Looks like the last time I mentioned Gen Con Indy on this blog was back in 2008, which is almost a shame. After all, I post more here, I have more readers here, and the folks over here are more likely to head out to a gaming convention for its stated purpose.
So here's the scoop: At that trip in 2008, my group went to a panel put on by some Indiana Ghost Hunters. Being of a scientific, skeptical mindset, we figured "hey, we can do that," and put on a panel of our own the next year (which I was only peripherally involved with, owing to the fact that I triple-booked that weekend with weddings). Last year, I returned to Gen Con as part of the Skeptical Gamers, and we put on a pretty successful series of talks about science and skepticism. We also raised $800 for the Indiana Vaccination Coalition, doing some real, tangible good for a state that needs it (not that all states don't need better vaccination rates). I wrote all about it here if you want more detail.
This year, the Skeptical Gamers are back, and while there have been some unfortunate snafus, we're hoping to have just as much fun and success this year. I'll be speaking in various panels over the weekend on Conspiracy Theories, Cargo Cult Science, Cryptozoology, and General Skepticism, and I'm pretty proud of the presentations I've helped put together for the first and last of those. If you're anywhere near Indianapolis next weekend, I highly recommend stopping by and saying hello.
Oh, and the schedule of panels and talks is right here. Hope to see you there!
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Friday, July 29, 2011
It's a Derp!
So that "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman" musical soundtrack I posted about yesterday? I opened it up this morning to rip the tracks so I could listen to it on my iPhone. There was just one problem: it didn't fit onto the little CD-holder spinny bit in my laptop's disc tray.
Looking at the CD, it appeared that the hole was just too small, that there was a little semi-cut circle around that center hole, which was supposed to have been punched out, but wasn't. "Okay," I said, contacting my inner Tim Taylor. "I can fix this. I just need to cut out that center plastic."
So I sat down with a cutting board and a bright lamp and an X-Acto knife, and I went to work. I did pretty well with my CD surgery, cutting out a little chunk of the plastic, figuring I could work on the rest from there. At about that time, I broke the tip off my X-Acto knife and decided to take a break.
I approached my wife, ever the voice of reason, to pitch the next phase of my plan at her (of course, I have more than one X-Acto knife). "I think I know a way to make this go faster, but it will also be more dangerous. I could heat up the blade."
She responded by telling me that this was a bad idea, and that I should just buy a new CD.
I was somewhat dismayed by this turn of affairs, but happy that I had permission to just replace the semi-mutilated disc. Whereupon we went to lunch and ran some errands.
My mind mulled over this problem in the background over the course of the early afternoon, and hit upon something I should have noticed earlier (but in my zeal to do some manly tool-work-cutting, I missed): if the hole in the center was too small, how would it fit on the little plastic CD-holding-bit in the jewel case?
Returning home, I decided to test this new notion, and tried the CD in the disc tray again. It fit. I was just apparently uncoordinated and stupid before.
So now I have a slightly-mutilated Superman musical soundtrack CD, and it's a good thing that I don't listen to the actual physical discs very often anymore. And I feel like precisely the idiot that I am. But at least it ripped!
If yesterday was Mark Waid day, then today was Superman day. The rest of my online Borders order arrived, including things that I wasn't aware had shipped yet. So now I have Superman Chronicles Vol. 5 and 6 on my shelf, as well as Michael Eury's "The Krypton Companion" and the Neal Adams/Denny O'Neil "Superman vs. Muhammad Ali" hardcover reprint, which I've never actually read. So that's exciting.
And as long as today is Superman Day, I might as well mention something I've been meaning to talk about in the last couple of posts. I'm reading Elliot S! Maggin's second Superman novel, "Miracle Monday," and it's quite enjoyable, but one bit has really stuck out. Kristin Wells, the time-traveling historian who would later become Superwoman, writes a journal entry about halfway through the book, shortly after she'd been possessed or otherwise influenced by the book's villain, the demonic C.W. Saturn. It's some of the best subtle, psychological horror I've read in a superhero story. I feel like it's damning with faint praise to say it reminded me of Stephen King's short story "1408," but it's the same kind of slow-burn madness evidenced by things just being slightly off, and it's accomplished in a fairly small space. You can read it here, though I suspect it won't have the same impact if you haven't read the rest of the book up to it. So you could start here then.
Laura Hudson wrote essay on female creators at DC, why it's important, and why Dan Didio's dismissive, defensive answers to the problem are a problem. It's worth reading if you haven't, and I agree with it on pretty much every count.
Looking at the CD, it appeared that the hole was just too small, that there was a little semi-cut circle around that center hole, which was supposed to have been punched out, but wasn't. "Okay," I said, contacting my inner Tim Taylor. "I can fix this. I just need to cut out that center plastic."
