruegel's painting Big Fishes Eat Little Fishes.


title: Proverb

text: Sometimes well-known proverbs are pictured on objects, without a text actually quoting the proverb, such as the three wise monkeys who remind us "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil". When the proverb is well known, viewers are able to recognize the proverb and understand the image appropriately, but if viewers do not recognize the proverb, much of the effect of the image is lost. For example, there is a Japanese painting in the Bonsai museum in Saitama city that depicted flowers on a dead tree, but only when the curator learned the ancient (and no longer current) proverb "Flowers on a dead tree" did the curator understand the deeper meaning of the painting. Also in Japan, an image of Mount Fuji, a hawk/falcon, and three egg plants, leads viewers to remember the proverb, "One Mt. Fuji, two falcons, three egg plants", a Hatsuyume dream predicting a long life.


title: Proverb

text: A study of school students found that students remembered proverbs better when there were visual representations of proverbs along with the verbal form of the proverbs.


title: Proverb

text: A bibliography on proverbs in visual form has been prepared by Mieder and Sobieski (1999). Interpreting visual images of proverbs is subjective, but familiarity with the depicted proverb helps.


title: Proverb

text: Some artists have used proverbs and anti-proverbs for titles of their paintings, alluding to a proverb rather than picturing it. For example, Vivienne LeWitt painted a piece titled "If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?", which shows neither foot nor shoe, but a woman counting her money as she contemplates different options when buying vegetables.


title: Proverb

text: In 2018, 13 sculptures depicting Maltese proverbs were installed in open spaces of downtown Valletta.


title: Proverb

text: Cartoonists, both editorial and pure humorists, have often used proverbs, sometimes primarily building on the text, sometimes primarily on the situation visually, the best cartoons combining both. Not surprisingly, cartoonists often twist proverbs, such as visually depicting a proverb literally or twisting the text as an anti-proverb. An example with all of these traits is a cartoon showing a waitress delivering two plates with worms on them, telling the customers, "Two early bird specials... here ya go."


title: Proverb

text: The traditional Three wise monkeys were depicted in Bizarro with different labels. Instead of the negative imperatives, the one with ears covered bore the sign "See and speak evil", the one with eyes covered bore the sign "See and hear evil", etc. The caption at the bottom read "The power of positive thinking." Another cartoon showed a customer in a pharmacy telling a pharmacist, "I'll have an ounce of prevention." The comic strip The Argyle Sweater showed an Egyptian archeologist loading a mummy on the roof of a vehicle, refusing the offer of a rope to tie it on, with the caption "A fool and his mummy are soon parted." The comic One Big Happy showed a conversation where one person repeatedly posed part of various proverb and the other tried to complete each one, resulting in such humorous results as "Don't change horses... unless you can lift those heavy diapers."


title: Proverb

text: Editorial cartoons can use proverbs to make their points with extra force as they can invoke the wisdom of society, not just the opinion of the editors. In an example that invoked a proverb only visually, when a US government agency (GSA) was caught spending money extravagantly, a cartoon showed a black pot labeled "Congress" telling a black kettle labeled "GSA", "Stop wasting the taxpayers' money!" It may have taken some readers a moment of pondering to understand it, but the impact of the message was the stronger for it.


title: Proverb

text: Cartoons with proverbs are so common that Wolfgang Mieder has published a collected volume of them, many of them editorial cartoons. For example, a German editorial cartoon linked a current politician to the Nazis, showing him with a bottle of swastika-labeled wine and the caption "In vino veritas".


title: Proverb

text: One cartoonist very self-consciously drew and wrote cartoons based on proverbs for the University of Vermont student newspaper "The Water Tower", under the title "Proverb place".


title: Proverb

text: Ford once advertised its Thunderbird with, "One drive is worth a thousand words" (Mieder 2004b: 84). This is doubly interesting since the underlying proverb behind this, "One picture is worth a thousand words," was originally introduced into the English proverb repertoire in an ad for televisions (Mieder 2004b: 83).


title: Proverb

text: The GEICO company has created a series of television ads that are built around proverbs, such as "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", and "The pen is mightier than the sword", "Pigs may fly/When pigs fly", "If a tree falls in the forest...", and "Words can never hurt you". Doritos made a commercial based on the proverb, "When pigs fly." Many advertisements that use proverbs shorten or amend them, such as, "Think outside the shoebox."


title: Proverb

text: Use of proverbs in advertising is not limited to the English language. Seda Başer Çoban has studied the use of proverbs in Turkish advertising. Tatira has given a number of examples of proverbs used in advertising in Zimbabwe. However, unlike the examples given above in English, all of which are anti-proverbs, Tatira's examples are standard proverbs. Where the English proverbs above are meant to make a potential customer smile, in one of the Zimbabwean examples "both the content of the proverb and the fact that it is phrased as a proverb secure the idea of a secure time-honored relationship between the company and the individuals". When newer buses were imported, owners of older buses compensated by painting a traditional proverb on the sides of their buses, "Going fast does not assure safe arrival".


title: Proverb

text: There are often proverbs that contradict each other, such as "Look before you leap" and "He who hesitates is lost", or "Many hands make light work" and "Too many cooks spoil the broth". These have been labeled "counter proverbs" or "antonymous proverbs". Stanisław Lec observed, "Proverbs contradict each other. And that, to be sure, is folk wisdom."


title: Proverb

text: When there are such counter proverbs, each can be used in its own appropriate situation, and neither is intended to be a universal truth. Some pairs of proverbs are fully contradictory: “A messy desk is a sign of intelligence” and “A neat desk is a sign of a sick mind”.


title: Proverb

text: The concept of "counter proverb" is more about pairs of contradictory proverbs than about the use of proverbs to counter each other in an argument. For example, from the Tafi language of Ghana, the following pair of proverbs are counter to each other but are each used in appropriate contexts, "A co-wife who is too powerful for you, you address her as your mother" and "Do not call your mother's co-wife your mother..." In Nepali, there is a set of totally contradictory proverbs: "Religion is victorious and sin erodes" and "Religion erodes and sin is victorious".


title: Proverb

text: Also, the following pair are counter proverbs from the Kasena of Ghana: "It is the patient person who will milk a barren cow" and "The person who would milk a barren cow must prepare for a kick on the forehead". From Lugbara language (of Uganda and Congo), there are a pair of counter proverbs: "The elephant's tusk does not ovewhelm the elephant" and "The elephant's tusks weigh the elephant down". The two contradict each other, whether they are used in an argument or not (though indeed they were used in an argument). But the same work contains an appendix with many examples of proverbs used in arguing for contrary positions, but proverbs that are not inherently contradictory, such as "One is better off with hope of a cow's return than news of its death" countered by "If you don't know a goat [before its death] you mock at its skin". Though this pair was used in a contradictory way in a conversation, they are not a set of "counter proverbs".


title: Proverb

text: Discussing counter proverbs in the Badaga language, Hockings explained that in his large collection "a few proverbs are mutually contradictory... we can be sure that the Badagas do not see the matter that way, and would explain such apparent contradictions by reasoning that proverb "x" is used in one context, while "y" is used in quite another." Comparing Korean proverbs, "when you compare two proverbs, often they will be contradictory." They are used for "a particular situation".


title: Proverb

text: "Counter proverbs" are not the same as a "paradoxical proverb", a proverb that contains a seeming paradox.


title: Proverb

text: In many cultures, proverbs are so important and so prominent that there are proverbs about proverbs, that is, "metaproverbs". The most famous one is from Yoruba of Nigeria, "Proverbs are the horses of speech, if communication is lost we use proverbs to find it", used by Wole Soyinka in "Death and the King's Horsemen". In Mieder's bibliography of proverb studies, there are twelve publications listed as describing metaproverbs. Other metaproverbs include:


title: Proverb

text: There is a growing interest in deliberately using proverbs to achieve goals, usually to support and promote changes in society. Proverbs have also been used for public health promotion, such as promoting breast feeding with a shawl bearing a Swahili proverb "Mother's milk is sweet". Proverbs have also been applied for helping people manage diabetes, to combat prostitution, and for community development, to resolve conflicts, and to slow the transmission of HIV.


