Go to: Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh (via Tom Spurgeon)
11/01/2011
10/28/2011
Brilliant #1
Fiction that tries to answer the "what if superheroes were real" question tends to follow one of two broad approaches.* In the first, ordinary people put on costumes and try to act like superheroes despite an absence of superpowers or impossible blend of skill sets. This happens to have some currency due to the activities of Real-life Superheroes. But with all due respect to Phoenix Jones and his ilk, only the second approach piques my inner scientist. Those are the stories that speculate on the real-world possibility of metahumans. Sure it might be interesting to explore what motivates mere mortals to fight crime. But without the powers or ludicrous training, they're still basically vigilantes who cosplay. Another advantage of the latter approach is that the protagonist doesn't have to conform to the narrow requirements of the superhero genre. After all, just because someone can fly, it doesn't make her morally obligated to fight crime.
Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley's creator-owned series Brilliant uses the latter. It follows a bunch of ordinary, if very smart, college students researching the possibility of developing real-world superpowers. Since Bendis and Bagley were the original creative team behind the Ultimate Spider-Man, familiar readers might expect them to bring their particular brand of teen drama into this project. They do, but unfortunately, this inaugural issue ends up showcasing the weaknesses to their Marvel-honed style.
The comic begins with a young man named Amadeus robbing a bank in broad daylight. During the heist, he exhibits a number of paranormal abilities. But just as things are about to get interesting, the scene suddenly shifts. Now another man named Albert is entering what appears to be a college dorm. He's welcomed back by the other residents, as he took the previous semester off. What follows is twenty pages of Bendis' staccato dialogue. We're treated to gems like this:
I'm OK. It's all okay.And so on and on. I get the impression that Bendis is trying hard to capture the nervous energy of the college milieu. Such cryptic shorthand might convey the casual intimacy between freinds, but it doesn't leave much room for adequate characterization. There are about half a dozen characters being introduced, including Amadeus and Albert, but they share one personality between them. Only Bagley's and Joe Rubinstein's art allows the reader to separate their individual voices. To their credit, the multi-ethnic cast is easily distinguishable. But without colorful costumes, fight scenes, and requisite poses to work from, the art only rates slightly above average. It's only towards the end when the conversation gets around to discussing the viability of creating genuine superpowers. And the scene cuts off again. There's no cliffhanger or natural chapter break.
No, really?
Really.
Did they talk to you yet?
About what?
So that's it. Two disjointed scenes with not much to latch onto. I realize it's now common practice to use the first issue as a setup for a larger story arc. But even by those standards, this is a pretty slow intro. Actually, it feels more like the prelude to the intro proper. It's a frustrating read, and not the most compelling way to hook skeptical readers.
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* The seminal Watchmen naturally uses both.
10/26/2011
10/25/2011
10/20/2011
Action Comics #2
Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
Grant Morrison's approximation of the Superman created by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel is stylistically incongruous with the character's other appearances in the New 52 lineup. No surprise there, since his source of inspiration was a left-wing, rabble-rousing figure who tossed suspects from great heights before Batman trademarked the move, took on war profiteers and crooked politicians alike, and resisted arrest whenever the cops showed up. Fight the Power! Morrison at least gets his rebellious appeal, imbuing his own Superman with the appropriate swagger when facing close-minded authority figures. This issue starts with him being detained by the military and tortured for information, due to the events in the previous issue. But it isn't long before he regains his bearings and starts punching through the walls of his prison, reducing his would-be captors to hapless bystanders.
This issue features the first confrontation between Superman and his arch-nemesis Lex Luthor within the New 52 universe. Unlike the rogue scientist or evil CEO of the past, this Luthor works for The Man. He's an insufferable middle manager, which means he assumes the role of head inquisitor to Superman. The reader learns a few things about the character. While he's still a brilliant scientist, he isn't quite the master manipulator, at least not yet. He also retains the speciest beliefs he's being spouting for the last twenty-plus years. In an obvious reference to the War on Terror, Luthor has no problems torturing Supes because (a) he's not human and therefore not subject to human rights, (b) he might be an agent sent to Earth for nefarious purposes, (c) how can it be torture when the alien doesn't seem to get hurt anyway? The comic's most important plot twist implies that Lex may be more intimately aware of Superman's origins than he was in past incarnations, which fuels his paranoia. But the bottom line is that Lex gets egg on his face for calling his foe "semi-intelligent".