So I sat down with a cutting board and a bright lamp and an X-Acto knife, and I went to work. I did pretty well with my CD surgery, cutting out a little chunk of the plastic, figuring I could work on the rest from there. At about that time, I broke the tip off my X-Acto knife and decided to take a break.
I approached my wife, ever the voice of reason, to pitch the next phase of my plan at her (of course, I have more than one X-Acto knife). "I think I know a way to make this go faster, but it will also be more dangerous. I could heat up the blade."
She responded by telling me that this was a bad idea, and that I should just buy a new CD.
I was somewhat dismayed by this turn of affairs, but happy that I had permission to just replace the semi-mutilated disc. Whereupon we went to lunch and ran some errands.
My mind mulled over this problem in the background over the course of the early afternoon, and hit upon something I should have noticed earlier (but in my zeal to do some manly tool-work-cutting, I missed): if the hole in the center was too small, how would it fit on the little plastic CD-holding-bit in the jewel case?
Returning home, I decided to test this new notion, and tried the CD in the disc tray again. It fit. I was just apparently uncoordinated and stupid before.
So now I have a slightly-mutilated Superman musical soundtrack CD, and it's a good thing that I don't listen to the actual physical discs very often anymore. And I feel like precisely the idiot that I am. But at least it ripped!
If yesterday was Mark Waid day, then today was Superman day. The rest of my online Borders order arrived, including things that I wasn't aware had shipped yet. So now I have Superman Chronicles Vol. 5 and 6 on my shelf, as well as Michael Eury's "The Krypton Companion" and the Neal Adams/Denny O'Neil "Superman vs. Muhammad Ali" hardcover reprint, which I've never actually read. So that's exciting.
And as long as today is Superman Day, I might as well mention something I've been meaning to talk about in the last couple of posts. I'm reading Elliot S! Maggin's second Superman novel, "Miracle Monday," and it's quite enjoyable, but one bit has really stuck out. Kristin Wells, the time-traveling historian who would later become Superwoman, writes a journal entry about halfway through the book, shortly after she'd been possessed or otherwise influenced by the book's villain, the demonic C.W. Saturn. It's some of the best subtle, psychological horror I've read in a superhero story. I feel like it's damning with faint praise to say it reminded me of Stephen King's short story "1408," but it's the same kind of slow-burn madness evidenced by things just being slightly off, and it's accomplished in a fairly small space. You can read it here, though I suspect it won't have the same impact if you haven't read the rest of the book up to it. So you could start here then.
Laura Hudson wrote essay on female creators at DC, why it's important, and why Dan Didio's dismissive, defensive answers to the problem are a problem. It's worth reading if you haven't, and I agree with it on pretty much every count.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
More Miscellany
I just read the new original story in "DC Retroactive: JLA - The '70s," and it stands out as one of the best straight-up old-school comic stories I've read in awhile. I know the pendulum has swung and the media has progressed, but I really would like to see more of this kind of thing. Which is part of why I'm glad I asked my shop to pull all the Retro-Active specials, painful though it may be to my wallet. It also makes me really excited to sit down and read the Superman one later tonight, in all likelihood.
Apparently today was Mark Waid day, because another trip to the sadly terminal Borders saw me walking out with the latest two volumes of "Irredeemable" and "Captain America: Man Out Of Time." After seeing the film of the latter, I've been in the mood for some more good Cap stories (and if I'd been paid anytime recently, I would have picked up Brubaker's "Red Menace" trade too), and I've never heard a bad word associated with Mark Waid's Captain America. I've got an "Operation: Rebirth" trade around here someplace that I've never managed to read, so there's a good chance I'll be hitting that soon as well.
My other attempts to locate good Captain America stories have been somewhat mixed. I picked up the first (or 620th) issue of "Captain America & Bucky," and enjoyed it well enough. It's WWII-era, which I like to see, but I would have liked a little more Captain America and Bucky in it. I'll stick around for the first arc or so, but I'm not sure after that. I've liked every bit of Brubaker's Cap comics that I've read, but I've never gone the extra step of continuing with the series. It's partially the way Marvel organizes their trades without a clear progression from one to the next; I understand the reasons for doing that, and I saw in "Red Menace" today that there was a handy guide on the inside cover, but it does make things slightly less impulse-buy-friendly for the story continuity-minded among us. It's also part of why I've bought so little in the way of Brand New Day-era Spider-Man trades; a lack of numbers and a plethora of trades makes it unclear where I should go next without additional research that I'd rather not do.
Which, I suppose, makes me lazy. Or cheap. Or searching for an excuse. I can handle all that, I guess.
I tried to find "The Adventures of Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty" at my local shop, since I'd heard good things about it and since I'm always up for Kevin Maguire art, but there seems to be no trade, and my LCS only had the first issue. It works out okay for me; I didn't really have the money for it anyway, but it's definitely something I'll be looking into down the line.