title: Proverb

text: The most active field deliberately using proverbs is Christian ministry, where Joseph G. Healey and others have deliberately worked to catalyze the collection of proverbs from smaller languages and the application of them in a wide variety of church-related ministries, resulting in publications of collections and applications. This attention to proverbs by those in Christian ministries is not new, many pioneering proverb collections having been collected and published by Christian workers.


title: Proverb

text: U.S. Navy Captain Edward Zellem pioneered the use of Afghan proverbs as a positive relationship-building tool during the war in Afghanistan, and in 2012 he published two bilingual collections of Afghan proverbs in Dari and English, part of an effort of nationbuilding, followed by a volume of Pashto proverbs in 2014.


title: Proverb

text: There is a longstanding debate among proverb scholars as to whether the cultural values of specific language communities are reflected (to varying degree) in their proverbs. Many claim that the proverbs of a particular culture reflect the values of that specific culture, at least to some degree. Many writers have asserted that the proverbs of their cultures reflect their culture and values; this can be seen in such titles as the following: "An introduction to Kasena society and culture through their proverbs", Prejudice, power, and poverty in Haiti: a study of a nation's culture as seen through its proverbs, Proverbiality and worldview in Maltese and Arabic proverbs, Fatalistic traits in Finnish proverbs, "Vietnamese cultural patterns and values as expressed in proverbs", "The Wisdom and Philosophy of the Gikuyu proverbs: The Kihooto worldview", "Spanish Grammar and Culture through Proverbs," and "How Russian Proverbs Present the Russian National Character". Kohistani has written a thesis to show how understanding Afghan Dari proverbs will help Europeans understand Afghan culture.


title: Proverb

text: However, a number of scholars argue that such claims are not valid. They have used a variety of arguments. Grauberg argues that since many proverbs are so widely circulated they are reflections of broad human experience, not any one culture's unique viewpoint. Related to this line of argument, from a collection of 199 American proverbs, Jente showed that only 10 were coined in the USA, so that most of these proverbs would not reflect uniquely American values. Giving another line of reasoning that proverbs should not be trusted as a simplistic guide to cultural values, Mieder once observed "proverbs come and go, that is, antiquated proverbs with messages and images we no longer relate to are dropped from our proverb repertoire, while new proverbs are created to reflect the mores and values of our time", so old proverbs still in circulation might reflect past values of a culture more than its current values. Also, within any language's proverb repertoire, there may be "counter proverbs", proverbs that contradict each other on the surface (see section above). When examining such counter proverbs, it is difficult to discern an underlying cultural value. With so many barriers to a simple calculation of values directly from proverbs, some feel "one cannot draw conclusions about values of speakers simply from the texts of proverbs".


title: Proverb

text: Many outsiders have studied proverbs to discern and understand cultural values and world view of cultural communities. These outsider scholars are confident that they have gained insights into the local cultures by studying proverbs, but this is not universally accepted.


title: Proverb

text: Seeking empirical evidence to evaluate the question of whether proverbs reflect a culture's values, some have counted the proverbs that support various values. For example, Moon lists what he sees as the top ten core cultural values of the Builsa society of Ghana, as exemplified by proverbs. He found that 18% of the proverbs he analyzed supported the value of being a member of the community, rather than being independent. This was corroboration to other evidence that collective community membership is an important value among the Builsa. In studying Tajik proverbs, Bell notes that the proverbs in his corpus "Consistently illustrate Tajik values" and "The most often observed proverbs reflect the focal and specific values" discerned in the thesis.


title: Proverb

text: A study of English proverbs created since 1900 showed in the 1960s a sudden and significant increase in proverbs that reflected more casual attitudes toward sex. Since the 1960s was also the decade of the Sexual revolution, this shows a strong statistical link between the changed values of the decades and a change in the proverbs coined and used. Another study mining the same volume counted Anglo-American proverbs about religion to show that proverbs indicate attitudes toward religion are going downhill.


title: Proverb

text: There are many examples where cultural values have been explained and illustrated by proverbs. For example, from India, the concept that birth determines one's nature "is illustrated in the oft-repeated proverb: there can be no friendship between grass-eaters and meat-eaters, between a food and its eater". Proverbs have been used to explain and illustrate the Fulani cultural value of "pulaaku". But using proverbs to "illustrate" a cultural value is not the same as using a collection of proverbs to "discern" cultural values. In a comparative study between Spanish and Jordanian proverbs it is defined the social imagination for the mother as an archetype in the context of role transformation and in contrast with the roles of husband, son and brother, in two societies which might be occasionally associated with sexist and /or rural ideologies.


title: Proverb

text: Some scholars have adopted a cautious approach, acknowledging at least a genuine, though limited, link between cultural values and proverbs: "The cultural portrait painted by proverbs may be fragmented, contradictory, or otherwise at variance with reality... but must be regarded not as accurate renderings but rather as tantalizing shadows of the culture which spawned them." There is not yet agreement on the issue of whether, and how much, cultural values are reflected in a culture's proverbs.


title: Proverb

text: It is clear that the Soviet Union believed that proverbs had a direct link to the values of a culture, as they used them to try to create changes in the values of cultures within their sphere of domination. Sometimes they took old Russian proverbs and altered them into socialist forms. These new proverbs promoted Socialism and its attendant values, such as atheism and collectivism, e.g. "Bread is given to us not by Christ, but by machines and collective farms" and "A good harvest is had only by a collective farm." They did not limit their efforts to Russian, but also produced "newly coined proverbs that conformed to socialist thought" in Tajik and other languages of the USSR.


title: Proverb

text: Many proverbs from around the world address matters of ethics and expected of behavior. Therefore, it is not surprising that proverbs are often important texts in religions. The most obvious example is the Book of Proverbs in the Bible. Additional proverbs have also been coined to support religious values, such as the following from Dari of Afghanistan: "In childhood you're playful, In youth you're lustful, In old age you're feeble, So when will you before God be worshipful?"


title: Proverb

text: Clearly proverbs in religion are not limited to monotheists; among the Badagas of India (Sahivite Hindus), there is a traditional proverb "Catch hold of and join with the man who has placed sacred ash [on himself]." Proverbs are widely associated with large religions that draw from sacred books, but they are also used for religious purposes among groups with their own traditional religions, such as the Guji Oromo. The broadest comparative study of proverbs across religions is "The eleven religions and their proverbial lore, a comparative study. A reference book to the eleven surviving major religions of the world" by Selwyn Gurney Champion, from 1945. Some sayings from sacred books also become proverbs, even if they were not obviously proverbs in the original passage of the sacred book. For example, many quote "Be sure your sin will find you out" as a proverb from the Bible, but there is no evidence it was proverbial in its original usage (Numbers 32:23).


title: Proverb

text: Not all religious references in proverbs are positive, some are cynical, such as the Tajik, "Do as the mullah says, not as he does." Also, note the Italian proverb, "One barrel of wine can work more miracles than a church full of saints". An Indian proverb is cynical about devotees of Hinduism, "[Only] When in distress, a man calls on Rama". In the context of Tibetan Buddhism, some Ladakhi proverbs mock the lamas, e.g. "If the lama's own head does not come out cleanly, how will he do the drawing upwards of the dead?... used for deriding the immoral life of the lamas." Proverbs do not have to explicitly mention religion or religious figures to be used to mock a religion, seen in the fact that in a collection of 555 proverbs from the Lur, a Muslim group in Iran, the explanations for 15 of them use illustrations that mock Muslim clerics.


title: Proverb

text: Dammann wrote, "In the [African] traditional religions, specific religious ideas recede into the background... The influence of Islam manifests itself in African proverbs... Christian influences, on the contrary, are rare." If widely true in Africa, this is likely due to the longer presence of Islam in many parts of Africa. Reflection of Christian values is common in Amharic proverbs of Ethiopia, an area that has had a presence of Christianity for well over 1,000 years. The Islamic proverbial reproduction may also be shown in the image of some animals such as the dog. Although dog is portrayed in many European proverbs as the most faithful friend of man, it is represented in some Islamic countries as impure, dirty, vile, cowardly, ungrateful and treacherous, in addition to links to negative human superstitions such as loneliness, indifference and bad luck.


