The comments, reviews and rantings are for entertainment only. If you are offended then someone else is getting entertained. Welcome to the internet. Have at it. This is where I sound off on what I read in comics this week, and occasionally ramble about other things.
This blog isn't in your face, its in my hand. Its Wednesday, August 17, 2011, the game is again afoot, and this is The Side. Quick announcement: my weekly comic book reviews will be out on Sunday as opposed to Friday for the foreseeable future. Due to some personal scheduling changes I won't be able to pick up my comics until Thursday at the earliest and that's not much time to get the reviews done by Friday morning.
Well, its plenty of time, but anyone who has actually met me will attest to the fact that I need as much beauty sleep as possible.
LITERATURE
If you head into Barnes & Nobles and go into the Mystery section you may be lucky enough to find "The Complete Sherlock Holmes". Its two volumes at about eight bucks each, so for sixteen dollars you get it all including bunches of footnotes. I'm working my way diligently through volume one still. I did look into the back of the book for some of the notes and came across four questions. They were very much like the questions I would see in my literature text books in high school, but required a bit more thought.
One of these questions in particular caught my attention: "Do you think it is possible to tell an updated version of these stories considering today's technology?" Well, i think we have the answer to that...
If you haven't seen it yet, you can stream all three episodes, each about an hour and a half long, on Netflix. Its brilliant stuff.
And of course there's the big screen version which seems to franchising its way up.
I do have to say that I think they are dropping the Moriarty card a bit too soon. Then again, there's no way that he's going to be as brilliant as Andrew Scott's take on the character in the previously mentioned BBC series. There's a clip on YouTube featuring him, but its such a big spoiler that I torn between posting because its awesome and not wanting to ruin the ending of "The Great Game" because it was an incredible piece of work. As such, I'm going to err on the side of non-spoilery.
When I requested people name three literary characters I got a wide variety of answer, and Sherlock Holmes was in the top three. I do believe that this character will indeed stand the test of time and continue to be an inspiration and influence. One thing I do find fascinating is that the character works even if modernized. He's not like Batman who has been published regularly for decades. He had his stories. Then he had more stories. Then movies came along and he had movies. Then television came along and he had shows and cartoons. I've seen him in his natural 19th century setting. I've seen him in a cartoon in the far future in which Watson was a robot. I've seen him in the present.
He works because he's a person. For all his flaws and quirks, he is a brilliant and capable who strives to see justice done. And he's not an ideal person. He has a drug problem. He's obsessive. He's not terribly sensitive. Yes, I'm still talking about Sherlock Holmes and not Greg House. As you can see from that last line, what Holmes is and what makes him tick still resonates with audiences today.
I do find it interesting, especially since I heard the recent flap about the impending WORLD WAR Z movie, is that no one really gripes that the original books aren't being followed closely. After all, the Robert Downey Jr movie wasn't "A Study in Scarlet". Maybe some people passionate about Holmes realize something that's important when considering any adaption: its an adaption. Its not going to be the same. You can stray, but as long as you stay true to the characters and the intent of the story, then things can still turn out alright.
I do think there's a direct relationship to the amount of content from the original source and the willingness of readers to go along with adaptations. In the case on smaller projects like novels or short series of comic books (ex: WATCHMEN) any variation from the source material is frowned upon. Subjects with more content to draw from (ex: BATMAN, SPIDER-MAN, SHERLOCK HOLMES) tend to get a little more leeway from fans.
So don't be a hater. At least until you see the movie or TV show or whatever. Then if it sucks, go ahead and hate all you want.
MUSIC!!
From "When I was Cruel".
Alrighty, I'll see y'all back here Friday. Be prepared for foul language.
The Numinous Lives! Its Wednesday, April 13, 2011, I'm getting my nerd on big time, and this is The Side. I suppose everyone things from time to time about how they wish they could go back and re-do something knowing what they know now. College would have been much different. Less puking. More dating. And a lot better term papers.
COMIX!!!
Had a brilliant dialogue online concerning comics which began with a video from Hank Green.
This video dealt with, as Richard put it, fetishistic science. Meaning there's something out there that we don't totally understand so we give it a power in our minds. In the genre of superheroes what we give power can in turn give us power. The problem with this is that the more we come to understand things in science, the more the fun gets ruined because we, regretfully, discover that these things will not give you super powers. Typically it just gives you cancer or adds to global warming because right now science says everything sucks and is bad for you.
This brings us to "The Magic Spider", which is something Matty coined and let us now discuss. The actual spider is the one that bit Peter Parker and transformed him into Spider-man. Originally the spider was irradiated in a science experiment, because at the time the story was originally written there was still a bit of mystery concerning radiation. Stan Lee didn't have much of a science background, but we look past this because its a really great story. However, we're smarter about radiation now and know that exposing a spider to radiation won't do anything to the spider that'll make its bite super-power-giving. Fast forward a few decades with this origin being retold, and the spider in question is no longer radioactive, but genetically altered because that's where the scientific mystery is now. Go further into the future and if they retell the origin again when we know a lot more about genetics then there's going to have to be something else different with that spider.
