The Revolution, brought to you by Pepsi and Honda

In case you missed it, this has been the ad for Levi's Jeans of late:



Study it for a second. What are they really trying to sell?

Are they using images of rebellion/revolution (complete with a lone presumed protester versus a wall of riot police) to sell jeans? Or is someone using the vehicle of a mass market jeans manufacturer to slip the idea of rebellion into the mass consciousness?

Which will end up being the stronger message?

Good ideas vs. Great ideas

I realize I’m about five years behind the curve with this, but I’ve recently gotten into Doctor Who in a big way (specifically, the David Tennant era). Watching the show, in all its quirky charm, got me thinking about sci-fi, and what separates a merely good, workable idea from a
Great, memorable, game changing one. For example:

Good idea: An interstellar space traveler with a ship that can move through time and space and adapt its shape to match its surroundings.

Great idea: Having the adaptation ability fail so that it’s stuck in a charmingly idiosyncratic form which stands out from its surroundings.



Take Wolverine: When Len Wein introduced everyone’s favorite Canadian mutant in the pages of the Incredible Hulk, those trademark metal claws were intended as simply part of his costume. But it was Chris Claremont who took it a step further: the claws were in his body. Metal claws as part of your costume: cool. Metal plated claws as part of your skeleton: cool, kind of creepy, and way more interesting.



Or there’s the story of a young boy who finds himself the recipient of a great destiny where he will become the greatest magician of all. But what makes Harry Potter so much more compelling than Tim Hunter?
In Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling makes adolescence part of the journey. Harry’s “Hero’s Quest” begins when he enters wizard school at 10, and along the way he picks up skills and experiences that help him face off against his ultimate nemesis at age 17, where he’s finally old enough to go out on his own. The metaphor would almost be overbearing if it weren’t so neatly interwoven into the story. Is it coincidence? How many people’s teen years didn’t feel like some kind of epic journey where every experience was fresh and bigger than life and the most moving thing to ever happen ever? The Harry Potter books are guideposts through the most harrowing period of most peoples’ lives.



These are just some examples. I may touch on more as they come to me, but it's something I'm sure we all could weigh in on.

Mutants in Michigan

It's been a while since I wrote anything Detroit-centric - okay, let's be honest, it's been a while since I wrote anything at all. Plans are in motion on that front, don't you worry. In the meantime, it seems that fortune has smiled on the Mitten State, as it turns out the new X-Men movie will be filming in Michigan.



It seems the West Michigan Film Office is currently scouting locations for:

areas with a 1960's, South-American or Central American island feel for the next X-Men movie, 'X-Men: First Class.' In particular, he needs to find café and bar locations, evoking the Argentinian feel of Bariloche, and an Art Deco Cafe or restaurant overlooking a body of water. Additionally, the movie calls for a Miami styled harbor for yachts.

While this is very exciting news (especially for those of you still in Michigan), I do find myself almost focusing more on what those locations could mean for the movie's script (when were the X-Men in Miami?). But hey, it looks like those tax incentives for the film industry are continuing to pay off.

Oh, and if you have a location fitting the above descriptions in mind, drop a line to Rick Hert of the WMFO: rick@wmta.org

The future of fiction has arrived

I just read today that sci-fi writers Neil Stephenson and Greg Bear are starting a new interactive multi-authored Web epic called The Mongoliad.



There isn't much on the Mongoliad home page just yet, unless you go to your menu bar and click to view the page source, which reads:


"The Mongoliad is a family of apps for handhelds
which enable a new model for publishing, and a new way to
tell stories. At the center of the service is a ripping
medieval adventure by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, and other
great authors, about a time when Europe thought that the
Monglol Horde was about to destroy their world, and the
exploits of a small band of mystics and warriors as they
turn the tide of history."


But what makes it even more interesting is that it seems reader participation is actively encouraged - "Fanfiction" additions, wiki entries, and presumably more as this evolves are welcomed.