title: Proverb

text: Though much proverb scholarship is done by literary scholars, those studying the human mind have used proverbs in a variety of studies. One of the earliest studies in this field is the "Proverbs Test" by Gorham, developed in 1956. A similar test is being prepared in German. Proverbs have been used to evaluate dementia, study the cognitive development of children, measure the results of brain injuries, and study how the mind processes figurative language.


title: Proverb

text: The study of proverbs is called paremiology which has a variety of uses in the study of such topics as philosophy, linguistics, and folklore. There are several types and styles of proverbs which are analyzed within Paremiology as is the use and misuse of familiar expressions which are not strictly 'proverbial' in the dictionary definition of being fixed sentences


title: Proverb

text: Grigorii Permjakov developed the concept of the core set of proverbs that full members of society know, what he called the "paremiological minimum" (1979). For example, an adult American is expected to be familiar with "Birds of a feather flock together", part of the American paremiological minimum. However, an average adult American is not expected to know "Fair in the cradle, foul in the saddle", an old English proverb that is not part of the current American paremiological minimum. Thinking more widely than merely proverbs, Permjakov observed "every adult Russian language speaker (over 20 years of age) knows no fewer than 800 proverbs, proverbial expressions, popular literary quotations and other forms of cliches". Studies of the paremiological minimum have been done for a limited number of languages, including Ukrainian, Russian, Hungarian, Czech, Somali, Nepali, Gujarati, Spanish, Esperanto, Polish, Polish.


title: Proverb

text: Two noted examples of attempts to establish a paremiological minimum in America are by Haas (2008) and Hirsch, Kett, and Trefil (1988), the latter more prescriptive than descriptive. There is not yet a recognized standard method for calculating the paremiological minimum, as seen by comparing the various efforts to establish the paremiological minimum in a number of languages.


title: Proverb

text: A seminal work in the study of proverbs is Archer Taylor's "The Proverb" (1931), later republished by Wolfgang Mieder with Taylor's Index included (1985/1934). A good introduction to the study of proverbs is Mieder's 2004 volume, "Proverbs: A Handbook". Mieder has also published a series of bibliography volumes on proverb research, as well as a large number of articles and other books in the field. Stan Nussbaum has edited a large collection on proverbs of Africa, published on a CD, including reprints of out-of-print collections, original collections, and works on analysis, bibliography, and application of proverbs to Christian ministry (1998). Paczolay has compared proverbs across Europe and published a collection of similar proverbs in 55 languages (1997). There is an academic journal of proverb study, "Proverbium" (), many back issues of which are available online. A volume containing articles on a wide variety of topics touching on proverbs was edited by Mieder and Alan Dundes (1994/1981). "Paremia" is a Spanish-language journal on proverbs, with articles available online. There are also papers on proverbs published in conference proceedings volumes from the annual Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Proverbs in Tavira, Portugal. Mieder has published a two-volume "International Bibliography of Paremiology and Phraseology", with a topical, language, and author index. Mieder has also published a bibliography of collections of proverbs from around the world. A broad introduction to proverb study, "Introduction to Paremiology", edited by Hrisztalina Hrisztova-Gotthardt and Melita Aleksa Varga has been published in both hardcover and free open access, with articles by a dozen different authors.


title: Proverb

text: The study of proverbs has been built by a number of notable scholars and contributors. Earlier scholars were more concerned with collecting than analyzing. Desiderius Erasmus was a Latin scholar (1466–1536), whose collection of Latin proverbs, known as "Adagia", spread Latin proverbs across Europe. Juan de Mal Lara was a 16th century Spanish scholar, one of his books being 1568 "Philosophia vulgar", the first part of which contains one thousand and one sayings. Hernán Núñez published a collection of Spanish proverbs (1555).


title: Proverb

text: In the 19th century, a growing number of scholars published collections of proverbs, such as Samuel Adalberg who published collections of Yiddish proverbs (1888 & 1890) and Polish proverbs (1889–1894). Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the Anglican bishop in Nigeria, published a collection of Yoruba proverbs (1852). Elias Lönnrot published a collection of Finnish proverbs (1842).


title: Proverb

text: From the 20th century onwards, proverb scholars were involved in not only collecting proverbs, but also analyzing and comparing proverbs. Alan Dundes was a 20th century American folklorist whose scholarly output on proverbs led Wolfgang Mieder to refer to him as a "pioneering paremiologist". Matti Kuusi was a 20th century Finnish paremiologist, the creator of the Matti Kuusi international type system of proverbs. With encouragement from Archer Taylor, he founded the journal "Proverbium: Bulletin d'Information sur les Recherches Parémiologiques", published from 1965 to 1975 by the Society for Finnish Literature, which was later restarted as an annual volume, "Proverbium: International Yearbook of Proverb Scholarship". Archer Taylor was a 20th century American scholar, best known for his "magisterial" book "The Proverb". Dimitrios Loukatos was a 20th century Greek proverb scholar, author of such works as "Aetiological Tales of Modern Greek Proverbs". Arvo Krikmann (1939–2017) was an Estonian proverb scholar, whom Wolfgang Mieder called "one of the leading paremiologists in the world" and "master folklorist and paremiologist". Elisabeth Piirainen was a German scholar with 50 proverb-related publications.


title: Proverb

text: Current proverb scholars have continued the trend to be involved in analysis as well as collection of proverbs. Claude Buridant is a 20th century French scholar whose work has concentrated on Romance languages. Galit Hasan-Rokem is an Israeli scholar, associate editor of "Proverbium: The yearbook of international proverb scholarship", since 1984. She has written on proverbs in Jewish traditions. Joseph G. Healey is an American Catholic missionary in Kenya who has led a movement to sponsor African proverb scholars to collect proverbs from their own language communities. This led Wolfgang Mieder to dedicate the "International Bibliography of New and Reprinted Proverb Collections" section of "Proverbium" 32 to Healey. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett is a scholar of Jewish history and folklore, including proverbs. Wolfgang Mieder is a German-born proverb scholar who has worked his entire academic career in the US. He is the editor of ‘’Proverbium’’ and the author of the two volume "International Bibliography of Paremiology and Phraseology". He has been honored by four festschrift publications. He has also been recognized by biographical publications that focused on his scholarship. Dora Sakayan is a scholar who has written about German and Armenian studies, including "Armenian Proverbs: A Paremiological Study with an Anthology of 2,500 Armenian Folk Sayings Selected and Translated into English". An extensive introduction addresses the language and structure, as well as the origin of Armenian proverbs (international, borrowed and specifically Armenian proverbs). Mineke Schipper is a Dutch scholar, best known for her book of worldwide proverbs about women, "Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet – Women in Proverbs from Around the World". Edward Zellem is an American proverb scholar who has edited books of Afghan proverbs, developed a method of collecting proverbs via the Web.


title: Christopher Boykin

text: Christopher "Big Black" Boykin (January 13, 1972 – May 9, 2017) was an American television personality and musician best known for his role on the MTV reality television series "Rob & Big", in which he co-starred with professional skateboarder Rob Dyrdek from 2006 to 2008.


title: Christopher Boykin

text: Boykin was born on January 13, 1972, in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in Raleigh, Mississippi. He graduated from Stone High School in Wiggins, Mississippi in 1990, and served in the United States Navy.


title: Christopher Boykin

text: In a skit for DC Shoes, professional skateboarder Rob Dyrdek hired Boykin to be his bodyguard and to protect him from security guards. From November 2006 to April 2008, he and Dyrdek starred in the reality television series "Rob & Big" on MTV.


