If there's any doubt that DC Comics has moved to a number crunching behemoth of creative despair, today form Randy I received a link pointing me to a story about DC's latest effort, Multiverse Comics. Basically, digital choose your own adventure comics.
At this point in the tenure of Diane Nelson, any hope for a creative renaissance at the company should be replaced with more of a visual of someone selling t-shirts outside the Louvre with a picture of Mona Lisa in a bikini top with a knife gripped in her teeth.*
There's a lot of reasons to sort of want to put your head down on the table about this one.
In 1991 or so the first hypertext fiction appeared, which promised branching narratives and the ability to dig further into a narrative - all in standard prose. If you were going to raves and enjoying smart drinks in 1994, it all sounded like a nifty part of our bright future of this series of tubes called "the interwebs". Just get yourself a 1600 baud modem and go nuts.
"But, hey The League," you might say. "It's 2013! Where can I purchase some of this hypertext fiction that's clearly the wave of the future?"
Tragically, it went the way of the Dippin' Dots and may not have been the ice cream/ preferred narrative construct of the future.
Film. Comics. Sci-Fi. Superheroes. Pulp. Noir. History. Superman. 20th Century Archaeology.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Monday, June 3, 2013
The Internet Archive and What I Do For a Living
Pal JuanD sent me this video. I'm sharing it because it's a really, really good glimpse into the problems I work on every day at work. Sort of. Half the time I think I'm just looking for receipts or figuring out how many stuffed mushrooms we can afford on our conference's cheap-o budget.
Man, I wish I could just focus on the technical problems.
Internet Archive from Deepspeed media on Vimeo.
Our office actually has two missions. We're providing tools to enable researchers to publish born-digital content in both traditional ways (but using new technologies for peer review journals, etc..) and providing options for new media options such as blogs or other modes of scholarly writing. And we're doing this whole preservation bit of both scanned materials and born-digital materials.
What we're doing that's somewhat different from the video is that we're attempting to capture all of the scholarly output from universities and bring it up and online - not scan kid's books that we think someone else will likely handle.
Of course, a lot of people I work with are cogs who don't necessarily get the bigger picture, or work for people who can't pull it all together to get the big picture and so a lot of mistakes are made. A lot of preservable items are lost. The common consensus is that in 200 years, this early digital era will be a dark ages in many ways as we still aren't smart about keeping anything digital. We still think of print copies as the final edition.
As we also commonly say, it's going to take a lot of people retiring or dying before we have a generation promoted to decision making positions who will work with the technology to make sure the digital copies aren't seen as something to rot on a 3.5" floppy in a drawer.
Anyway, great video.
Man, I wish I could just focus on the technical problems.
Internet Archive from Deepspeed media on Vimeo.
Our office actually has two missions. We're providing tools to enable researchers to publish born-digital content in both traditional ways (but using new technologies for peer review journals, etc..) and providing options for new media options such as blogs or other modes of scholarly writing. And we're doing this whole preservation bit of both scanned materials and born-digital materials.
What we're doing that's somewhat different from the video is that we're attempting to capture all of the scholarly output from universities and bring it up and online - not scan kid's books that we think someone else will likely handle.
Of course, a lot of people I work with are cogs who don't necessarily get the bigger picture, or work for people who can't pull it all together to get the big picture and so a lot of mistakes are made. A lot of preservable items are lost. The common consensus is that in 200 years, this early digital era will be a dark ages in many ways as we still aren't smart about keeping anything digital. We still think of print copies as the final edition.
As we also commonly say, it's going to take a lot of people retiring or dying before we have a generation promoted to decision making positions who will work with the technology to make sure the digital copies aren't seen as something to rot on a 3.5" floppy in a drawer.
Anyway, great video.
Signal Watches "Brick" from 2005
Between his role as the adorable kid on 90's sitcome 3rd Rock from the Sun and his leap to leading man status in 2012, Joseph Gordon-Levitt made a peculiar film with Looper writer/ director Rian Johnson.
I cannot begin to imagine how my high school brain would have dealt with this movie, but I am fairly certain I would have believed it to be The Best Movie Ever. Basically, it's a faux-Dashiell Hammett mystery set in a high school with a hard-boiled detective replaced by a hard-boiled high school senior, playing the angles and trying to get to the mystery that opens the film, of what happened to his ex-girlfriend who had reached out to him days before for help, seemingly wrapped up in some trouble with local drug peddlers.