Superman's physicality is a major selling point here. While he may not be as impervious as Luthor makes him out to be, the comic is constantly throwing him against large and heavy objects. And it looks like it hurts, a lot. His enemies are at first amazed at how much punishment he can take. And then they run for cover when he starts trashing the place. At one point Lex even assumes the same pose as the fleeing figure in the original Action Comics #1 cover. Actually, it's kind of funny to look at. But for Lex, that was one really bad day at the office.
This is an entertaining, if slight, story with some revealing character interaction from not only Superman and Luthor, but in the relationship between supporting characters Sam Lane, his daughter Lois Lane, and John Corben (the future villain Metallo). Like those early stories by Siegel and Shuster, Superman seems to be the only superhuman around, a fantasy element sticking out in a mundane world. But his fate is already sealed. It's only a matter of time before the Morrison version of the character, looking like a cosplayer that put in the least amount of work possible, will morph into the full-powered being dressed in that terrible Jim Lee ensemble that premiered in Justice League. He's only fought earthbound antagonists so far. But there are already indications in this issue that future threats will come from more fantastic milieus.
10/18/2011
10/16/2011
Triumph of Steve
Go to: Babble by
I became a full-time Macintosh user after realizing that I could make art and manipulate photos on a personal computer. I had used Macs before, but no more frequently than I had used machines running on DOS or Windows. And even after I had switched to Macs, I had a "live and let live" attitude about the whole Mac vs PC debate. I had my preferences, but I wasn't out to convert anybody. The same could be said with how I thought about Nikon vs Canon. I really didn't give a damn what SLR camera you used (The lens on the other hand was a different matter).
But I became a student of the graphic arts during the dark days of Apple, when everyone was predicting the company's demise. So I did feel a tad isolated. In the PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds (which one instructor made his students watch), a bitter Steve Jobs in exile bemoaned the lack of taste in Microsoft's products. Just a few years later, In the Beginning was the Command Line was touting Linux and other Unix-like operating systems as the future of the desktop. The mood within campus computer labs could be summed-up by a defiant editorial cartoon tacked-up in a graphic design classroom. In it, a guy walks into a studio full of people working on Macs and demands "We need a cartoon illustrating how Macs are becoming irrelevant", or something to that effect. It was easy for some to feel misunderstood as artists and as computer users. Such was the self-indulgence of youth. When Steve returned to Apple and unveiled a Unix-like OS to run on Macs, I was only a tiny bit, cautiously, hopeful. Steve may have been brilliant, but he still retained his legendary reputation for being an overbearing egotist and a difficult boss to work with. It wouldn't have surprised me if he prematurely left the company he co-founded for a second time.
Oddly enough, that's actually what happened. Instead of a boardroom coup d'état though, it was Steve's own mortality that betrayed him, at the all-too-young age of 56. That he died from cancer is deeply saddening to me in very personal ways that I won't get into. But when I think of Steve Jobs, I find him such an improbable character. He wasn't an engineer, programmer, MBA, or artist of any note. Yet he had an impact on technology, consumerism, and popular culture like no one else. And he left a dynamic company imprinted with the best, and worst, aspects of his mercurial persona and utopian idealism. In the words of Scott McCloud , a creator who's expressed strong opinions about the marriage of technology and art: "Great design can and does change the world. Poor design can and does ruin lives." That's a line a certain aspiring student from a long time ago would have subscribed to.
10/15/2011
10/13/2011
What do Wonder Woman and Heracles have in common?
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| Wonder Woman #5 cover drawn by Cliff Chiang |
Daddy issues, apparently. And a jealous wife to contend with.