Something about this spider is magic. It gives superpowers. The Magic Spider is the literary device that allows a character to gain superpowers. It allows us to escape the confines of science and enter the superhero genre. Other examples of Magic Spiders are The Speed Force from THE FLASH, magic, and any kind of alien life or technology. We don't have to know how a Green Lantern Ring works, we know its alien technology. Even high intelligence can work as Magic Spiders because there's no way we can currently explain Ironman's armor rationally, or half the stuff Reed Richards slaps together on a regular basis.
But let's go back to before the the current superhero genre kicked off, which was 1938. There were characters that had all the qualities of superheroes, even if we didn't flat out call them that. The modern superhero genre call on the past one. We call it mythology. Everything from Greek Myth to Arthurian legend has been drawn upon, and that is what gives the current genre its depth. But they did indeed have their own Magic Spiders back then, although it was much simpler considering the level of scientific knowledge back then. The most common Magic Spider was being blessed by a supernatural entity, usually a god.
But things rolled forward, and where does that land us in relation to the Magic Spider? Well, it landed me in a classroom in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The topic: Gothic Literature. This was one of those classes where I ended up keeping all the books. The professor was one Doctor Bob Geary, who while I was not a very good student, I was quite fond of him as a teacher. This man knew his stuff, and for reasons I didn't fathom at the time, he was a fan of my comic strip in the school newspaper.
Why on Earth would the professor who mercifully passed me through Gothic Literature and subsequently Literature and the Problem of Evil care about my super hero comic in the paper? That involve a couple hundred years worth of literature and years of study on my part. Gothic Literature dealt with one thing consistently: the numinous, the feeling that there's a supernatural force involved that creates both a feeling of fear, but also one of awe and wonder. It frightens us, but still fascinates us.
Gothic Literature spawned quite a few genres. The modern horror genre obviously with stories like Bram Stoker's DRACULA. But then there's Mary Shelly's FRANKENSTEIN which can be argued that it is one of the first science fiction stories. We also have Edgar Allan Poe starting the genre of detective fiction with MURDER AT LA RUE MORGUE.
Crazy science beyond what we understand. Humans developing skilled understandings of the world around them. Supernatural forces preying on people. All of this wrapped up with the numinous. Pulled apart to go their separate ways, but then elements coming back together to form something new. Put them together one way and you get H.P. Lovecraft.
Put them together another way and you get superheroes. The Magic Spider is indeed a numinous thing collecting the stuffs we wonder about and fear and giving them the power to create superhumans. No wonder Doctor Geary had an interest.
Makes me wonder if these works are going to be studied in classes as centuries go by. I also wonder if these characters like Superman and Spider-man will be studied as mythology as millennia go on. Will people later believe that we believed these characters actually existed?
MUSIC!!
Because if you want to put a Barenaked Ladies song on your blog from YouTube that ain't happening, so enjoy some fun stick figures.
I've got to thank Richard and Matty for all their input and brilliant points as to this subject matter. Nice to have folks around that are smarter than me. I'll see y'all Friday.
By Jove, its Wednesday, July 25, 2010, and Operation Cleansweep has hit its 50% completion mark in its Shock and Awe campaign. That means the the misses comes home and is shocked by how hard I worked to clean the Cozz Compound up and when she sees how tired I am she goes "Aaawwwww". I'm working my way to domestic warlord status while blogging my way into the hearts and minds of people everywhere who have nothing better to do.
NO S**T, SHERLOCK!!
I'm currently re-reading "The Hound of the Baskervilles" after watching the Guy Richie SHERLOCK HOLMES film. But I stumbled upon some thing. There's a new Sherlock Holmes show on the BBC which I tried to watch on my computer but my computer is so old that in trying to do so I got an alert "Warning: Voo Doo and Gremlins detected". But hey, I did get to see the trailer.
Looks pretty neat. There was also an interview on the BBC with comparisons to Doctor Who and such and it went down the rather dopey road of comparing the partnership of Holmes and Watson to a gay relationship and dispelling it which is kind of a waste to time. However, it did make an interesting assertion: Sherlock Holmes is greatest character in literature.
That's a hell of an assertion but it holds up really damn well. I think in terms of popularity Holmes is up there, only to be trumped by probably Dracula. Also the books of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle epitomize the detective fiction genre even though he did not start the genre. (It was Poe with "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", which I know because I'm a nerd.) Holmes is a definite pop culture icon. When you think great detectives, you think Sherlock Holmes.
I just realized that when looking at the two literary characters I named as probably the most popular that it is still all about Batman.
The character has endured quite well. The previously mentioned Guy Richie movie did quite well and a sequel is already in the works. This new show on the BBC makes the character contemporary which I find interesting and will definitely be checking out at my first opportunity. There was some cartoon show about Sherlock Holmes somehow being in the future and Watson was a robot sort of thing. The old stories are still a great read. Also looking at a lot of those cop shows and even shows like HOUSE M.D. I'd say they owe quite a bit to Holmes.
So is Sherlock Holmes the greatest character in literature?
