| | I realize that I write and that I put said writing up for public consumption, but it's still weird when proof arises that someone's actually reading it. On that note, here's page eight to GC-7. | |
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| As promised, back to GC-7. Here's page seven. | |
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| Gonna ramble for a bit. Sorry.
There's a fairly interesting story that came on to NPR yesterday. The charmingly obvious point of it is that comics are expanding. Specifically, the piece touches on how writers of comics are no longer pulled from the rank and file of the legion of comic book fans. This is annoying to many fans because it often is an experiment that fails. Just because you can write a novel, a song or a teleplay doesn't mean you can write a comic. However, the successes seem to outnumber the failures. For this, and a couple of other reasons, I think this expansion beyond the standard fandom of comics is good and, in fact, necessary in order for comics to survive and thrive.
First off, this is good for completely practical reasons. While the Intertron may make communicating much easier, with all of its tubes filled with information, it has also absolutely drowned professional editors in incoming messages from fans, many of whom would one day like to create comics themselves. So out of all of these people begging for an opportunity, how is an overworked, disheveled editor supposed to find talented people to work with? Well, s/he could look through thousands and thousands of unsolicited scripts until they find something good or until they put a bullet in their head. Another alternative, that possibly doesn't end in suicide, is to look for people who are successful in other creative fields and see if those folk have an interest in writing comics.
Two things that struck me about the aforementioned story: One is how shocked, shocked, the people at NPR were that these successful individuals would actually deign to write for comic books. I'm sorry, but you work at NPR. How sexy is that? Save your condescension for the "journalists" at Fox News.
The other item is how a couple of the story's subjects were surprised to find out it's difficult to write in a visual medium is. Well…yeah. Why would it be easy? People don't just sit down and write stories or songs, how would writing a comic book be any different?
Regardless of the haughtiness that some of the world has for comics, even as they come to our table, keeping some chairs open and the air friendly is important. For one thing, we don't want to turn away the many of those coming that have a respect for it. Percy Carey, rapper and author of Sentences listed Pekar's Amercan Splendor, an obscure tome for anyone not big into comics, as the main reason that he wanted his life story to be told as a graphic novel rather than a standard autobiobraphy.
Another reason is that if we want this medium we love to survive, it has to expand. Jodi Picoult points out that comics were originally designed for teenage boys – which is true to a greater or lesser extent. It use to be if you still read comics when you started to move out of adolescence, then friends and family would eventually harass all but the most diehard out of it. However, much like I mentioned with Mr. Gygax, eventually there came to be a subculture that boys could retreat to and keep reading comics, even if they kept it secret. Regardless, as the demographic aged, they demanded more mature stories, which moved the medium forward, making it more sophisticated, but at the same time, began to leave out and, in some cases, even alienate those younger boys who had originally kept the medium going. So to expand beyond the fanboy subculture and reach out to others, hopefully once again children, can only be a good thing. Otherwise the group reading these books will only get smaller and smaller.
However, as comic books expand out into American culture, those of us who have been fans all along are going to have to tolerate the inevitable patronizing of newcomers. The story's end is a great example of this as the narrator says, "It's because of the diversity and passion of writer's like Jodi Picoult, Percey Carey and Josh Whedon that elevates comic book writing to storytelling." Yes, because before these three showed up, it was complete shit. I suspect commentator John Ridley is about to learn a little bit about that famous fanboy ire. After a schmuck comment like that, he's got it coming.
OK, enough of the boring stuff. Friday, back to GC-7. |
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| It's a fact that governments lie to their people. However, it is truly fascinating when governments lie to themselves. Take China as a for instance. Because, you know, when I think of violence, the first name that springs to mind is the Dalai Lama. The Chinese government needs a bad guy so they can crack down on the demonstrations in Tibet, so they pick the Dalai Lama? The Chinese Premier states that they have both fact and evidence (yes, both fact and evidence) that the Dalai Lama's followers are pursuing independence through violent means. Don't ask to see the evidence, though – that's an internal matter of China.
So if all of this violence has been caused by crazed Tibetan revolutionaries, then what does it mean that unrest has now spread to provinces outside of Tibet? Have the people of Qinghai and Sichuan provinces been caught up in the political fervor of the Tibetan independence movement? Have they heard the cries of their neighbors? If not, what exactly are they so pissed about? Perhaps it has something to do with living under an oppressive regime.
Man, fuck this, let's get back into space. Here's page five of GC-7. | |
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| I'm somewhat unsettled by how often this page becomes an obituary. However, I can't be too sad for Arthur C. Clarke, as when he died yesterday he was 90 years old. The man had a good run. He was also the most prolific science fiction writer of his generation who inspired engineers as often as astronauts. Given the subject matter of GC-7 it would be almost foolish to go on with the story without first acknowledging Mr. Clarke. | |
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| While Colorado may be a state of pioneers and trendsetters, we have more than our share of idiot imitators. But let's focus on the explorer's of GC-7. | |
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| La fiction, elle se développe. | |
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| Thanks to the magic of Jaymes Reed we once again have a story with words. To celebrate, let's take it from the top. | |
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| Over the past few weeks, the president has made several assertions on different fronts that the powers that be need greater powers in order to protect the American people. Given what the powers that be have already done with the powers they already have, I'm not inclined to agree with him.
If you've been watching these changes for the last few years, then most likely they don't make you feel safer. And there's a possibility that the actions of the current government administration have made you consider pretending to be a Canadian when traveling abroad. Strangely, despite eight years of myopic and callous leadership, the current presidential race, while already getting tiresome, has restored my faith to some amount. At this point I'd say I'm just happy that both sides are running candidates who are against torture.
Ultimately, in the big picture sense, I'm very optimistic about the United States. I suppose that's why I can write stories such as GC-7. Sometimes it just seems as if we could accomplish anything. On that note, here's the ink for page six. | |
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| Happy birthday to me. Sorry, but I hate working on my birthday, so this is all you get. |
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| I'm sure that it would shock all of you to realize that I role-play. Not play RPG video games, but actual tabletop geekery. I'm equally certain that it will surprise you that I started by playing Dungeons & Dragons. So while I never met Gary Gygax I can say with certainty that his work inexorably altered my life, and so, I think it at least appropriate that I mention his passing.
It's nearly impossible to underestimate Gygax's impact on popular culture. The geek chic we've got today probably would have never come to pass without him and those that worked with him. After all, he took all those shy boys and girls who were reading Lord of the Rings out of the library by giving them a reason to sit around a table and actually talk to one another. Those late night, soda fueled gaming sessions, where our parents looked in on us with worried gazes, formed a connection that eventually became a culture. That, perhaps above all other reasons, is why you can say out in public, almost without shame, that you role-play or and people won't beat you up and stuff you in a locker. No, now they make movies and video games about our culture. Hell, we're a multi-billionaire dollar industry.
Thanks, Mr. Gygax. You let the rest of us out of the cave. |
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| So I'm thinking about heading to the New York Comic Con to schmooze, be ignored and generally try to avoid having cigarettes put out in my face.
OK, so that last one is mostly a joke, but I've got more than a little anxiety about traveling to a tiny island that has the twice the population of my entire state. And it certainly doesn't help when I read articles like this. Regardless, I've never been, and going to New York seems like something you should do at least once.
Speaking of people that are socially insulated, here's page 5 of GC-7. | |
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