So DC announced changes to Wonder Woman's origin story that initially comes across as more radical than previous reboots. Here's my initial take on the news:
- I've said before that it's DC's prerogative to make changes to their intellectual properties, especially if it helps sell more comics. And Wonder Woman has been a character that the publisher has struggled with to make appealing to readers. If this new version sells, then it will justify the move in DC's eyes. And if it doesn't, expect to see some previously laid out plot points being exploited to retcon it away. If DC has taught its readers anything, it's that permanent change is an illusion.
- Having said that, I can't help but feel that this new origin spells out a larger compromise about the character. It's frankly a rather conventional and less interesting take. On paper, it sounds like an imitation of Marvel's approach to their mythically-based properties. Which is why I find writer Brian Azzarello's statements about returning to the family squabbling of ancient Greek mythology fairly uninspired. It's been done already. And it seems calculated to appeal to DC's core readership more than anyone else. The classic WW origin contained pretty strong proto-feminist elements mixed in with quixotic inventiveness, and a dollop of male fantasy, fermented in the heady atmosphere of World War II. It's a unique blend that has proven to be an ill fit to an increasingly grim DC Universe. While I won't go so far as to say they're a complete repudiation of a fundamental aspect of the character, the changes come across as a bit of a retrenchment, or a top-down marketing initiative.
- The "daddy's girl" description of WW, not to mention the title of the New York Post article that broke the story, was pretty groan-inducing. Still, there's something to be said about how DC has successfully gotten the press to act as their mouthpiece during the entire September relaunch. It stands in contrast to the usual grumbling voiced online.
- On an unrelated note, I'm still rockin' to Cliff Chiang's art.
10/07/2011
Star Trek #1
Based on the story written by Samuel A. Peeples
The fortunes of the Star Trek franchise have changed drastically through the years - from enjoying mainstream success in the mid-80s, to becoming almost universally dismissed (or actively reviled) during the airing of Enterprise. By the time that series ended in 2005, Star Trek's own internal continuity had become incomprehensible to most viewers, and even longtime fans. If the franchise was going to regain a modicum of its former success, most of it would have to be jettisoned. The 2009 film, simply titled Star Trek, went even further and relaunched the original series itself. The plot utilized that hoary trope of time-travel altering history. Only this time and without explanation, no one even bothered to restore things to the status quo.* But the film was less interested with getting mired in the pesky plot mechanics of time-travel, and focused instead on the breezy interplay of its re-imagined cast. This gambit worked, in part due to the overall likability of its lead actors, who managed to update the original characters without parodying them. It probably helped that Leonard Nimoy, reprising his role as arguably the series most iconic character, was there to give them, and himself, a fond send-off. Both casuals and diehards turned out in droves at the cinema.**
The film was largely praised by mainstream critics. But if you happen to share the opinions of disgruntled fans like Roger Ebert, who perceived within it a lack of philosophical introspection and scientific curiosity, then the new Star Trek comic book series from IDW is meant for you. The franchise's previous comic book adaptations were never the center of attention. But given the newly refurbished state of the Star Trek universe, the Powers That Be have decided to revisit several classic episodes from the TV series and give them the reboot treatment. For issue #1, it comes as no surprise that the story is from the network pilot episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before". It's been awhile since I've watched it, but the comic feels like a careful outlining of the differences between old and new. Most notable are the references to what characters did or didn't make it to the film. While not overly intrusive, it might seem odd to newer readers that so much word space is devoted at the beginning to who got promoted to what rank within the chain of command. A pair of characters who are pertinent to the plot come in as old friends of Captain James Kirk from his Starfleet Academy days, having never had so much as a cameo in the film. Their insertion into the crew is a reminder of the episodic structure of the source material, and this naturally makes them feel more like guest stars than members of the regular cast.