title: Christopher Boykin

text: In a 2006 episode of "Rob & Big", Dyrdek and Boykin visit the studios of game developer EA Black Box in Vancouver to do motion capture for a video game in which they were to become characters. The game, "Skate", was published in 2007. Boykin and Dyrdek also appeared in the 2009 sequel, "Skate 2". In 2007, Boykin launched a clothing brand, Big Black, to market T-shirts and hats that bore his catchphrase, "Let's Do Work". In the show's 2008 season, Boykin set two Guinness world records: one for peeling and eating three bananas in one minute, and another for eating five powdered doughnuts in two minutes, 45 seconds. Boykin left "Rob & Big" after the third season, since he was starting a family. MTV premiered "Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory" in February 2009, less than a year after the final episode of "Rob & Big". Boykin joined the cast in 2011, and remained until the show's final episode in 2015. He also appeared on three episodes of Dyrdek's show "Ridiculousness", which premiered in 2011. Guest appearances on the MTV series "Guy Code" and "Snack Off" (2014) are among his other TV appearances.


title: Christopher Boykin

text: Boykin married Shannon Turley in 2008; although the couple divorced in 2009, they were living together shortly before Boykin's death, due to his worsening health. Their daughter, Isis, was nine years old when Boykin died in May 2017.


title: Christopher Boykin

text: Boykin had a defibrillator implant for his heart. In early May 2017, he was hospitalized in Plano, Texas, and was placed on a heart monitor. On May 9, his heart stopped; staff spent 30 minutes trying to revive him. He was pronounced dead at 4:00 p.m.CDT. Although initial reports did not mention an official cause, Boykin's heart failure was the result of a heart attack.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: Victor Zsasz ( or or , the last being the original Hungarian pronunciation), also known as Mr. Zsasz or simply Zsasz, is a supervillain appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in "" #1 (June 1992). He is a sadomasochistic and psychopathic serial killer who carves a tally mark onto himself for each of his victims. A recurring adversary of the superhero Batman, Zsasz belongs to the collective of enemies that make up Batman's rogues gallery.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: The character has been featured in various forms of non-comics media. Most notably, Danny Jacobs has voiced Zsasz in the "" video game franchise, and he has been portrayed in live-action by Anthony Carrigan in the television series "Gotham", Alex Morf in the Arrowverse series "Batwoman", Tim Booth in the film "Batman Begins" (2005), and Chris Messina in the DC Extended Universe film "Birds of Prey" (2020).