The "Web as medium" story has been done before. Shadow Unit, is an online story featuring regular updates as well as character Livejournal accounts and a wiki page. The Web site for Warren Ellis' series Doktor Sleepless (which you should be reading) features an interactive wiki, discussion board, and even podcast. And there are probably tons more out there of which I'm completely unaware because I have a job.

But the Mongoliad does seem poised to take it to that next level for several reasons. One, the people behind it. I won't pretend I'm that familiar with Greg Bear's work, but Neal Stephenson is not only very talented at world-building, but he knows his tech (he even has a book out explaining why you should throw Windows and Mac OS out for Linux). The key phrase here is "The Mongoliad is a family of apps for handhelds," meaning all those iPhones and iPads and Nooks and Kindles and whatever else are now going to become proper mediums unto themselves. Or more appropriately, they already are, and this project is simply diving right in to this reality. As Stephenson's own Subutai Corporation puts it, this is "an experiment in post-book publishing and storytelling."


"Welcome to the future."

Comic blogger Valerie D'Orazio, in her now apparently invite-only blog Occasional Superheroine used to say how the enormous popularity in both the Internet and video games showed that today's audiences want a more interactive experience from their entertainment. It looks like we'll soon get to see just how accurate that prediction really was.

And while I won't be rushing out and buying an iPad just yet (no matter how much certain of my friends hype it up), I'm definitely interested to see how this plays out.

Also, now I can't get that Devo song out of my head.

Tuesday Triple Play

Prime Time PR
Let me say right off the bat, I don't watch TV regularly. Part of this is by choice, and part due to not actually having a TV (okay, technically I do have one, but we can digress on that subject some other time). Consequently I tend not to keep up on the current programs, but this one really caught my attention - CBS' Undercover Boss. I'll let the show's own web site describe it:

Each week a different executive will leave the comfort of their corner office for an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of their company. While working alongside their employees, they will see the effects their decisions have on others, where the problems lie within their organization and get an up-close look at both the good and the bad while discovering the unsung heroes who make their company run.



Two things came to mind for me when I saw the commercial for this:
1) At a time when corporate America's reputation and standing among the citizenry is the lowest it's been in generations, and people are fuming over CEO bonuses and bailouts, this is the kind of PR shot in the arm these bosses desperately need. And it comes a hell of a lot cheaper than actually making the jobs better or paying the employees more.
2)I'd seen this years before on an episode of Diff'rent Strokes. (If you're interested, you can watch the episode here.

Real Life Retcon
Apparently, the Texas Board of Education has decided that its grade school textbooks need to stop being so liberal, and has proposed new standards for what they should contain.

McLeroy is quoted as saying in a statement that the current "standards are rife with leftist political periods and events: the populists, the progressives, the New Deal and the Great Society. Including material about the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s provides some political balance to the document."

Now, there are all kinds of political and social statements one could make about all this (and many have), but personally, I think it just means that someone in Texas is a fan of Dinosaur Comics.

The Illuminati Goes Gaga
So, perhaps you've heard pop sensation Lady Gaga's new single "Telephone" and thought it was simply a catchy, if over-produced guaranteed club hit. Or maybe you saw the somewhat disturbing nine and half minute opus video for it:

(Because when I hear a song with the chorus "Call when you want but there's no one home/ and you're not gonna reach my telephone," I naturally think of a Tarantino homage ending in mass murder.)
But really, we're all just rubes, because this is actually in fact a coded expose of the mind control techniques of the Illuminati!
(Maybe I just haven't gotten to that part of the Illuminatus! Trilogy yet [though I do think Robert Anton Wilson would be sufficiently amused].)

Walmart Vocational Training

In case you haven't figured it out, I'm no longer in Detroit. So it took me a little while to hear that Detroit high schools are offering job training with Walmart.



As one blog covering the story pointed out, Detroit's unemployment rate is mind-boggling - something I got to see personally when I worked at the main branch of the Detroit Public Library downtown. And we've been hearing for years now that America's moving into a service-based economy, so learning customer service and cashier skills will actually be beneficial to the students who take part in this.