Back to Mark Waid, it occurs to me that, when people talk about deconstructionist writers in the superhero genre, Mark Waid doesn't get mentioned often enough. Aside from turning out solid, straightforward superhero comics in a variety of places and styles, he's done quite a bit of work in the deconstruction mode. "Kingdom Come" is an allegory about approaches to superhero storytelling, "Empire" is about what happens when the villain wins, and "Irredeemable" and "Incorruptible" are all about taking common tropes--the ultimate hero, the dastardly villain, the fall from grace, the heel face turn--and applying them in fairly original, extreme ways. It's not his only approach, like it might be for someone like Alan Moore, and I think that's why he might not be as closely identified with the process, but I think he deserves the same kind of consideration.
So, I have this now:
So, yeah. Don't be surprised if I end up talking about it soon.
Apparently today was Mark Waid day, because another trip to the sadly terminal Borders saw me walking out with the latest two volumes of "Irredeemable" and "Captain America: Man Out Of Time." After seeing the film of the latter, I've been in the mood for some more good Cap stories (and if I'd been paid anytime recently, I would have picked up Brubaker's "Red Menace" trade too), and I've never heard a bad word associated with Mark Waid's Captain America. I've got an "Operation: Rebirth" trade around here someplace that I've never managed to read, so there's a good chance I'll be hitting that soon as well.
My other attempts to locate good Captain America stories have been somewhat mixed. I picked up the first (or 620th) issue of "Captain America & Bucky," and enjoyed it well enough. It's WWII-era, which I like to see, but I would have liked a little more Captain America and Bucky in it. I'll stick around for the first arc or so, but I'm not sure after that. I've liked every bit of Brubaker's Cap comics that I've read, but I've never gone the extra step of continuing with the series. It's partially the way Marvel organizes their trades without a clear progression from one to the next; I understand the reasons for doing that, and I saw in "Red Menace" today that there was a handy guide on the inside cover, but it does make things slightly less impulse-buy-friendly for the story continuity-minded among us. It's also part of why I've bought so little in the way of Brand New Day-era Spider-Man trades; a lack of numbers and a plethora of trades makes it unclear where I should go next without additional research that I'd rather not do.
Which, I suppose, makes me lazy. Or cheap. Or searching for an excuse. I can handle all that, I guess.
I tried to find "The Adventures of Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty" at my local shop, since I'd heard good things about it and since I'm always up for Kevin Maguire art, but there seems to be no trade, and my LCS only had the first issue. It works out okay for me; I didn't really have the money for it anyway, but it's definitely something I'll be looking into down the line.
Back to Mark Waid, it occurs to me that, when people talk about deconstructionist writers in the superhero genre, Mark Waid doesn't get mentioned often enough. Aside from turning out solid, straightforward superhero comics in a variety of places and styles, he's done quite a bit of work in the deconstruction mode. "Kingdom Come" is an allegory about approaches to superhero storytelling, "Empire" is about what happens when the villain wins, and "Irredeemable" and "Incorruptible" are all about taking common tropes--the ultimate hero, the dastardly villain, the fall from grace, the heel face turn--and applying them in fairly original, extreme ways. It's not his only approach, like it might be for someone like Alan Moore, and I think that's why he might not be as closely identified with the process, but I think he deserves the same kind of consideration.
So, I have this now:
So, yeah. Don't be surprised if I end up talking about it soon.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Some thoughts on recent comics-related stuff
I finally caught up on Green Lantern, which meant reading 2/3 of "War of the Green Lanterns" (I didn't subscribe to "Emerald Warriors"). Not entirely surprisingly, I was able to follow the story just fine. Overall, I thought it was pretty decent, and as crossovers go I'd much prefer these small, relatively confined ones (see also: "Reign of Doomsday(s)") than sweeping universe-wide ones.
As to the status quo changes for the GLs, it was nice to see some acknowledgement of John Stewart's architecture background (brief though it may have been) and generally compassionate nature (even if the cover was completely at odds with that). I'm curious to see how this all shakes out in September, but I can't say I'm terribly interested in Sinestro-as-GL, especially since the solicits say that he's the GL for sector 2814, which makes no sense, and Geoff Johns' chapters in the crossover were generally the weakest (largely because his response to decreased page count has apparently been to increase the number of unnecessary two-page spreads). "Green Lantern" is one of those on-the-cusp titles for me, and since I'm quite happy only buying two GL comics each month, it's entirely possible that the flagship book will be the one to get the axe in October.
Speaking of crossovers, how about "Flashpoint"? Issue #3 was the first one that felt like anything happened in, and that might just be because of my well-known Superman bias. I'm kind of disappointed that Johns didn't decide to go in the more interesting direction I speculated after issue two, with Batman working to re-create a better world that he never knew and would never see, but I can't say I was surprised that Geoff Johns did something conventional and cliché.
And I hate saying that, because Johns used to be one of my favorite writers in comics, but I think a combination of being stretched-too-thin and having no one to check and/or balance him has turned him into a bucket of clichés.