title: Victor Zsasz

text: Zsasz first appeared in "" #1 (June 1992), as part of the "" four-part story arc, and his origin story was told in "The Batman Chronicles" #3 (December 1996); both stories were written by Alan Grant and drawn by Norm Breyfogle. As revealed in the foreword to the trade paperback of "Batman: The Last Arkham", Zsasz's name is derived from that of psychiatrist Thomas Szasz; Grant saw the name while visiting a library.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: In "Batman Chronicles" #3, told by Zsasz himself, it is learned that Victor Zsasz was the head of his own international company and had amassed a large personal fortune in addition to his family's wealth. At the age of 25, his parents died in a boating accident, sending him into a deep depression. He turned to gambling, losing money in competitions around the world. One night, he ended up in a Gotham City casino known as the Iceberg Lounge, where he gambled everything he owned and ended up losing it all to the Penguin; afterwards he saw that his life was empty, driven by desire, and there was no point to his existence. While Zsasz was attempting to commit suicide by jumping from Gotham Bridge, a homeless man tried to assault him with a knife after Zsasz refused to give him money. Instinctively grabbing the knife, Zsasz saw in the man's eyes that all life is meaningless and that nothing and no one matters. He then proceeded to stab the man to death as a "gift" for saving his life. From then on, he dedicated himself to "liberating" others from their pointless existence (Zsasz often refers to his victims as "zombies"). He usually preys on young women, but has no qualms over whom he murders. He slits his victims' throats and leaves them in lifelike poses, adding a tally mark to himself each time. He has been declared insane and is regularly incarcerated in Arkham Asylum courtesy of Batman, breaking out on occasion to carry on his killing.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: During his debut appearance in ""'s opening story arc, "", Zsasz bribes a contractor to include a secret passage leading out from his cell during the asylum's reconstruction under its new head, Jeremiah Arkham, who inherited the asylum from his uncle, Amadeus Arkham. Although Zsasz is restrained during the daytime when he is being treated personally by Jeremiah Arkham, he is brought back to his cell at night where he would leave the asylum through the secret passage, unbeknownst to the night guards. After murders fitting his "modus operandi" begin surfacing, Batman and Commissioner James Gordon fake Batman's insanity in order to get him inside the asylum and investigate Zsasz. Jeremiah Arkham is exceptionally brutal towards Batman, who had supposedly murdered a police officer; over the course of the "treatment", Zsasz had warped Jeremiah's mind and turned him into a mere henchman. Due to these continuous conversations with Jeremiah Arkham, Zsasz realises Batman is a plant and subsequently murders both the contractor and another inmate at Arkham who knows of Zsasz's ploy. Both Nightwing and Batman catch up to Zsasz when he tries to escape for the final time and put him back in Arkham.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: Zsasz later appears in Parts 3 and 4 of the "" saga. In Part 3 of "Knightfall", Zsasz takes an all-girls boarding school hostage and holds the students at knifepoint until Batman arrives, briefly leaving to kill two police officers who were sent to arrest him. Though weakened both physically and mentally due to the strain of pushing himself for so long to capture the escaped inmates, Batman fights with Zsasz and tries to ignore the lunatic's mockery. He finally snaps, after Zsasz says that they are really one and the same, and administers a savage beating. In Part 4, Zsasz's appearance is a mere cameo, depicting him being led out of the boarding school by police and Harvey Bullock personally threatening him.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: During the "" storyline, Zsasz is a patient in Dr. Leslie Thompkins' field hospital for a brief while, proving to be eminently deadly even when unconscious and strapped to a stretcher when he manages to open one of the arteries of a field orderly with his fingernails. Once he wakes up, he is confronted by Dr. Thompkins, whose utter selfless charity sharply contrasts with his total emptiness; she briefly gives him pause, but is finally repelled by his profound evil. Zsasz later appears in "Detective Comics" #796, where he fights Stephanie Brown in her role as Robin. He attempts to slit her throat, but is distracted by her unexpected ferocity and falls back, where he attacks and attempts to kill Batman. However, Stephanie eventually defeats him. Zsasz makes a brief appearance in "Infinite Crisis" #7. He is part of the Secret Society of Super Villains and is one of the many of their members sent to attack the city of Metropolis. The Society loses.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: Zsasz is not seen in any major villainous role again until "Detective Comics" #815, released in March 2006, entitled "Victims". Before a quarterly psychiatric review, Zsasz kills his guards with metal poles attached to his neck bracket and escapes to kill again. Batman hunts for Zsasz, which proves unsuccessful until Zsasz gains access to a charity event (attended by Bruce Wayne) and stabs Wayne's beloved butler, Alfred Pennyworth, in the stomach. Wayne drives Alfred to the hospital, saving his life. To lure Zsasz to him, Wayne holds a press conference in which he announces that Alfred is still alive. Having already made a scar for Alfred, Zsasz realises that his tally is off by one (Zsasz remarks: "My skin...it's crawling...every inch of it feels...wrong.") During the second part of "Victims" ("Detective Comics" #816), after a fight with Batman, Zsasz proceeds to the hospital to finish off Alfred. Batman catches him off-guard and knocks him unconscious, thus saving Alfred's life and sending Zsasz back to Arkham. Throughout this appearance, Cliff Chiang's artwork portrays Zsasz with visual elements commonly associated with the skinhead subculture, including work boots resembling Doc Martens, tight jeans, a white tank top, suspenders or "braces" and a close-cropped hairstyle. Additionally, Chiang's portrayal of Zsasz is more outwardly physically imposing than the gaunt, wiry physique created by Breyfogle and favored by most subsequent artists. No dialogue in the story arc references Zsasz being a skinhead nor does it explain his increased musculature and it is likely these visual elements were the decision of the artist.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: Zsasz is later seen again in the "Gotham Underground" story arc where, in issue #3, he appears in a disguised Batman's cell at Blackgate Prison and attempts to kill him with a knife. He ends up cutting Batman's arm just as he was waking up and the resulting fight ends with Zsasz being knocked unconscious and Batman being rushed to the hospital. A naked, desperate and totally deranged Zsasz appeared in the first issue of "" (2008), written by film director Kevin Smith, killing a young couple and threatening their children before Batman subdues him. His thoughts move so quickly that there are no spaces between the words. In the issue, Batman says that of all the criminals he fights, he hates Zsasz the most.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: In the "" storyline, Zsasz is recruited by a new Black Mask into a group of villains aiming to take over Gotham. This arrangement is explained further in a continuous story arc through the "" series, with Black Mask hiring Zsasz after he saved the former's life following a confrontation with former employee the Firefly. Black Mask presents Zsasz with a briefcase filled with cash and advises him to finally live out his dream, knowing full well any 'dream' of Zsasz's would culminate in mass murder. Apprehensive at first on how to go about this, he eventually decides to take Black Mask up on his offer, dressing in Armani suits (appearing near exactly the image of Woody Harrelson's character in "Natural Born Killers") and purchasing a warehouse as his base of operations. During an investigation into the discovery of several children murdered by Humpty Dumpty, Damian Wayne is 'captured' by a man soliciting runaway kids with the promise of a free meal and a place to stay. Damian discovers the man to be a close associate of Victor Zsasz and that Zsasz has been slowly building a financial empire using runaway children and kidnapped orphans in a 'fight to the death' arena where people bet on the winners. The winning child faces a new contestant, and so on, until the last child left fights Zsasz one-on-one, with the promise of freedom for winning (with it clearly evident none have won thus far). Having seen the horrors that Zsasz has left, as well as a haunting memory of seeing the dead bodies of the children he killed, Damian questions why Bruce or Dick have allowed a man like Zsasz to be left alive, despite their moral code against murder. Damian manages to subdue Victor and attack him viciously with a sword, after which he falls into Gotham Harbor. Not wanting to defy his mentor and late father's beliefs, he promises Dick that the blow was not fatal since he "missed Zsasz's spine", but indicated that his chances of survival were slim.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: Zsasz is later seen in captivity in "Detective Comics" #865, after Black Mask's (Jeremiah Arkham) apprehension, in Arkham Asylum. While no reference is made to Zsasz's injury (nor does he appear to be injured), his presence in Arkham alongside Jeremiah strongly suggests the events of this issue take place subsequent to the injury, meaning he did survive the attack.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: Zsasz has appeared various times in "The New 52" (a 2011 reboot of the DC Comics universe) as an inmate of Arkham, and he is later seen attacking Batgirl in the Narrows, while on Venom. Zsasz next appears in "Detective Comics" (vol. 2) #18 written by John Layman. He is released from Arkham Asylum by the Joker prior to the events of "Death of the Family". Later, he is hired by Ignatius Ogilvy, the Emperor Penguin, to "leave [his] mark on Gotham City"; he is given a knife with the Emperor Penguin's insignia on it. Zsasz is later instructed to put the Man-Bat serum on the knife, as part of the Emperor Penguin's plan to turn the population of Gotham City into Man-Bats through an airborne virus. Zsasz is temporarily transformed into one. During the "Forever Evil" storyline, Nightwing had just retrieved Victor Zsasz from Chicago and was bringing him back to Arkham Asylum. Victor Zsasz was then abducted by Superwoman and Owlman.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: Flashbacks to the 2017 story arc "The War of Jokes and Riddles" reveals that Zsasz sided with the Riddler in a war against the Joker He briefly joins a gang of villains assembled by Killer Moth. In the "Watchmen" sequel "Doomsday Clock", Victor Zsasz was at Arkham Asylum when Rorschach was incarcerated there by Batman.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: In addition to his wiry-yet-tall physique, Zsasz is extremely agile and flexible, able to go toe-to-toe with even Batman for brief bouts. Though he favors slitting his victims' throats with knives, he has no reservations about tossing blades at opponents if the occasion calls for it, and even carries several spare knives for this purpose. Though he personally dislikes guns, considering them "unreliable", Zsasz is known to occasionally carry firearms in order to coerce his selected victims. Even barehanded, Zsasz is a formidable opponent; as he is locked away in an enormous steel containment unit for 16 hours a day, he has made a habit of practicing isometrics in the cramped space to strengthen his body.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: Zsasz is incredibly intelligent and is described as having "a brilliant criminal mind". He is constantly thinking quickly both while incarcerated and active, and some of his escapes have been a result of his cunning schemes. Zsasz is completely unpredictable, having no qualms about who he kills, when and where. Thus, he is almost impossible to track, even if signs of his "modus operandi" appear evident, as there is no motive or clue trail to follow. Such unpredictability also renders him a danger to anyone and everyone who may encounter him.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: During the "Streets of Gotham" story arc, it is learned that Zsasz sees the world as bathed in red, and everyone in it as a victim he has murdered. He envisions both friend (Black Mask) and foe (Dick Grayson) as having died at his hand with their throats slashed. During his battle with Damian, Zsasz begins to lose his composure when he begins to see him as a living human being rather than as a dead body.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: In "", Zsasz is one of the inmates of Arkham Asylum whom the vampiric Batman slaughters. Batman tears Zsasz's chest open with his talons to mark the scar which will represent Zsasz's own life; he then drinks Zsasz's blood and cuts off his head.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: In the alternate timeline of the "Flashpoint" event, Victor Zsasz is imprisoned in the military Doom prison. During the prison break, Zsasz is killed by the arsonist Heat Wave.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: In the "" prequel comic book, Zsasz was briefly mentioned by Hugo Strange as an inmate he intentionally, but anonymously released so that the Tyger forces could recapture him in order to boost Arkham City's credit as a safe prison. Upon admittance, Zsasz quickly became well known as the "Payphone Killer" in Arkham City, hooking up all the old phone lines with the help of the Broker, tracking and murdering anyone unlucky enough to answer one of his calls after being briefly imprisoned by the Penguin in his museum. He briefly appeared in Two-Face's trial against the Joker as a juror, and also agreed to condemn the Joker to death.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: Zsasz appears in the "" comic book series, interrupting an argument between Superman and Batman, taunting Superman and asking him if he felt the 'release' from taking a life. Wonder Woman then has Cyborg open Zsasz's cell door, much to Batman's horror and Zsasz's delight, only for the insane killer to be quickly swept away by the Flash to the secure location Superman has created for the Arkham patients. Zsasz later appears in Year Five where he is sent by Superman to interrogate Alfred Pennyworth on the whereabouts of the ever-elusive Batman. Alfred is able to put up a fight before Zsasz kills him, not finding out where Batman is, however, as Alfred was both unaware and unwilling to help. This brings Batman out of hiding and he soon after corners Zsasz, beating him into submission. Zsasz refuses to confirm whether Superman sent him and sadistically reveals where he has placed Alfred's tally mark. Damian Wayne shows up and orders Batman to kill Zsasz, or he will do it instead. Zsasz is put back into prison, but Damian sneaks into his cell and kills Zsasz in revenge. Before dying Zsasz stated that the scar representing Alfred's death was his favorite one.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: In the game's sequel "Injustice 2", the timeline where he was killed by Damian in Year Five has been retconned, and was instead killed earlier by Damian in Year One, in the same time Damian defects to join Superman's side.


title: Victor Zsasz

text: The tie-in book for "Batman Begins" featuring the development art, and the visual guide to the film, also feature a shot of Booth in costume, referring to Zsasz as a serial killer. In the credits and script for the film, as well as all the books and the graphic novelization, his name is spelled "Zsaz". The novelization of "Batman Begins" by Dennis O'Neil refers to him as "Victor Zsasz", as does the video game.


title: County Cork

text: County Cork () is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns are Mallow, Macroom, Midleton, and Skibbereen. the county had a population of 581,231, making it the third-most populous county in Ireland. Cork County Council is the local authority for the county, while Cork City Council governs the city of Cork and its environs. Notable Corkonians include Michael Collins, Jack Lynch, Roy Keane, Sonia O'Sullivan and Cillian Murphy.