Ignoring for a second all the negative associations with Walmart, there's one thing about this that really stands out - there are no Walmarts in the city of Detroit proper. Perhaps that explains the following quote, which caught my attention:

Sean Vann, principal at Douglass, said 30 students at that school will get jobs at Walmart. He said the program will allow students an opportunity to earn money and to be exposed to people from different cultures - since all of the stores are in the suburbs.

Perhaps this was taken out of context; perhaps the principal was talking about immigrant communities or some such thing. But on its face, it explains so much about why Detroit is in the condition it's in.

Sounds like something a light rail system could fix, no?

(Yeah, I know there wasn't anything comics- or geek-related here. Sometimes it happens.)

Buzz Bomb

Believe it or not, I’m actually a fairly busy guy on a normal day (to say nothing of the days I have to shovel out several feet of snow thanks to a freak double blizzard), so when I saw the screen on my Gmail account telling me about this Google Buzz thing, I skipped the page and carried on my business. Which was all well and good, but after receiving an email containing this article, I realized I should see what the Buzz is after all. And, um, yeah…

The feature unveiled Tuesday will enable Gmail users to create status updates on Google Buzz and read and comment on the updates posted by their friends. Other tools turn Gmail into a showcase for sharing video, pictures and Web links to interesting stories, just as users can on Facebook and Twitter.



Now, this all sounds well and good, except that, really, do we need another Facebook? (Well, anyone who isn’t friends with their boss/family/students/teachers, a group which grows smaller by the hour.) Except that, unlike Facebook, Google wasn’t giving its users the option to sign on. Which, understandably, caused some problems for people.

In a way, Google’s just doing what it’s always done: charging full steam ahead with their products. Just think of the debacle with Google Books, where they got so caught up with the idea of digitizing and sharing books that they forgot about pesky matters such as copyright. Then again, maybe it’s not that they forgot; maybe they’re so entrenched in this vision of an all-inclusive digital future that they see such things as 20th century concerns, to be discarded in our Brave New World. Maybe, but more likely they were simply trying to make an impressive Steve Jobs-type display of their new feature. After all, springing new developments on people with little or no feedback from users has certainly worked out well for Facebook. Er, wait…

All snow and no play...

So, I had all kinds of ideas of things I wanted to write about this week, since I'm trying to make good my goal of keeping this blog active. But then, the snow came. And came. And came some more. And so, having been holed up in the same apartment since Friday, my girlfriend's idea to watch The Shining over the weekend didn't seem so great.



For the more disciplined folks, it's a great chance to be productive. For the rest of us, well, it's a chance to meet those we wouldn't otherwise.

You Bayonet-cha

When I first saw the ads for the Bayonetta game, I didn't think much of it. Another game featuring a kick-ass babe who shoots guns in skintight leather, uh huh. But the more I saw the ads, the more something nagged at me. There was just... something... about the character. Something naggingly familiar, but at the back of my head...

But what could it be? A brunette woman with glasses and a predilection for shooting guns. Where could I have possibly heard of that before?

Reboot Camp

Not the new Spider Man movie. Or is it...?

It’s been announced last week that the Spider Man movies are getting a reboot. With the announcement of (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb as the man behind the camera, it’s obvious that Sony is looking to seriously get away from Sam Raimi’s trilogy.

Yes, the costume taught him how to play piano.

The first question this brings to mind is: does the series really need a reboot already? Sure, Spider-Man 3 was kind of a mess, but the first two films still hold up. Also, with the new film planned for 2012, it’ll only have been 10 years since the first film, a short enough time for it still to be in filmgoers’ memories.

Then again, the quick reboot has been tried already – twice so far. Although they didn’t do much for the respective franchises, the films at least gave us a Hulk with out daddy issues and a Punisher without John Travolta.