In short, I generally agree with what Chris Sims had to say about things. Flashpoint has been largely pointless, and where it has had any point or plot, it's been exactly what you'd expect, and nothing that you haven't seen before.
That "more interesting direction" keeps popping into my head, and it really has me interested in writing that series. We've all seen the alternate timeline stories where one lone hero knows the way the world is supposed to be and will stop at nothing to set things right. In a lot of those stories, the characters of the alternate universe just go along with the protagonist, either because her world sounds so much better than the current one, or because she just seems so sincere.
And yet, I have to imagine that if someone came to me and said the world was all wrong, and he needed to set things right so that the world as I knew it never actually happened...I'd think that person was nuts. If I were a superhero, I might hear that person out (weirder things happen in superheroes' lives, after all), but it seems like skepticism would be awfully warranted. Moreover, what's to say that this hero isn't actually a villain in disguise, trying to create--or recreate--a world where he's in charge?
It makes me think that there'd be a lot of traction in a decent "Triumph" series. Triumph's whole schtick was that he was lost in time after a time-altering event that wiped him from his rightful place in the timestream, but as far as I know, he didn't do a whole lot of the "I must set things right" plot, more the "I must adapt to this strange new world" plot. A series where he was working to put things "right," but the other heroes either saw him as a self-aggrandizing egotist who can't stand to be out of the spotlight, or a giant kook with enough power to make him dangerous, would be worth a read, I think.
I am however enjoying some of the miniseries, which is not entirely surprising. "Batman: Knight of Vengeance" and "Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown" are the best of the bunch, also not entirely surprising. I generally like that they aren't tied too closely to the main plot of Flashpoint, but are instead exploring the rest of the alternate universe--which is really what alternate timeline stories are good for anyway.
The other tie-ins I'm buying are "Kid Flash Lost," "Lois Lane and the Resistance," "Project Superman," "Wonder Woman and the Furies," and "Deathstroke and the Curse of the Ravager." The latter two started mostly as impulse buys--Abnett and Lanning are good enough for me to check out regardless, and Deathstroke as a pirate was a crazy enough high concept for me to check it out. They're all decent enough, but I suspect one or two of them might end up on eBay in September.
The last time I subscribed to a "Daredevil" comic, he was wearing armor and calling himself "Jack Batlin." It's not that I don't like Daredevil, I just let the subscription lapse (as this was in those olden days when I was getting my regular comics through the mail). I've obviously heard good things about "Daredevil" comics since then, but I've never really gotten around to checking them out. But last week I decided to give Mark Waid's new, lighter-toned Daredevil a shot, and it was fantastic. The buzz the book has been getting is totally deserved, and it made a Daredevil subscriber out of me for the first time since 1993. Check it out
You know what I enjoyed? That Joe Johnston-directed superhero movie set in the WWII era, where the Nazi-fighting protagonist is outfitted with advanced technology by a billionaire pilot-slash-inventor named Howard.
Seriously, though, I watched both "Rocketeer" and "Captain America: The First Avenger" in the last few days, and quite enjoyed them both. I hadn't seen the former since at least the era of VHS, and while the story and action is the sort of excellent swashbuckling action-adventure fun that I've been craving lately, it would probably benefit from some more modern special effects. "Captain America" was great through and through, except with the opposite problem that there was just a little too much obvious CGI in the "Cap and the Howling Commandos bust up a bunch of Hydra bases" montage sequence.
One of the things I most appreciated about the film was the color palette. They did a good job with soft beiges and sepia tones in the training and bunker scenes, but once Cap was really on the scene, it started looking more and more like technicolor. The colors really popped, something I noticed especially when the Red Skull was standing in front of his flying-wing airplane. It was a very welcome change from the teal and orange palette of so many modern movies.
I would love to see more "Captain America"-style superhero movies, and I hope that "Man of Steel" is that good.
That'll do for now. Keeps the blog from getting too dusty. More to come later. Hurm.
As to the status quo changes for the GLs, it was nice to see some acknowledgement of John Stewart's architecture background (brief though it may have been) and generally compassionate nature (even if the cover was completely at odds with that). I'm curious to see how this all shakes out in September, but I can't say I'm terribly interested in Sinestro-as-GL, especially since the solicits say that he's the GL for sector 2814, which makes no sense, and Geoff Johns' chapters in the crossover were generally the weakest (largely because his response to decreased page count has apparently been to increase the number of unnecessary two-page spreads). "Green Lantern" is one of those on-the-cusp titles for me, and since I'm quite happy only buying two GL comics each month, it's entirely possible that the flagship book will be the one to get the axe in October.
Speaking of crossovers, how about "Flashpoint"? Issue #3 was the first one that felt like anything happened in, and that might just be because of my well-known Superman bias. I'm kind of disappointed that Johns didn't decide to go in the more interesting direction I speculated after issue two, with Batman working to re-create a better world that he never knew and would never see, but I can't say I was surprised that Geoff Johns did something conventional and cliché.