I'd say that's elementary.
Note I did not say "That's elementary, my dear Watson" because Holmes never said that in the books. I know that also because I'm a nerd.
THE NEW DON CHEADLE!!
Edward Norton is indeed out as far as the AVENGERS movie goes. The cast got introduced at the San Diego Comic-con with Mark Ruffalo to play Bruce Banner. I'm not going to be the guy who runs about the internet yelling "Oh this movie is going to suck now!" but it does seem like a step down from Norton. Nothing against Ruffalo, but when I look at him I don't think Bruce Banner at all. I'm not very surprised by this announcement since reports came out about how much of a prick a marvel movie exec was about discussing Norton stating pretty much that he does play well with others and spouting off crap.
They should have at least been honest and said "Hey, we've got to play Jackson and Downey plus play for a ton of special effects. We can't afford Norton." But that would mean someone in Hollywood being honest. Perish the thought.
Does this mean that I won't go see the AVENGERS movie when it comes out? It doesn't, but that also doesn't mean that I'm going to rush out to see it either. Its way too early to tell. I'm not terribly excited about comic book movies right this second. IRONMAN 2 was good, but that was thanks mostly to Mickey Rourke and in lame comic book movie fashion he got bumped off at the end.
OMG, did I just drop a spoiler? I apologize to the two people who haven't seen the movie yet.
But yeah, not terribly excited for THE AVENGERS, so we'll wait and see.
THE E-SKY IS FALLING!!
In less than 1 year IP addresses will run out. This, of course, means the end of life as we know it on the planet. Prince was right. The internet is indeed over. Or someone is going to change the system to generate trillions of new addresses. According to the article the system that created IP addresses was created thirty years ago. That's right 1980. So let's look at back, shall we?
In 1980 no one had a home computer. We're going back to well before even the good old Commodore 64 here. Hell, if someone on the street had an Atari, they were the most popular kid in the neighborhood. Cell phones? That was science fiction. The internet was pretty much Science Fiction as well. Remember, this was the era in which WAR GAMES (the movie not the Batman storyline) was like scary cutting edge tech.
But technology has snowballed since then and just about every home has a computer, and some of them have more. Cell phones have become a part of life, even the most basic ones are capable of going online. I'm surprised a 30 year old system created in the conditions of 1980 has made it this far.
The article is pretty damn funny, actually. It compares this problem to Climate Change which is just stupid on a number of levels. It also makes mention of the possibility of a black market for IP addresses which I find amusing on a grand number of levels. The funniest was it stating that back when the system was created the notion that a refrigerator would possibly need an IP address was ludicrous. Which means, in someone's warped little mind, some time in the past, the notion that a refrigerator might need an IP address became not ludicrous.
Welcome to the future. People are still nuts.
PAPERS OR GTFO!!!
Which seems to be what people think is going to happen to anyone who isn't white very soon. I didn't want weigh in on this. Its a hot button topic. People get amazingly livid and pissed off about such things, but no one comments in here anyways so why the hell not. I came across two news stories in as many days on the subject. First was about illegal immigrants fleeing Arizona before the new State law goes into effect making being an illegal immigrant a state crime and not just a federal one. The second one was about illegal immigrants getting upset that their fingerprint could be used to identify them to the authorities as an illegal immigrant and get them deported.
What struck me in both these stories is that the writers are treating the people breaking the law as the victims. The fingerprinting one is aggressively stupid in that if some is getting fingerprinted by the Police then most likely its because they've been arrested. Fingerprinting is done for a reason. You see this in every Cop show on TV. There's a crime scene, and they dust for prints. That way they make an arrest they can use these fingerprints as evidence. Or possibly the prints may match up to somebody who has already been arrested for something else and its already a win. The police are not going to go around fingerprinting whoever they want. This isn't racial profiling, its procedure. And sure enough if it turns out the person being processed is not in the country legally, that's a crime, and as we still theoretically have laws, they are sent back to their country of origin. And if the crime they committed is spying they're invited to film premiers by Angelina Jolie.
But it seems that America is in a weird position. There's people who want us to be "no better than" every other country out there because we're all equal and whatever, YET, we are supposed to have an open door to anyone who wants to come here and we take care of them with tax dollars because our country provides better opportunities. We're expected to have the most lax immigration laws in the world. Mexico has double tough immigration laws, but it seems double standards are OK as long as they don't favor the United States.
The first story I found discusses people fleeing Arizona to other states to escape the law. I can't pity these people. Instead of running away, they should be trying to obey the law. So now they're not just illegal immigrants, they're now fugitives.
MUSIC!!
I've actually got about 10 subscribers on YouTube and have never posted a video. But I do get friend requests as well, and I ignore most of them to be honest because the only reason I have an account is to make following certain people on there easier. But for some reason I checked out Picklespantry when she sent me a friend request, and I'm glad I did. For she has given me MUSIC!
That is the skinny for today. Come back Friday as I talk about comics, probably gush over Batman, and make fun of Justin Bieber thus earning the ire of of any possible tween that may have stumbled into here.