title: County Cork

text: Cork borders four other counties: Kerry to the west, Limerick to the north, Tipperary to the north-east and Waterford to the east. The county contains a section of the Golden Vale pastureland that stretches from Kanturk in the north to Allihies in the south. The south-west region, including West Cork, is one of Ireland's main tourist destinations, known for its rugged coast and megalithic monuments and as the starting point for the Wild Atlantic Way. The largest third-level institution is University College Cork, founded in 1845, and has a total student population of around 22,000. Local industry and employers include technology company Dell EMC, the European headquarters of Apple, and the farmer-owned dairy co-operative Dairygold.


title: County Cork

text: The county is known as the "rebel county", a name given to it by King Henry VII of England for its support, in a futile attempt at a rebellion in 1491, of Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York.


title: County Cork

text: The local government areas of county Cork and the city of Cork are administered by the local authorities of Cork County Council and Cork City Council respectively. The boundary between these two areas was altered by the 2019 Cork boundary change. It is part of the Southern Region and has five representatives on the Southern Regional Assembly.


title: County Cork

text: For elections to Dáil Éireann, the city and county are divided into five constituencies: Cork East, Cork North-Central, Cork North-West, Cork South-Central and Cork South-West. Together they return 18 deputies (TDs) to the Dáil. It is part of the South constituency for European elections.


title: County Cork

text: Cork is the largest county in Ireland by land area, and the largest of Munster's six counties by population and area. At the last census in 2016, Cork city stood at 125,657. The population of the entire county is 542,868 making it the state's second-most populous county and the third-most populous county on the island of Ireland.


title: County Cork

text: County Cork is located in the province of Munster, bordering Kerry to the west, Limerick to the north, Tipperary to the north-east and Waterford to the east. The county shares separate mountainous borders with Tipperary and Kerry. The terrain on the Kerry border was formed between 360 and 374 million years ago, as part of the rising of the MacGillycuddy's Reeks and Caha Mountains mountains ranges. This occurred during the Devonian period when Ireland was part of a larger continental landmass and located south of the equator. The region's topography of peaks and valleys are characterised by steep ridges formed during the Hercynian period of folding and mountain formation some 300 million years ago.


title: County Cork

text: Twenty-four historic baronies are in the county—the most of any county in Ireland. While baronies continue to be officially defined units, they are no longer used for many administrative purposes. Their official status is illustrated by Placenames Orders made since 2003, where official Irish names of baronies are listed.


title: County Cork

text: The county has 253 civil parishes. Townlands are the smallest officially defined geographical divisions in Ireland, with about 5447 townlands in the county.


title: County Cork

text: The county's mountains rose during a period mountain formation some 374-360  million years ago and include the Slieve Miskish and Caha Mountains on the Beara Peninsula, the Ballyhoura Mountains on the border with Limerick and the Shehy Mountains which contain Knockboy (706 m), the highest point in Cork. The Shehy Mountains are on the border with Kerry and may be accessed from the area known as Priests Leap, near the village of Coomhola. The upland areas of the Ballyhoura, Boggeragh, Derrynasaggart, and Mullaghareirk Mountain ranges add to the range of habitats found in the county. Important habitats in the uplands include blanket bog, heath, glacial lakes, and upland grasslands. Cork has the 13th-highest county peak in Ireland.


title: County Cork

text: Three rivers, the Bandon, Blackwater, and Lee, and their valleys dominate central Cork. Habitats of the valleys and floodplains include woodlands, marshes, fens, and species-rich limestone grasslands. The River Bandon flows through several towns, including Dunmanway to the west of the town of Bandon before draining into Kinsale Harbour on the south coast. Cork's sea loughs include Lough Hyne and Lough Mahon, and the county also has many small lakes. An area has formed where the River Lee breaks into a network of channels weaving through a series of wooded islands, forming 85 hectares of swampland around Cork's wooded area. The Environmental Protection Agency carried out a survey of surface waters in County Cork between 1995 and 1997, which identified 125 rivers and 32 lakes covered by the regulations.


title: County Cork

text: Like many parts of Munster, Cork has fertile agricultural land and many bog and peatlands. Cork has around 74,000 hectares of peatlands, which amount to 9.8% of the county's total land area. Cork has the highest share of the national forest area, with around of forest and woodland area, constituting 11.6% of the national total and approximately 12% of Cork's land area. It is home to one of the last remaining pieces of native woodland in Ireland and Europe.


title: County Cork

text: The hooded crow, "Corvus cornix" is a common bird, particularly in areas nearer the coast. Due to this bird's ability to (rarely) prey upon small lambs, the gun clubs of Cork County have killed many of these birds in modern times. A collection of the marine algae was housed in the herbarium of the botany department of the University College Cork. Parts of the South West coastline are hotspots for sightings of rare birds, with Cape Clear being a prime location for bird watching. The island is also home to one of only a few gannet colonies around Ireland and the UK. The coastline of Cork is sometimes associated with whale watching, with some sightings of fin whales, basking sharks, pilot whales, minke whales, and other species.


title: County Cork

text: Cork has a mountainous and flat landscape with many beaches and sea cliffs along its coast. The southwest of Ireland is known for its peninsulas and some in Cork include the Beara Peninsula, Sheep's Head, Mizen Head, and Brow Head. Brow Head is the most southerly point of mainland Ireland. There are many islands off the coast of the county, in particular, off West Cork. Carbery's Hundred Isles are the islands around Long Island Bay and Roaringwater Bay.


title: County Cork

text: Fastnet Rock lies in the Atlantic Ocean 11.3  km south of mainland Ireland, making it the most southerly point of Ireland. Many notable islands lie off Cork, including Bere, Great Island, Sherkin, and Cape Clear. With an estimated of coastline, Cork is one of three counties which claims to have the longest coastline in Ireland, alongside Mayo and Donegal. Cork is also one of just three counties to border two bodies of water - the Celtic Sea to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the west.


title: County Cork

text: The county is colloquially referred to as "The Rebel County", although uniquely Cork does not have an official motto. This name has 15th-century origins, but from the 20th century, the name has been more commonly attributed to the prominent role Cork played in the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921) when it was the scene of considerable fighting. In addition, it was an anti-Treaty stronghold during the Irish Civil War (1922–23). Much of what is now county Cork was once part of the Kingdom of "Deas Mumhan" (South Munster), anglicised as the "Desmond", ruled by the MacCarthy Mór dynasty. After the Norman invasion in the 12th century, the McCarthy clan were pushed westward into what is now West Cork and County Kerry. Dunlough Castle, standing just north of Mizen Head, is one of the oldest castles in Ireland (AD 1207). The north and east of Cork were taken by the Hiberno-Norman FitzGerald dynasty, who became the Earls of Desmond. Cork City was given an English Royal Charter in 1318 and for many centuries was an outpost for Old English culture. The Fitzgerald Desmond dynasty was destroyed in the Desmond Rebellions of 1569–1573 and 1579–1583. Much of county Cork was devastated in the fighting, particularly in the Second Desmond Rebellion. In the aftermath, much of Cork was colonised by English settlers in the Plantation of Munster.


title: County Cork

text: In 1491 Cork played a part in the English Wars of the Roses when Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the English throne spread the story that he was really Richard of Shrewsbury (one of the Princes in the Tower), landed in the city and tried to recruit support for a plot to overthrow King Henry VII of England. The Cork people supported Warbeck because he was Flemish and not English; Cork was the only county in Ireland to join the fight. The mayor of Cork and several important citizens went with Warbeck to England, but when the rebellion collapsed they were all captured and executed. Cork's nickname of the 'rebel county' (and Cork city's of the 'rebel city') originates in these events.


title: County Cork

text: In 1601 the decisive Battle of Kinsale took place in County Cork, which was to lead to English domination of Ireland for centuries. Kinsale had been the scene of a landing of Spanish troops to help Irish rebels in the Nine Years' War (1594–1603). When this force was defeated, the rebel hopes for victory in the war were all but ended. County Cork was officially created by a division of the older County Desmond in 1606.