And I hate saying that, because Johns used to be one of my favorite writers in comics, but I think a combination of being stretched-too-thin and having no one to check and/or balance him has turned him into a bucket of clichés.
In short, I generally agree with what Chris Sims had to say about things. Flashpoint has been largely pointless, and where it has had any point or plot, it's been exactly what you'd expect, and nothing that you haven't seen before.
That "more interesting direction" keeps popping into my head, and it really has me interested in writing that series. We've all seen the alternate timeline stories where one lone hero knows the way the world is supposed to be and will stop at nothing to set things right. In a lot of those stories, the characters of the alternate universe just go along with the protagonist, either because her world sounds so much better than the current one, or because she just seems so sincere.
And yet, I have to imagine that if someone came to me and said the world was all wrong, and he needed to set things right so that the world as I knew it never actually happened...I'd think that person was nuts. If I were a superhero, I might hear that person out (weirder things happen in superheroes' lives, after all), but it seems like skepticism would be awfully warranted. Moreover, what's to say that this hero isn't actually a villain in disguise, trying to create--or recreate--a world where he's in charge?
It makes me think that there'd be a lot of traction in a decent "Triumph" series. Triumph's whole schtick was that he was lost in time after a time-altering event that wiped him from his rightful place in the timestream, but as far as I know, he didn't do a whole lot of the "I must set things right" plot, more the "I must adapt to this strange new world" plot. A series where he was working to put things "right," but the other heroes either saw him as a self-aggrandizing egotist who can't stand to be out of the spotlight, or a giant kook with enough power to make him dangerous, would be worth a read, I think.
I am however enjoying some of the miniseries, which is not entirely surprising. "Batman: Knight of Vengeance" and "Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown" are the best of the bunch, also not entirely surprising. I generally like that they aren't tied too closely to the main plot of Flashpoint, but are instead exploring the rest of the alternate universe--which is really what alternate timeline stories are good for anyway.
The other tie-ins I'm buying are "Kid Flash Lost," "Lois Lane and the Resistance," "Project Superman," "Wonder Woman and the Furies," and "Deathstroke and the Curse of the Ravager." The latter two started mostly as impulse buys--Abnett and Lanning are good enough for me to check out regardless, and Deathstroke as a pirate was a crazy enough high concept for me to check it out. They're all decent enough, but I suspect one or two of them might end up on eBay in September.
The last time I subscribed to a "Daredevil" comic, he was wearing armor and calling himself "Jack Batlin." It's not that I don't like Daredevil, I just let the subscription lapse (as this was in those olden days when I was getting my regular comics through the mail). I've obviously heard good things about "Daredevil" comics since then, but I've never really gotten around to checking them out. But last week I decided to give Mark Waid's new, lighter-toned Daredevil a shot, and it was fantastic. The buzz the book has been getting is totally deserved, and it made a Daredevil subscriber out of me for the first time since 1993. Check it out
You know what I enjoyed? That Joe Johnston-directed superhero movie set in the WWII era, where the Nazi-fighting protagonist is outfitted with advanced technology by a billionaire pilot-slash-inventor named Howard.
Seriously, though, I watched both "Rocketeer" and "Captain America: The First Avenger" in the last few days, and quite enjoyed them both. I hadn't seen the former since at least the era of VHS, and while the story and action is the sort of excellent swashbuckling action-adventure fun that I've been craving lately, it would probably benefit from some more modern special effects. "Captain America" was great through and through, except with the opposite problem that there was just a little too much obvious CGI in the "Cap and the Howling Commandos bust up a bunch of Hydra bases" montage sequence.
One of the things I most appreciated about the film was the color palette. They did a good job with soft beiges and sepia tones in the training and bunker scenes, but once Cap was really on the scene, it started looking more and more like technicolor. The colors really popped, something I noticed especially when the Red Skull was standing in front of his flying-wing airplane. It was a very welcome change from the teal and orange palette of so many modern movies.
I would love to see more "Captain America"-style superhero movies, and I hope that "Man of Steel" is that good.
That'll do for now. Keeps the blog from getting too dusty. More to come later. Hurm.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Walking with Superman: Finale
That's it.
I'm probably just as surprised as you are that I managed to get through the whole series. Sure, there were three or four times when I forgot to finish the post before midnight, and Blogger's issues with scheduling posts meant that, more often than not, they didn't go up at 12:00--though that's an arbitrary time I set later in the run anyway. But aside from the occasional snafu, I got everything written and reasonably on-time. Even over my wedding and honeymoon.
Three hundred and sixty-five Superman story pitches. And there were even ideas I didn't get to use, like Superman visiting Vanity City to get involved with the selection/training of the new Aztek, or facing corrupt politics in Chicago, or teaming up with Klarion in Salem. I'm particularly kicking myself over that last one, frankly.