None of this poses a significant barrier to the uninitiated. But those who enjoyed the fast-paced, action adventure of the film might find the comic's pacing rather sedate. Not one phaser or photon torpedo is fired. Not once does Kirk get his ass kicked. This issue tells the first half of the story, which is a steady build-up to an inevitable showdown. This issue's panels are filled with talking heads discussing the mounting crisis at hand. Like most Star Trek comics, there's a premium placed on getting the actors' likenesses correct.This thankless job is carried out with a better than average performance by Stephen Molnar. His comparatively realistic figures contrast with the more schematic rendering of the starship interiors. It's nice to look at, if not particularly exciting.
The 2009 film carefully balanced reinvention with nostalgia. It acknowledged the franchise's history without being overly-literal with its references, only borrowing loosely from multiple sources. The comic book gifts to longtime fans by confirming that some of that history will be repeated, more or less, by bringing back specific events from the classic TV series. It's my understanding that the comic will somehow tie all this into the plot of the upcoming film sequel. Given the interchangeable nature of the original material, I wonder how much it will try to avoid, or will simply end up, chasing its own past down the rabbit hole?
___
* Usually, Captain Picard, or someone else, would have noticed something was amiss, then raced back in time to stop the film's bad guy Nero from changing the past. Sometimes it seemed that the only thing Starfleet did from the 90s onward was fly around fixing time paradoxes.
** The film could be considered a Crisis On Infinite Earths styled in-story reset that appealed to geeks. But it was also a way for everyone else to reconnect with one of popular culture's most recognizable television shows, while conveniently sidelining the rest of the franchise. After all, no one cares about Captain Archer. But who doesn't know Spock?
10/06/2011
10/05/2011
Crisis No More
There are a couple of things that come to mind upon hearing this news:
1. This only compounds the impression that the DC New 52 relaunch was poorly conceived and poorly planned. Why bother resetting your universe with a "crisis" event in the first place, then make this announcement much later?
2. Continuity is a straightjacket that the publisher still can't untangle.
3. The whole "shared universe" experience is something DC and Marvel continue to hold on to, and hardcore fans care about. To everyone else, it's of no real interest.
4. Preceding a relaunch with a universe-wide crisis event has run its course, creatively speaking. Each attempt results in dwindling returns. Call it tradition, or inertia. It certainly isn't imagination.
5. Following from #2 and #3, do we still need all of the intellectual properties to always cohabit the same fictional space? Why insist that Batman and Wonder Woman work and live in the same universe when you can write some stories where they interact regularly, and others where they function as completely independent entites? The relaunch could have been used as a pretense to move in a truly different direction, instead of a a way to reset the timeline of some of their titles.
6. Partially answering my own question, a lot of the Big 2's storytelling tropes are reflected in their real-world dependence on the monthly serial pamphlet. It's the engine that still drives the direct market. and from what I understand, the New 52 relaunch has been a financial success for many comic book stores. How much of that may just be a temporary sales spike that can't be sustained long-term is quite another thing. But for now, the status quo is being maintained.
7. How long before DC decides to stage another crisis event, now that they've apparently whitewashed them out of existence?
(originally posted on Google+)
10/02/2011
10/01/2011
9/27/2011
Idiotic Ideas: Starfire's Transluscent Bikini (Updated)
Go to: Shortpacked! by David Willis
Go to: My Tree House
(via Heidi MacDonald)
I'm slightly alarmed that some people at DC even seriously considered this. I haven't read the comic book in question. But judging from the panels floating around the Web, it already reads less like a legitimate story in itself, and more like stroke material drawn by a fan who grew up on New Teen Titans. That's fine as fan fiction, but alienating to a whole swath of potential new readers. And it's even more embarrassing if this is indicative of the poor quality of the rest of the story.
But what's truly demoralizing is that I'm beginning to suspect that this scene is actually representative of the overall approach of DC's nu52 relaunch.