title: County Cork

text: In the early 17th century, the townland of Leamcon (near Schull) was a pirate stronghold, and pirates traded easily in Baltimore and Whiddy Island.


title: County Cork

text: In the 19th century, Cork was a centre for the Fenians and for the constitutional nationalism of the Irish Parliamentary Party, from 1910 that of the All-for-Ireland Party. The county was a hotbed of guerrilla activity during the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921). Three Cork Brigades of the Irish Republican Army operated in the county and another in the city. Prominent actions included the Kilmichael Ambush in November 1920 and the Crossbarry Ambush in March 1921. The activity of IRA flying columns, such as the one under Tom Barry in west Cork, was popularised in the Ken Loach film "The Wind That Shakes The Barley". On 11 December 1920, Cork City centre was gutted by fires started by the Black and Tans in reprisal for IRA attacks. Over 300 buildings were destroyed; many other towns and villages around the county, including Fermoy, suffered a similar fate.


title: County Cork

text: During the Irish Civil War (1922–23), most of the IRA units in Cork sided against the Anglo-Irish Treaty. From July to August 1922 they held the city and county as part of the so-called Munster Republic. However, Cork was taken by troops of the Irish Free State in August 1922 in the Irish Free State offensive, which included both overland and seaborne attacks. For the remainder of the war, the county saw sporadic guerrilla fighting until the Anti-Treaty side called a ceasefire and dumped their arms in May 1923. Michael Collins, a key figure in the War of Independence, was born near Clonakilty and assassinated during the civil war in Béal na Bláth, both in west Cork.


title: County Cork

text: County Cork has two Gaeltacht areas where the Irish language is the primary medium of everyday speech. These are (Muskerry) in the north of the county, especially the villages of (Kilnamartyra), (Ballyvourney), (Coolea), (Ballingeary), and (Cape Clear Island).


title: County Cork

text: There are 14,829 Irish language speakers in County Cork, with 3,660 native speakers in the Cork Gaeltacht. In addition, in 2011 there were 6,273 pupils attending the 21 Gaelscoileanna and six Gaelcholáistí all across the county. According to the Irish Census 2006, there are 4,896 people in the county who identify themselves as being daily Irish speakers outside of the education system. Ballingeary is a centre for Irish language tuition, with a summer school, Coláiste na Mumhan, or the College of Munster.


title: County Cork

text: The song "The Banks of My Own Lovely Lee" is traditionally associated with the county. It is sometimes heard at GAA and other sports fixtures involving the county.


title: County Cork

text: Several media publications are printed and distributed in County Cork. These include the "Irish Examiner" (formerly the "Cork Examiner") and its sister publication "The Echo" (formerly the "Evening Echo"). Local and regional newspapers include the "Carrigdhoun", the "Cork Independent", "The Corkman", the "Mallow Star", the "Douglas Post", the "East Cork Journal" and "The Southern Star". Local radio stations include Cork's 96FM and dual-franchise C103, Red FM, and a number of community radio stations, such as CRY 104.0FM.


title: County Cork

text: Tourist sites include the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle, Blarney. The port of Cobh in County Cork was the point of embarkation for many Irish emigrants travelling to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa or the United States. Cobh (at the time named 'Queenstown') was the last stop of the RMS "Titanic" before it departed on its fated journey.


title: County Cork

text: Fota Wildlife Park, on Fota Island, is also a tourist attraction. Nearby is Fota House and Gardens and the Fota Golf Club and Resort; a European Tour standard golf course which hosted the Irish Open in 2001, 2002 and 2014.


title: County Cork

text: West Cork is known for its rugged natural environment, beaches and social atmosphere, and is a common destination for British, German, French and Dutch tourists.


title: County Cork

text: The South-West Region, comprising counties Cork and Kerry, contributes € 24,877 million (US$39.3 billion) (2005 values; 2008 exchange rate) towards the Irish GDP. The harbour area to the immediate east of the city is home to many pharmaceutical and medical companies. Mahon Point Shopping Centre is Cork's largest, and Munster's second-largest, shopping centre; it contains over 75 stores including a retail park.


title: County Cork

text: The Golden Vale is among the most productive farmland for dairy in Ireland. The chief milk processor is Dairygold, a farmer-owned co-operative based in Mitchelstown, which processes 1.4 billion liters a year, converting the milk into cheeses and powder dairy nutrition for infant formula.


title: County Cork

text: Cork city, the only city in the county, is the second-most populous city in the Republic of Ireland with a population of 210,000 after the Cork boundary extension in 2019. Cork is also the third-most populous city on the island of Ireland. According to the 2006 census statistics, the county has 11 towns with a population of over 4,000. The county has a population density of 72 persons/km. A large percentage of the population lives in urban areas.


title: County Cork

text: In the 1841 census, before the outbreak of the Great Famine, County Cork had a recorded population of 854,118. By the 2022 census, Cork city and county had a combined population of 581,231 people.


title: County Cork

text: As of the 2011 census, ethnically the population included 85% white Irish people, 9% other white people, 1% black, 1% Asian, 1% other races, and 1% not stated. Catholicism is the main religion at 87%, with other religions at 7%, 5% of people stating that they had no religion, and 1% not stated.


title: County Cork

text: Common surnames in the county include Barry, Buckley, Callaghan, Connell, Connor, Crowley, Lynch, McCarthy, Murphy, O'Leary, O'Sullivan, Sheehan, Walsh, and Fitzgerald (the latter with a Norman derivation).


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: Two Steps from Hell is an American production music company based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 2006 by Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix, a pair of composers born in Norway and England respectively. The two friends created the company to make trailer music demos to be circulated exclusively within the movie advertising industry for the purpose of licensing; they are partnered with Extreme Music who handle licensing arrangements. The duo are among the most successful in their field, having supplied background tracks for thousands of film trailers and TV commercials. They compose separately but release their creations together. Typically, their music is orchestral and choral based, but with modern complements and structured similar to pop songs. The stentorian nature of their works has led the frequent use of a contemporary label, "epic music", to define their style.


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: They established themselves as a major player in the market of the late 2000s, providing tracks to trailers for major film franchises such as "Harry Potter", "Pirates of the Caribbean", "Star Trek" and "Twilight". As the public became exposed to their music, the pair gained a cult following online who pleaded for their compositions to be made available to purchase; Two Steps from Hell soon released their first two public albums, "Invincible" (2010) and "Archangel" (2011), collections of their most popular demo music to date. These were followed by the album "SkyWorld" (2012), this time consisting entirely of brand new music straight to commercial release. With these albums all successful, the duo organized their first concert, at Walt Disney Concert Hall, in 2013.


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: A waning demand for traditional trailer music in the movie industry emerged by the mid-2010s; the pair have since focused increasingly on creating further public albums comprising new and more varied compositions, with far less of an emphasis on composing demos for trailers, whilst continuing to release more of their back catalog commercially as well. Such music has performed increasingly well in the United States; 13 of their releases have reached the top ten of the "Billboard" Classical Crossover Albums charts, three of which have peaked at number one: "Battlecry" (2015), "Unleashed" (2017), and "Myth" (2022), the first also charting on the Billboard 200. The 2020s began with the group consolidating their popularity by organizing their first tour, in Europe.


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: Two Steps from Hell was founded in early 2006 when Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix joined forces to write original music for movie trailers. The two have composed music for over 1,000 major motion picture trailers.


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: With the founding of the company in 2006, Bergersen was looking for a name that would draw attention with the old adage in mind, "All PR is good PR." The idea for the name came from "Two Steps From Heaven", a Norwegian nightclub that, according to Bergersen, had a similar theme going on.


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: Despite the company finding success with its music, the tracks were not officially released to the public until the May 2010 release of the commercial album "Invincible". "Invincible" was approaching Gold record status. As of January 2017, Two Steps from Hell has published 10 public albums in addition to 20 demonstration albums, with almost 1,000 unique tracks in total.