I also never dipped into my back-pocket pitches, because there's still a part of me that would love to write Superman for reals down the line, and I wouldn't want to give away everything. So that's 365 story ideas on top of the arcs I've been planning and plotting and refining for years.
I'll admit, some plans fell through. Obviously there was the first contest, and I was hoping to do a "guest week" somewhere in there, but never got the time to put it together. After the three-page script I did for Day 100, I wanted to do longer scripts for 200 and 300, with a full issue for #365, but that turned out to be insane, at least with my current schedule.
I'm not quite done with the "Walking with Superman" tag. I'll have a wrap-up version of the by the numbers post, and a little post about my process through this whole thing. I find it interesting, anyway. Eventually, I'll have the list of links and titles up as well. It'll all be trickling out over the next week or two.
I want to thank all the people who commented, who entered the contest, who read along and offered kind words throughout this process. I know it's just fanfic, but it's nice to know that people were reading and enjoying it at least as much as I was enjoying putting it all together. I want to give specific shout-outs to Steve Younis of the Superman Homepage and Rebel Rikki and Davin Loh of Nerdy Nothings for promoting the project and giving me my first podcasting experience.
As to the future: at the request of my wife, I'm done with the self-imposed daily blogging obligation. I'm not done blogging, but I suspect things will be a little lighter here for a little while. After that? Well, it's been an awfully long time since I did a Superman Sunday post...
I'm probably just as surprised as you are that I managed to get through the whole series. Sure, there were three or four times when I forgot to finish the post before midnight, and Blogger's issues with scheduling posts meant that, more often than not, they didn't go up at 12:00--though that's an arbitrary time I set later in the run anyway. But aside from the occasional snafu, I got everything written and reasonably on-time. Even over my wedding and honeymoon.
Three hundred and sixty-five Superman story pitches. And there were even ideas I didn't get to use, like Superman visiting Vanity City to get involved with the selection/training of the new Aztek, or facing corrupt politics in Chicago, or teaming up with Klarion in Salem. I'm particularly kicking myself over that last one, frankly.
I also never dipped into my back-pocket pitches, because there's still a part of me that would love to write Superman for reals down the line, and I wouldn't want to give away everything. So that's 365 story ideas on top of the arcs I've been planning and plotting and refining for years.
I'll admit, some plans fell through. Obviously there was the first contest, and I was hoping to do a "guest week" somewhere in there, but never got the time to put it together. After the three-page script I did for Day 100, I wanted to do longer scripts for 200 and 300, with a full issue for #365, but that turned out to be insane, at least with my current schedule.
I'm not quite done with the "Walking with Superman" tag. I'll have a wrap-up version of the by the numbers post, and a little post about my process through this whole thing. I find it interesting, anyway. Eventually, I'll have the list of links and titles up as well. It'll all be trickling out over the next week or two.
I want to thank all the people who commented, who entered the contest, who read along and offered kind words throughout this process. I know it's just fanfic, but it's nice to know that people were reading and enjoying it at least as much as I was enjoying putting it all together. I want to give specific shout-outs to Steve Younis of the Superman Homepage and Rebel Rikki and Davin Loh of Nerdy Nothings for promoting the project and giving me my first podcasting experience.
As to the future: at the request of my wife, I'm done with the self-imposed daily blogging obligation. I'm not done blogging, but I suspect things will be a little lighter here for a little while. After that? Well, it's been an awfully long time since I did a Superman Sunday post...
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Mope, mope, mope
ComicsAlliance has a couple of preview pages from September's "Superman" (vol. 3) #1, specifically dealing with Lois Lane's new non-Clark relationship. I'm just going to tackle the pros and cons, really, because there are both:
- Pro: New digs for the Daily Planet, and what appears (briefly) to be a fleshed-out supporting cast there.
- Con: We're only getting a piece of the story here, and it looks like it's after the action, so it's hard to tell exactly what's going on. Looks like the old Planet building might have burned down, maybe?
- Pro: The art looks great. Simply fantastic.
- Con: De-aging Perry seems to have also given him black hair. He looks like Sarge Steel.
- Pro: Morgan Edge is involved. Lois appears to be a TV reporter, which is a nice flip-flop from the way things were in the late '70s-early '80s, where Clark was the WGBS anchorman and Lois still wrote for the Planet. These are good shake-ups that could reasonably cause interesting drama.
- Con: As David Brothers pointed out on Twitter, "that lois lane's new boyfriend thing is written like the worst, laziest sitcom drama i've ever seen in my entire life." Moreover, it's more of the '90s-style thinking (Look up Jeb Friedman, the informant and union organizer who fell for Lois and acted as a foil during their engagement and brief breakup) that's going into this relaunch. This reads like a scene out of "Lois and Clark," and even as a fan of "Lois and Clark," it smacks of the same kind of sitcom cliché.