Update: I also find it a little creepy that Michelle Lee trotted out her 7 year old daughter reading a comic rated for older readers to make a point, even if it's one I agree with it. Listen, I'm not complaining that DC has subjected their intellectual properties to wildly different interpretations over time. That's the company's prerogative. The problem with Starfire as a character is that she doesn't have that high a public profile to begin with. To most people, she's a member of the Teen Titans in the children's animated TV series, as well as appearing in the kid-friendly Tiny Titans comic book. So going with slutty, amnesiac, and badly written Starfire parading around like a porn actress in a swimsuit that could have been even more revealing, had someone gotten their way, represents a lost opportunity to sell more comics. Not to mention a way to counter their already negative image regarding their treatment of women. Instead, DC has gone out of their way to reinforce it. If there's anything that says that the nu52 is meant for fanboy eyes only, it's a blatantly voyeuristic scene like this.
9/26/2011
Contagion
Like any disaster movie, Contagion is trying to scare you. It just does it in a more reasonable manner. There are a couple of Hollywood touches, and the timeline for the virus' spread up to the administering of a vaccine is accelerated for plot convenience. But the overall nature of the pandemic is plausible. This isn't a zombie virus, or something with a 100% mortality rate. It is somewhat more potent than the real diseases that have killed millions by spreading around the world. Director Steven Soderbergh chooses to look at the big picture, rather than through the eyes of ordinary people on the ground. The scenes of societal breakdown are there, but they're mainly there to mark the passage of time. The film keeps them at arm's lengths. Rather, the emotional tension comes from the scientists and doctors struggling to stem the spread of the virus.
Unlike most populist films which portray corporations as inherently evil, and science running amuck creating freaks of nature (Rise of the Planet of the Apes being a recent example), Contagion takes a slightly more ambivalent approach. Not that corporations and governments can't be secretive, manipulative, avaricious, or even blind to the concerns of the average person. But when the origin of the virus is finally revealed, it's as much a product of blind chance as it is to human foibles. In contrast to large institutions, the individual doctors studying the virus are an altruistic bunch, whether they're from the CDC, WHO, or a private lab. Their dedication is admirable as it is low key and fruitful, to the point of dying in the line of duty. Yay, scientific method!
Where Contagion does have an axe to grind is on the people who profit from spreading false information, fear, and paranoia. Soderbergh doesn't attack his colleagues in Hollywood or the mainstream news media. That would be too obvious. He goes for new media types instead, embodied by a snaggle-toothed blogger (played by Jude Law) who irresponsibly spreads conspiracy theories about the world's governments and big pharmacies temporarily suppressing a cure in order to make a huge windfall later, while peddling an ineffective homeopathic remedy of his own. He must have gotten his ideas from some stupid Hollywood movie plot. Amiright?
That's the blatant double-meaning of the film's title - that memes can be as destructive as actual viruses. The sentiment gets boiled down to a simplistic pronouncement muttered by one of the film's heroic doctors (played by Elliott Gould) "Blogging isn't journalism! It's graffiti with punctuation!" Nice burn, doc! One point for the old guard.
Soderbergh's montage-like cinematography is particularly suited to this story. Like his previous movies, Soderbergh assembles an impressive ensemble of A-list and character actors: Lawrence Fishburne gives a measured performance, and anchors the film, as a CDC director, Jennifer Ehle is a dedicated virologist, Kate Winslet and Marion Cotillard are intelligent epidemiological investigators. The film does a good job in portraying women as competent scientists. Then there's Gwyneth Paltrow who unwittingly brings the virus back to the US and becomes its first American casualty, and her sympathetic husband Matt Damon. Most of them don't interact directly with each other, as they're tackling the virus in their respective capacitis in different parts of the world. A clever thing about killing-off Paltrow so early is that it forces the audience out of any complacency. No character is exempt from death. Not even the famous ones.
If I had to sum up the message of Contagion, it's "let cooler heads prevail." While not preaching blind trust, it does ask us to not give in to wild speculation. Let the scientists get on with their jobs. When the outbreak first gets the attention of the Department of Homeland Security, they send a couple of their spooks to question Fishburne about whether it's possible someone weaponized SARS or the Bird Flu virus. "Nobody needed to do that" he replies, "The birds are doing it themselves."