The film is both curiously believable as a low-level crime story happening in the margins around high schoolers, just outside the periphery of parent or teacher supervision. But because of the similarities to the stories of Hammett and Chandler that have so permeated western fiction, it's also an interesting point of view that the sorts of things we usually tie to the adult world we know are happening just out of view even in suburban sprawl at public high schools.
I do wish some of the writing were a bit tighter, but it's a signature move of Chandler or Hammett work to see the plot become so twisted it takes a chart to keep it all straight. That sort of thing pays off well in repeated viewings, and while I did watch this movie years ago (probably in 2007) I'll probably not wait 6 years between viewings again so I don't feel like I'm just playing catch-up the whole time.
Joseph Gordon-Leviitt shows chops that so many child actors dream of having but never develop as they get older and have the usual post-child star tail spin. If you want to see some of what materialized on the big screen in 2012 with this guy in an earlier stage, I think JGL was already pretty excellent here.
I cannot begin to imagine how my high school brain would have dealt with this movie, but I am fairly certain I would have believed it to be The Best Movie Ever. Basically, it's a faux-Dashiell Hammett mystery set in a high school with a hard-boiled detective replaced by a hard-boiled high school senior, playing the angles and trying to get to the mystery that opens the film, of what happened to his ex-girlfriend who had reached out to him days before for help, seemingly wrapped up in some trouble with local drug peddlers.
The film is both curiously believable as a low-level crime story happening in the margins around high schoolers, just outside the periphery of parent or teacher supervision. But because of the similarities to the stories of Hammett and Chandler that have so permeated western fiction, it's also an interesting point of view that the sorts of things we usually tie to the adult world we know are happening just out of view even in suburban sprawl at public high schools.
I do wish some of the writing were a bit tighter, but it's a signature move of Chandler or Hammett work to see the plot become so twisted it takes a chart to keep it all straight. That sort of thing pays off well in repeated viewings, and while I did watch this movie years ago (probably in 2007) I'll probably not wait 6 years between viewings again so I don't feel like I'm just playing catch-up the whole time.
Joseph Gordon-Leviitt shows chops that so many child actors dream of having but never develop as they get older and have the usual post-child star tail spin. If you want to see some of what materialized on the big screen in 2012 with this guy in an earlier stage, I think JGL was already pretty excellent here.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Sort of Going Through a Thing as I Downsize my Comic Stuff Collection
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| my office from some time ago, when I was doing some other renovation work in there |
For clarification - the front room of our house had been intended to be a sort of reading room and casual conversation room, and the bookshelves were full of statues from DC Direct and other places, and it was a real conversation starter. But nobody ever wanted to actually sit in there. And for some reason the dogs go crazy when I go in there to try and read. Also, I have my office, which was where I'd put my action figures, toys, comics and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Amazing color footage of Superman Day at 1939 World's Fair!
This is really remarkable. All those kids in Superman shirts! It's hard to imagine, this was just about 1 year after Superman debuted in the comics and already the character was a hit with the masses.
You can see DC publisher Harry Donenfeld riding an elephant, Jack Liebowitz and MC Gaines, and Jerry Siegel. I half think the woman at the end might be Siegel's first wife, but I'm not sure.
I've read about so many of these people over the years, it's wild to see them in living color.
This is all before DC really settled on the looks of Superman "S" shiefd, as evidenced by the costume and the kids' shirts.
I'm always amazed to see footage like this, candid shots of folks on the street, to see what people actually looked like and how they dressed, rather than relying on the soft filter of the Hollywood lens.
You can see DC publisher Harry Donenfeld riding an elephant, Jack Liebowitz and MC Gaines, and Jerry Siegel. I half think the woman at the end might be Siegel's first wife, but I'm not sure.
I've read about so many of these people over the years, it's wild to see them in living color.
This is all before DC really settled on the looks of Superman "S" shiefd, as evidenced by the costume and the kids' shirts.
I'm always amazed to see footage like this, candid shots of folks on the street, to see what people actually looked like and how they dressed, rather than relying on the soft filter of the Hollywood lens.
Matty Turns 40
League Pal Matt - who you rarely see mentioned here, basically because he thinks genre stuff is dumb and will not play ball - has turned 40.
Here's Matt with Nicole last year on his birthday. We may have had a few cocktails at the time this pic was snapped.
Matt and Nicole are in Berkeley with the California squad. We trust they will ensure Matt has a festive b-day.
Here he is by a rock somewhere near the ocean. I don't know what the hell he's doing there. Maybe trying to pick a spot for the cover of his album of sea shanties.