- Pro: Jonathan Carroll's name reminds Clark of his (now-deceased) father. It's not exactly subtle, but it's at least a nice bit of characterization.
- Con: Jonathan Carroll seems like either a himbo or a jerk, which is really the easy way out. Criticize "Superman Returns" all you want, but one of the things it did really well was make Lois's new love interest (James Marsden's Richard White) a nice, likable, decent guy. Having a rounded character--and a good person--in the "love triangle foil" position may be difficult for the writer, but it allows for a lot more nuanced conflict within the readers, who want (based on the circumstances) to dislike the character, but can't find anything wrong with him beyond "he's not the protagonist." It also went a long way toward showing that Lois's type was "kind, caring, compassionate, and moral," not "big muscly beefcake."
- Pro: I was thinking that they could be daring and introduce some progressive details into the story by having Lois date someone who wasn't caucasian. I then realized that the racial politics of such a story would be "Lois is dating a non-caucasian man, but she's supposed to be with the protagonist, who looks like the paragon of caucasian manhood." It would be, at the very least, uncomfortable in the same way that Ray Palmer and Ronnie Raymond taking over their respective superhero roles from non-caucasian successors (with the subtext that they're the "true" versions of those characters) was. So it's good that they avoided that.
- Con: Clark Kent is mopey. His powers make him hear things that make him more mopey. Mopey mope mope. I am so tired of mopey Clark Kent, and yet, that appears to be the entire point of this new status quo.
- Con: Which is, of course, exactly what I expected. Lois is with the wrong guy. She has to be with the wrong guy because it explains why she isn't with the right guy. Because we know that Clark is the right guy, the dramatic tension is all around when Lois will leave the wrong guy and get with the right guy. Casting Jonathan Carroll as (it appears) a one-note beefcake only underscores his status as the wrong guy and gives us no tension or conflict toward that assessment. If Lois were with someone who was a nice person and made her happy without putting her in danger or leaving frequently, then the readers--and Clark!--would be forced to wonder if maybe she wasn't better off not being Superman's girlfriend. That might be a source of some mopey drama, but it would at least be a more interesting sort of drama than this "Three's Company" BS.
Walking with Superman: Day 365
Superman's year-long journey has come to an end on the outskirts of Metropolis, DE. They say you can't go home again--and in this case, they're right! Metropolis is closed off to its hometown hero, with a force-field designed specifically to keep Kryptonians out. Superman may have taken a year-long sabbatical, but Lex Luthor was hard at work back home, and once Superman breaks through the shield, he'll find that every inch of the Big Apricot has been turned into an anti-Superman deathtrap! If that weren't enough, Luthor has scoured the globe to form a new Superman Revenge Squad, a veritable vanguard of vengeful villains who would stop at nothing to slay Superman! The Man of Tomorrow calls out to his allies from across the United States, and together they'll fight to save Metropolis from this army of supervillains! But for all the heroes and villains, eventually it'll come down to Superman and Lex Luthor...and only one will walk away!
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Walking with Superman: Day 364
"The story of Clark Kent is by now well-known, though my access to his psychological records give me perhaps greater insight than the newspaper stories might allow. Mr. Kent has spent the better part of the last year bouncing around the country from facility to facility, but I have high hopes that San Haven Asylum will be the end of his journey. The relative remoteness (Dunseith, ND, is the closest town, still some miles away) is why I requested his transfer to this facility. Isolating Kent from the subjects of his delusions and his enablers may be the change he needs to finally cure this disorder.
"Even with his case files, the genesis of Mr. Kent's psychosis is unclear. He is certainly a paranoid schizophrenic, but the narrative that underscores his delusions developed in his childhood, well before any likely onset of schizophrenia. Then again, if one listens to Mr. Kent, he is a very unlikely individual.
"The core of his personal narrative is a grandiose delusion, specifically that he possesses special powers and abilities beyond those of mere mortals, that he is an exalted character called "Super-Man." This originated in Kent's childhood, first with stories about feats of strength or speed that his parents dismissed as normal pretend play. Some of Kent's previous therapists would put the onset of hallucinations in the same period; Kent's parents recall that he claimed to be able to hear voices and sounds with "super-hearing" and see through solid objects with "X-Ray Vision." It was not long afterward that he began telling stories about imaginary friends (again, initially dismissed as normal play by his parents), children from the "future" who also had special abilities and thought of young Kent as a great hero.
"Sometime in late adolescence or early adulthood, Kent's grandiose delusion grew more detailed, and other symptoms began to develop. Not only was he a veritable god among men and a predestined hero, but he was the sole survivor of an advanced alien race, secretly adopted by his "foster" parents, to protect him from the government and from alien "man-hunters" who would have exploited or dissected him. This seems to be the earliest of Kent's persecutory delusions. The details here are clearly less developed than other aspects of the narrative: sometimes he came to Earth as an infant, other times as an embryo in a technological womb; sometimes his alien parents chose Earth intentionally, other times his survival was a lucky shot in the dark. The inconsistencies suggest that this is a later part of the delusion, one that he has not thoroughly considered.