9/23/2011
9/20/2011
Green Lantern: Ganthet's Tale
I am disappointed to discover you so bound up with myth and ritualGreen Lantern: Ganthet's Tale was an odd experiment from DC that never panned out. It got lost between the shuffle of more high profile events like The Death of Superman and Knightfall, and the soft relaunch of Zero Hour. I couldn't find the book for sale on DC's website during a recent search. Its primary claim to fame was that it introduced the character Ganthet, and is often credited for getting the ball rolling for Hal Jordan's controversial heel turn during the infamous Emerald Twilight. But its subtext was basically ignored by succeeding writers. And that comes as no surprise. Noted science fiction author Larry Niven was hired to write "Ganthet's Tale" long before DC started touting mainstream talents like Brad Meltzer or Allan Heinberg. But unlike those guys, Niven was perfectly attuned to the SF underpinnings of superheroes, and especially of Green Lantern. A little too attuned as it turned out, because he revised the history of the Green Lantern Corps in such a way that was far more rationally outlined than the rest of the DC Universe steeped in "myth and ritual". Geoff Johns, Jim Lee, and especially Grant Morrison, would probably have hated writing for it.
- Ganthet
Anyway, spoilers ahead:
You see, the GLC have their own version of the fall from grace and original sin. A long long long time ago, a brilliant scientist named Krona dared to break his society's greatest taboo - studying the origin of the universe. He builds a machine that allows him to peer back to the very beginning of time. What he sees is an almighty hand fashioning a proto-universe out of the void. His machine then mysteriously explodes. Krona is punished for his crime, but from his act of disobedience, evil is born into the universe. Knowledgeable GL fans will tell you that guilt over Krona's behavior eventually leads to future generations of his race, now called the Guardians of Oa, into founding the GLC to wipe out evil from the universe.
"Ganthet's Tale" begins with a rehash of these events, but ends it with the narrator concluding "This is, of course, a lie." The narrator turns out to be a Guardian named Ganthet, who then proceeds to draft Hal Jordan into helping him locate an Earth-based offshoot of the Guardians. Funnily enough, we know them as Leprechauns. After finding one such community and revealing to them their alien birthright, an elderly male named Percival chooses to take Ganthet up on his offer. So the trio fly into space, where Ganthet reveals to them the real story of the origins of the Guardians of Oa.
The myth, as it turns out, is an elaborate ruse to hide the fact that the Guardians evolved over time, just like every other life-form. Their origins are on the planet Maltus, where the native Maltusians first began to exhibit the abilities that would one day culminate in the Guardians and the GLC. But its misuse, especially amongst the young, led to the decimation of the planet's' ecology, necessitating a mass exodus to find other inhabitable worlds. While most attempts to rebuild Maltusian society failed, one colony on the planet Oa succeeded after a fashion - the Guardians. In order to protect themselves from external threats, they founded the GLC. But they also projected sophisticated illusions backwards in time to deter attacks on their past. As Ganthet explains "The further back you look, the more powerful we become, until, like Krona, you gaze upon the creation, and behold us as the very progenitors of the universe itself." Krona, himself a Maltusian, was an unintended victim and scapegoat of this whitewashing of history.
There's quite a bit more that's revealed through various twists and turns. I get the impression that Niven is cramming as many ideas as he can within a 60 page comic book. He glosses over several plot points and fails to develop the voices of most of the supporting characters. Percival and especially Hal are reduced to slow-witted sidekicks, and the main antagonists Dawlakispokpok and Thwarcharchura come across as slightly generic. The only memorable character is Ganthet himself, whose sharp tongue often reminds me of a prickly professor urging his students to keep up with him. And that's awesome! He gets the best lines in the book. And Niven's smart characterization will never be sucessfully duplicated by future GL writers. The art supplied by John Byrne uses the sketchier style he developed after he started inking his own pencils. It's efficient. It gets the job done, but it's a bit too bland to look at for my tastes. It doesn't do anything to evoke the grandeur of the book's cosmic setting. This is a dense read that's long on exposition and short on the kind of action fans of the genre have come to expect. The book's two big fight scenes are pretty restrained, with an emphasis on brains beating brawn. At one point Ganthet chastises Hal for objecting to a certain tactic with "That is because you insist on thinking like a warrior, instead of a scientist." Oh snap!
