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Thursday, February 12, 2009

Occasional Links: Mad Ideas, Watchmen, Star Trek, more



Was this Dilbert cartoon from 2005 yet another Nostradamus-type prediction for our current financial crisis?


Steven Grant on Grant Morrison & Final Crisis:
http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/resources/2007/04/grant2.jpg
"Anyway, at this point the one remaining major comics writer who has consistently clung to and through his work championed the cause of mad ideas is Grant Morrison, who packed FINAL CRISIS with more mad ideas per square inch than virtually all other "mad ideas" comics combined. Many of them are brilliant, in their context. But as I mentioned last week, it hits such a density it becomes a virtual black hole of mad ideas, with such a gravitational pull that story can barely escape it, and then only the edges of the story are visible. Story in FINAL CRISIS isn't story, as traditionally understood in western literature, and certainly not in comics; it's the event horizon of mad ideas."

Joss Whedon says there will be no Dark Horse comic book tie-in for his new TV show Dollhouse:
"You know, the science fiction of this is much more fiction than science. Ultimately it’s actors acting differently, which is not that - Something you really need to see drawn. There is, however, CSI comic books. So I guess everything could be a comic book. But I don’t feel it lends itself in the same way that my other fictions have."


Take a look at Donald Duck's Family Tree.



Would Alan Moore be cool about this Watchmen video game?


"I'm not going to spoil it for those of you who haven't read the graphic novel, but I can at least say that while Watchmen was all about miserable people dealing with their own personal crises, the game wisely takes place before the events of the book."
Oy.


Eddie Izzard set to appear in Day Of The Triffids remake for the BBC...with Jason Priestley and Brian Cox! Awesomeness!


CBS is streaming classic Star Trek (that's SHATNER TREK to you, none of that Picardo stuff) in HD on their website. Episodes include Turnabout Intruder, The Trouble With Tribbles, and Mirror, Mirror.

Just to show that fan discontent transcends just comics, pro wrestling fan takes the WWE to task and tells them to Stop The Crap. An interesting point made in the post?
"Want some free promotion? Get with the times. Allow us to embed your videos!"


A look at JLA T-shirts through the ages, with a focus on Firestorm. Found on the Firestorm Fan site, of course.
Finally, this Los Angeles promotional video from the 90s gives me hemorrhoids...and not in a good way!

I love the stuttering video effects in this. Made me want to smack that drink right out of Jack Wagner's hand.

11 comments:

  1. As soon as I started watching that great video, I got the feeling it was from Everything is Terrible, which I LOVE. He/she has a tendency to mess with the edits in some videos that are truncated versions of the original, horrible crap, so that's why there are those weird hiccups.

    Also: I am moving to NYC. Want to be best pals? We can eat Korean food!

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  2. Did Los Angeles of all places REALLY need some tourist video to attract people to it? I'd think just being LA would bring in people...

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  3. The problem I had with grant's article is how utterly dismissive it is. This theory of "mad ideas", putting a label on creative comics writing that happened to spring from the Moores, Gaimans, and Morrisons of the world, is bogus because it implies each of these creators is similar, which is untrue. It's as if he's saying, "well, there was a time and a place for new and interesting ideas in comics, and that has passed." Final Crisis worked for me because, whether you loved it or hated it, it made you think. I feel its important to be challenged by media and art, and Secret Invasion, that utter disaster over at Marvel, was a simple comic. Here I'm paraphrasing Brandon Thomas' Ambidextrous post today on Newsarama, but people assume Grant Morrison is high and mighty and thinks he's better than you, but I don't think he's ever implied that. It's inferred by fans who are afraid of the density of his work.

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  4. Some people might be, as you put it, "afraid of the density" of Morrison's work on book like Final Crisis -- it is just too complex for them.

    But some are just not entertained by it. Should it be inferred that the reason they didn't enjoy the series is because they're just not smart enough to "get" what he's saying?

    Because I read that IGN interview with Morrison 3 times and it really felt like this is what he was inferring. That if somebody didn't "get" Final Crisis, there was a problem with the reader, because the book was -- at its very essence -- *epic*.

    I mean...yay for Morrison's obviously high self-esteem. But it was sort of a turn-off, especially for somebody who really enjoyed his earlier works and thought he was rather cool. I just wish he handled that interview a bit differently, that's all.

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  5. I completely agree that you can dislike anything you want, even if you do understand it. Hell, I wrote a whole post about completely NOT understanding Final Crisis, but I still enjoyed it, and have since re-read it.

    The problem I had was specific to Steven Grant's post. I felt he implied people are tired of creators trying to be innovative in comics (because that's all this "mad ideas" hogwash means to me.) I won't deny that some people probably feel that way, but I definitely think its far from a majority-- though who knows?

    As far as that IGN interview I think a lot of people feel the way you described. I just didn't see it, but I suppose that's the case when you're on opposite sides of a debate. But when Grant says some people like their burgers a certain way, I don't know if it was a jab as much as an observation. Maybe some people don't feel like thinking when they read comics, which is fine. It doesn't mean complex, dense, or original storytelling shouldn't take place.

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  6. Please be advised that the Duck family tree is different in Europe, due to certain storylines.

    I keep hoping for a "Money Bin" deluxe edition of "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck", with this on the endpapers, but until then, I believe this was printed by Gladstone back before Gemstone.

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  7. For a more thorough duck family tree: http://goofy313g.free.fr.nyud.net/calisota_online/trees/ducktrees/myducktree/index.html

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  8. Anonymous6:33 PM

    I have a problem with Steven suggesting non-traditionally western literature stories are a black hole of confusion. Is it really a poor thing to read something a little different than the typical simple narrative used in most American comics? If anything, the playing with narration, closure and "right-brain" storytelling was what I liked most about Final Crisis.

    But, yeah, Morrison can come off a little cocky in interviews. I think in a more playful way than say Jeph Loeb saying Ultimatum is comparable to 9/11 and the Holocaust.

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  9. My reaction to the Watchmen video game is predicated on one simple and vitally important question: do I get to fly the Owlship.

    If yes, genius.

    If no, travesty!

    Stac

    Ps. Oh come on, like you weren't thinkin' it. . .

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  10. Anonymous12:37 AM

    I was in my new writing class today, and I started thinking about it:
    Final Crisis is Lady in the Water.

    Both are self-indulgent fantasies about how the one guy writing the story is awesome.

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  11. Thanks for the shout out! Love your blog!

    The Irredeemable Shag
    http://firestormfan.com

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