"It is at this time that Mr. Kent began to incorporate real-world figures into his delusion, claiming at various points that he knew and befriended billionaire Lex Luthor. This relationship eventually soured in some way (another inconsistency in Kent's stories), leading Luthor to become Kent's--or rather, "Super-Man's"--"arch-enemy." This remains Kent's strongest and most prominent persecutory delusion, but he would incorporate other figures into the narrative in various ways, usually by suggesting that they lead double-lives. For instance, he claims that wealthy philanthropists Bruce Wayne and Oliver Queen (along with scores of others, from police officers to test pilots) are actually costumed vigilantes.
"Kent moved to Metropolis sometime after graduating high school; though his delusions were well-developed by this point, his paranoid tendency toward secrecy prevented them from impacting his social skills too severely. The move away from home, however, seems to have been the breaking point. Kent's delusions consumed more and more of his life, driving him into solitude--with one exception. In Metropolis, Kent became aware of Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane, who became the subject of his primary erotomanic delusion. Kent stalked Lane, going so far as to put her in dangerous situations so that he could "rescue" her. This is what led to his infamy, as Lane published the entire debacle in her column.
"And that, of course, was what finally led to Kent's institutionalization. But his unique needs, his refusal to take medication, and his penchant for violent outbursts and escape attempts led to his frequent transfers.
But San Haven will be his last stop; I will see to that much. If I can't break Clark Kent of his dangerous delusions, then I will make sure that he remains locked up here for the rest of his life."
--From the notes of Hugo Strange, MD.
"Even with his case files, the genesis of Mr. Kent's psychosis is unclear. He is certainly a paranoid schizophrenic, but the narrative that underscores his delusions developed in his childhood, well before any likely onset of schizophrenia. Then again, if one listens to Mr. Kent, he is a very unlikely individual.
"The core of his personal narrative is a grandiose delusion, specifically that he possesses special powers and abilities beyond those of mere mortals, that he is an exalted character called "Super-Man." This originated in Kent's childhood, first with stories about feats of strength or speed that his parents dismissed as normal pretend play. Some of Kent's previous therapists would put the onset of hallucinations in the same period; Kent's parents recall that he claimed to be able to hear voices and sounds with "super-hearing" and see through solid objects with "X-Ray Vision." It was not long afterward that he began telling stories about imaginary friends (again, initially dismissed as normal play by his parents), children from the "future" who also had special abilities and thought of young Kent as a great hero.
"Sometime in late adolescence or early adulthood, Kent's grandiose delusion grew more detailed, and other symptoms began to develop. Not only was he a veritable god among men and a predestined hero, but he was the sole survivor of an advanced alien race, secretly adopted by his "foster" parents, to protect him from the government and from alien "man-hunters" who would have exploited or dissected him. This seems to be the earliest of Kent's persecutory delusions. The details here are clearly less developed than other aspects of the narrative: sometimes he came to Earth as an infant, other times as an embryo in a technological womb; sometimes his alien parents chose Earth intentionally, other times his survival was a lucky shot in the dark. The inconsistencies suggest that this is a later part of the delusion, one that he has not thoroughly considered.
"It is at this time that Mr. Kent began to incorporate real-world figures into his delusion, claiming at various points that he knew and befriended billionaire Lex Luthor. This relationship eventually soured in some way (another inconsistency in Kent's stories), leading Luthor to become Kent's--or rather, "Super-Man's"--"arch-enemy." This remains Kent's strongest and most prominent persecutory delusion, but he would incorporate other figures into the narrative in various ways, usually by suggesting that they lead double-lives. For instance, he claims that wealthy philanthropists Bruce Wayne and Oliver Queen (along with scores of others, from police officers to test pilots) are actually costumed vigilantes.
"Kent moved to Metropolis sometime after graduating high school; though his delusions were well-developed by this point, his paranoid tendency toward secrecy prevented them from impacting his social skills too severely. The move away from home, however, seems to have been the breaking point. Kent's delusions consumed more and more of his life, driving him into solitude--with one exception. In Metropolis, Kent became aware of Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane, who became the subject of his primary erotomanic delusion. Kent stalked Lane, going so far as to put her in dangerous situations so that he could "rescue" her. This is what led to his infamy, as Lane published the entire debacle in her column.
"And that, of course, was what finally led to Kent's institutionalization. But his unique needs, his refusal to take medication, and his penchant for violent outbursts and escape attempts led to his frequent transfers.
But San Haven will be his last stop; I will see to that much. If I can't break Clark Kent of his dangerous delusions, then I will make sure that he remains locked up here for the rest of his life."
--From the notes of Hugo Strange, MD.
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