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: "Invincible" was followed by Bergersen's first solo album, "Illusions", then "Archangel" and "Halloween", both primarily compilation albums of industry tracks. Next, "SkyWorld" was released as the first public album to feature mostly new tracks, followed by the primarily compilation albums "Classics Volume One" and "Miracles".


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: The album "Sun", which was released on September 30, 2014, is the second solo album from Thomas Bergersen. Preview tracks were released from the album, titled "Cry" and "Sun", the former of which can be downloaded from Bergersen's official website. An official music video for "Sun" was also released on YouTube, preceding the announcement of a signed limited deluxe edition CD release set to include additional tracks and notes from Thomas, as well as a large-size poster featuring his artwork.


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: Additionally, in July 2014 Two Steps from Hell released an e-book known as "Colin Frake on Fire Mountain", which features a 75,000-word novel written by Nick Phoenix with illustrations by Otto Bjornik, as well as an original score also made available via a soundtrack release. A sequel entitled "Colin Frake: Asclepius" was released in April 2017.


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: 2015 saw the release of "Battlecry" featuring all new songs. This album proved to be a huge success for the company, charting at position 183 on the US Billboard 200. This was followed by the compilation album "Classics Volume Two" in 2015, and the all new albums "Vanquish", "Unleashed", and "Dragon" in 2016, 2017, and 2019 respectively.


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: In 2020 Bergersen released the first two chapters (out of seven) of his "Humanity" album. These featured mostly new tracks, with several reworked tracks from older releases.


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: Two Steps from Hell's main graphic artist is Steven Gilmore, who has created album covers for almost every promotional and public release, including the logo of the company, with the only exception being the 2009 DVD release of their library, for which the album cover was created by Paul Zeaiter. Additionally, Thomas Bergersen's "Illusions" solo album features design by Jesper Krijgsman, while its sequel, "Sun", features artwork created by Thomas himself.


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: Their success has also been reflected in platforms such as YouTube, where they have millions of subscribers and over a hundred million views on popular soundtracks such as "Victory".


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: Two Steps from Hell hosted a live concert on June 14, 2013, at the Disney Hall, in Los Angeles, California, performing some of their most popular songs, such as "Heart of Courage," "Protectors of the Earth," "To Glory," "Strength of a Thousand Men," "Black Blade," and "Breathe," as well as "Ocean Princess," '"Age of Gods," and "Remember Me" from Bergersen's album "Illusions".


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: The second live concert happened on April 20, 2018, and was organized by the Film Music Prague Festival. The concert was performed by Praga Sinfonietta, which was conducted by Petr Pololáník, Kühns mixed choir, Merethe Soltvedt and Kamila Nývltová as solo singers. Thomas Bergersen participated on several songs playing on violin or piano. Performed were these songs: "Strength of a Thousand Men", "Fill My Heart", "Protectors of Earth", "Everlasting", "Heart of Courage", "Fire Nation", "Ocean Princess", "Master of Shadows", "Flight of the Silverbird", "Blackout", "Winterspell", "Stormkeeper", "Evergreen", "Neverdark", "Victory", "Fall of the Fountain World", "To Glory", and as an encore "Remember Me".


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: 2020 was supposed to see the start of the Two Steps From Hell European tour, but this was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: On June 15, 2022 Two Steps From Hell started their European tour in Brussels and visited other European cities. The concert was performed by Odessa Opera Orchestra assisted by ReChoir, a professional Polish choir. Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix participated on several songs.


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: Albums created by only one composer; "part of the Two Steps catalog", but released under the individual composer's name:


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: A series of previously private demo albums released for public purchase; modified to consist of just their residual tracks not yet available on other public studio albums:


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: The group's demo albums released exclusively to clients in the motion picture and advertising industry for the purpose of licensing. Much of the music originating from these demos has since been made available for public purchase on the commercial albums listed above.


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: A handful of albums have been released under the Two Steps from Hell name which are creations entirely by third-party composers; consequently, they are not considered part of the group's primary catalog:


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: Singles available for public purchase that are not on any public album or were initially released as pre-release tracks. All of the following pieces are written by Bergersen, except where noted:


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: Songs that are not on any public album or were initially made available for public listening via the group's official social media channels, but not available for public purchase at the time of publishing. All of the following pieces are written by Bergersen, except when noted:


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: Two Steps from Hell have expanded their catalog of creations beyond music by also releasing a series of e-books, each written by Phoenix. All are part of a planned pentalogy of sci-fi fantasy novels called "Colin Frake." The series follows the adventures of the adolescent protagonist of the same name, set in the fictional world of "Reanne". Each book is accompanied by an orchestral soundtrack created by the group, and a collection of hand-drawn illustrations by artist Otto Björnik.""


title: Two Steps from Hell

text: On 5 June 2012, Two Steps from Hell announced they would soon be launching an official mobile app for iOS and Android devices. The app was subsequently released three weeks later. Downloading the app gave users access to "news, promotions... videos, photos and albums", but most notably, 19 tracks of previously private demo music available in a new limited-time digital album called "Demon's Dance". Gergely Vilaghy of "Trailer Music News" concluded that the app's creation was not revolutionary but that "it was unseen in the trailer music scene before". It has since been discontinued.


title: Sean Rad

text: Sean Rad (born May 22, 1986) is an American entrepreneur and co-founder of the dating app Tinder. Rad launched Tinder in 2012 and by 2014 the company was recording one billion "swipes" a day.


title: Sean Rad

text: Rad holds 9 patents for his work, including the patent for Tinder's "double opt-in" system, in which users must match before they can exchange messages.


title: Sean Rad

text: In 2017, Rad left Tinder over a valuation dispute with Tinder's parent company, IAC/Match Group. In 2018, Rad and Tinder's founding team filed a $2 billion dollar lawsuit against IAC. In 2022, the lawsuit was settled for $441 million dollars.


title: Sean Rad

text: Rad was born in Los Angeles, California to an Iranian Jewish family. His parents emigrated from Iran in the 1970s. He has a large family with 12 uncles and aunts and 42 first cousins.


title: Sean Rad

text: Rad attended private school. During high school he founded a band and interned for an entertainment manager. He later decided, being an artist wasn't for him.


title: Sean Rad

text: In 2004, at 18 years old, Rad enrolled at the University of Southern California (USC). That same year, he started his first company, Orgoo, a unified messaging and video communications platform. Rad leveraged a network of University of Southern California (USC) computer science students to help him build the Orgoo technology. In 2006, Rad left USC to pursue his business ventures.


title: Sean Rad

text: In 2009, he founded Ad.ly, a celebrity endorsement platform that connected celebrities with brands. In 2010, the company raised $5 million in VC funding from Greycroft Partners, Matt Coffin, and GRP Partners' Mark Suster. Suster said of the investment, "I didn't invest in Orgoo but by the time he launched Ad.ly I knew [Rad's] capabilities and knew I wanted to work with him."


title: Sean Rad

text: In January 2012, Rad joined the startup incubator Hatch Labs to build Cardify, a next-generation, app based, customer loyalty rewards program. However, within weeks of his joining, the incubator held an internal 48-hour hackathon; Rad was paired with Hatch Labs engineer Joe Munoz. During the hackathon, Rad presented the idea for a double opt-in dating app called Matchbox. MatchBox (which would later be named Tinder) was awarded first prize in the hackathon. In the following weeks, while waiting for Apple to approve the Cardify app, Rad and the Cardify team shifted their focus to Matchbox.


title: Sean Rad

text: In September 2012, Rad and his team officially launched Tinder. Unlike previous dating apps, Tinder was designed for a mobile interface and utilized photo-focused profiles that were easily navigated with an intuitive swiping motion. Within two months of launch, the app had facilitated over one million matches. Tinder was named the "Best New Startup of 2013" by TechCrunch. By 2014, the app was processing more than one billion swipes per day with the average user spending 90 minutes on the app. By 2015, Tinder was the top grossing app in 99 countries, and in 2017, Tinder became the highest grossing app in Apple's App Store.