Happy 40th, man. You don't look a day over 52.
Here's Matt with Nicole last year on his birthday. We may have had a few cocktails at the time this pic was snapped.
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| Ladypal Nicole with Matty, the birthday boy |
Here he is by a rock somewhere near the ocean. I don't know what the hell he's doing there. Maybe trying to pick a spot for the cover of his album of sea shanties.
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| you can tell he's really enjoying himself |
Happy 40th, man. You don't look a day over 52.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Supermarathon! Superman Returns
I've already written plenty on this movie over the past 7 years. I mean, a lot. Leading up to the movie, I did a whole "Summer of Superman" theme, and it was sort of a thing. I even got re-blogged by Pop Candy at USA Today thanks to our own JimD.
I won't deluge you with all the links where the movie got a mention, but here are a few. I'm not proud of some of this.
The first blush comments
When the press (that had oddly really been pulling for this movie to fail) started reporting with glee that there would be no sequel and I got a little pissy
Watching the movie again about 5 months later
And then in November when I watched the movie during my "let's review everything in 2012" deal
I don't think my opinions or feelings have changed much since that viewing in November 2012. Superman Returns is a strange movie. Beautifully shot, amazing art and set design, and it really swung for the fences when it came to subtext and layering. But given public opinion and some wonky bits, it's a mixed bag.
I won't deluge you with all the links where the movie got a mention, but here are a few. I'm not proud of some of this.
The first blush comments
When the press (that had oddly really been pulling for this movie to fail) started reporting with glee that there would be no sequel and I got a little pissy
Watching the movie again about 5 months later
And then in November when I watched the movie during my "let's review everything in 2012" deal
I don't think my opinions or feelings have changed much since that viewing in November 2012. Superman Returns is a strange movie. Beautifully shot, amazing art and set design, and it really swung for the fences when it came to subtext and layering. But given public opinion and some wonky bits, it's a mixed bag.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
No Post Friday - Wonder Woman stands in
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| PEW PEW PEW!!! PING PING PING!!!! |
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| one of you once mentioned how much you loved this cover. Here you go! |
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Why not? Let's talk about some music stuff
To the outrage of my techno-purist pals, I am sure, I'm quite a fan of the new Daft Punk album. We recommend. And it's the first time in a few albums where I like the whole album as a listen from beginning to end.
It's gonna be my summer jam.
The video below is clearly not an official video, but I kinda miss Soul Train.
I should probably email Marshall or JimD to get some intelligence on the band "Pickwick", because I've really dug this one song they keep playing on KUTX, "Lady Luck"
I think this is my summer of vaguely retro-y sounding songs or something.
Further evidence can be seen in that I've also embraced "Elephant" by Tame Impala.
Feel free to draw your own comparisons there.
And, I think on Steven's suggestion, I'm kind of checking out early-Siouxsie sound-alikes, Savages.
It's gonna be my summer jam.
The video below is clearly not an official video, but I kinda miss Soul Train.
I should probably email Marshall or JimD to get some intelligence on the band "Pickwick", because I've really dug this one song they keep playing on KUTX, "Lady Luck"
I think this is my summer of vaguely retro-y sounding songs or something.
Further evidence can be seen in that I've also embraced "Elephant" by Tame Impala.
Feel free to draw your own comparisons there.
And, I think on Steven's suggestion, I'm kind of checking out early-Siouxsie sound-alikes, Savages.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Gone to Big D For a Few Days
Tonight I went and saw Enter the Dragon at the Alamo Ritz with Juan, CousinSue, Amy and Jason. if you're never seen this Bruce Lee vehicle... I am not sure I can help you other than to recommend you check it out as soon as possible.
I'm not the world's biggest Bruce Lee fan, and maybe that's a mistake. I dig what that guy is up to, and he is absolutely fascinating to watch. I still don't think American film has seen his like since, and even in imports, I'm not sure the guys I used to watch in college quite captured the athleticism and intensity of Lee. Well, maybe Jet Li.
Tomorrow I am headed off for Dallas for a few days for work.
I'm not the world's biggest Bruce Lee fan, and maybe that's a mistake. I dig what that guy is up to, and he is absolutely fascinating to watch. I still don't think American film has seen his like since, and even in imports, I'm not sure the guys I used to watch in college quite captured the athleticism and intensity of Lee. Well, maybe Jet Li.
Tomorrow I am headed off for Dallas for a few days for work.
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| this trip will be tragically short on Victoria Principal |
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