So how does "Ganthet's Tale" stack up, nineteen years later? It's relatively ambitious, but feels truncated. Niven puts some serious effort into wedding hard science with the superhero genre. But the results fall short. Perhaps he's taking it all too seriously. Perhaps more pages were needed to develop his ideas. Perhaps with more freedom, he'd end up with something fractionally closer to the expansive space operas he built his reputation on. Who knows? There's a familiar SF feel in his ability to conjure up alien civilizations that have been developing for countless eons. Niven takes a big picture approach to the rise and fall of empires, the fabrication and perpetuation of falsehoods, science vs. religion, the battle of the sexes, and of an indifferent universe ultimately devoid of absolute good or evil. I still possess a good deal of affection for what Niven was trying to do. But if fans remember "Ganthet's Tale" at all, they probably treat it as the setup to Hal becoming a villain.
9/17/2011
Jason Thompson bends the ComiPo! EULA
Go to: Jason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga at Anime News Network
Jason Thompson reviews the ComiPo! manga-creation software, and uses it to create a comic "inspired by the recent case in which an American citizen, flying to Canada, was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography due to some dojinshi he had saved in digital form on his laptop."
9/16/2011
9/14/2011
9/12/2011
More NonSense: To Explore Strange New Worlds
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| USS Enterprise, image courtesy of Memory Alpha |
Last week marked the 45th anniversary of the television premiere of Star Trek. I've loved this show since I first watched it on late night television reruns in the 80s. It still remains an enduring passion after all this time. Star Trek was escapist fantasy in the best sense; A constant reminder that there was a larger universe out there than I could ever imagine. And I continue to believe in the value of space exploration and scientific research. While I have come to recognize the limitations of the show itself, its progressive tone, utopian vision, and ethnically diverse cast continue to be a source of inspiration. Star Trek was the first television series to impress on me that science fiction could intelligently address contemporary socio-political issues. And while the formula it originally employed has become stale to downright embarrassing from overuse, Trek's influence can still be felt within the television industry, popular science fiction, and popular culture in general.
Other commentary: David Alan Doane, They Boldly Went, Ryan Paul, Charlie Jane Anders, Ty Templeton,
While it might be awhile before we have a better overall understanding of the influence of 9-11, it would be equally hard to deny that it has had an impact on popular fiction. The event certainly raises questions about the nature of evil, the uses and abuses and limits of power, human rights, and it has inspired new apocalyptic scenarios. I'm of the opinion that the superhero genre would have been popular even if 9-11 didn't happen, but Charlie Jane Anders lists the various ways in which the present glut of superhero movies refer to it. Annalee Newitz does the same with science fiction. Andrew O'Hehir notes how some of the most sucessful film franchises only obliquely refered to 9-11. Matt Zoller Seitz lists various works that were inluenced by 9-11, starting with In the Shadow of no Towers. Paul Gravett discusses two works by Joe Sacco and David B.
Manga Out Loud podcast with Rob McMonigal, Brigid Alverson, Alex Hoffman, & Lissa Pattillo, discussing digital manga.
Dustin Harbin on digital comics.
Rob Steibel on the origins of the "Kirby Crackle".
Chris Sims points out that at least some fans also hated the 1987 Batman reboot by Frank Miller.
It's become cliche to argue that superheroes are modern myth, except that they're owned by faceless corporations. Charlie Jane Anders presents a chart tracking this ownership.
Video: How do we know for sure that we live in three dimensions?
Video: Charles Schulz draws Charlie Brown
Dave Uzumeri explains what's changed within DC continuity with this week's crop of DC issue #1s.
Jess Nevins on the early history of the shared universe.
9/11/2011
9/10/2011
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