Sees no problem with Thomas Jane's Punisher

For those of us who’ve grown up on comics (especially DC comics), the idea of the reboot is nothing new. Whether it was multiple Crises, or the Ultimate line, or events such as One More Day, we’re used to seeing the continuity we’ve spent years (or even decades) with get re-written in the space of a few months. DC’s even keeping the tradition alive with their upcoming Batman and Superman OGNs, completely bypassing the storylines of the monthlies. For superhero fans, reboots are as familiar as tights.

Remember the good old days?

But what about the general populace? Are they as keen on the idea of starting over every few years? Do they have the feeling of déjà vu when they see the same storyline played out over and over again, albeit with certain surface changes? Or do they care, as long as the story and action are good?

It could just be like with remakes, which Hollywood can’t seem to make enough of – the film has just enough newness to be enjoyable, but is familiar enough to justify dropping 10+ dollars on. And let’s face it, who wants to see a movie where they need 15 minutes of exposition to figure out what’s going on.

And on that note, it seems Brian Singer’s signed on to do an X-Men: First Class movie. Anything to make us forget about X-Men 3.

It never gets old... really.

The Amazing Obama Man

There’s been a lot of discussion of President Obama’s performance lately, what with the economy and war and all, and it’s brought out some thoughts I’ve had floating around for quite a while now.



It’s not saying anything new to say that even a year and a half ago one could tell there was something different about the then-senator from Illinois. Hell, lots of people have written about it, most probably better than I ever could. But what really struck me, especially around this time last year, was the way the comic people jumped all over Obama.

Even before he was elected, you had successful comic characters (and by extension, one would think their creators) making no bones about their chosen candidate:



When he did get elected, it was unprecedented. Sure,other presidents had appeared in comics before, but none like this. In terms of sheer volume and scope, Obama (or at least his image) was blazing all kinds of new trails.











What’s really interesting is seeing how the interpretations developed over time. While most comics were content to simply involve the president in a storyline or two, Devil’s Due took it a step further



…and then Antarctic Press took it even further than that:



Even his detractors, it seemed, couldn’t help but fall back on comic book imagery:



Taking all of this in, it’s easy to see that Obama isn’t just the president, he’s a full-blown Pop Culture Phenomenon. I know, a little late to the game with that one, huh? But seeing it laid out like this raises certain questions about not just the president, but his fans as well.

There are certain parallels one can draw between President Obama and Tiger Woods – and most are probably too obvious to even point out. But the main similarity (for the sake of this discussion) is the way with each that the Image overlaps with the Actual Human Being.



With his recent domestic troubles and subsequently dodgy behavior, it seems that Tiger Woods’ biggest problem of late is that his dramatically adult personal life is clashing with his image as the clean, driven, “aw shucks” kind of guy who was as charming as he was good at golf. (Think back to that Dave Chapelle sketch of Tiger Woods awkwardly declaring, “I’ve always wanted to say this – fer shizzle!”) With people learning that off the field Woods is just like lots of other celebrities – all too fallible – his popularity and position in the public’s good graces is in question.

We’re seeing some hints of this with Obama in the political field as well. With the troop escalation in Afghanistan, the total mess the health care debate has become, the continued corporate bonuses, etc., a lot of people on the political left are starting to feel disillusioned with Obama. Put simply, they’re finding the man in the office isn’t the same guy who was in that Spider-Man issue.



One thing America likes to do to its celebrities is, after having built them up, to tear them down. Tom Cruise certainly got a lot more press after jumping on Oprah’s couch than he did before that. So what happens when the celebrity happens to be the man in charge of running the country? What happens when his comic stops selling? What happens when the Symbol of Hope turns out to be just another guy in a suit doing a job?

What if Clark Kent really isn’t Superman?



Or conversely, will the Idea of Barack Obama overshadow the man to the point where all we have left is the image, devoid of any but the most basic associations? Will Sheperd Fairey’s famed “Hope” poster simply become the newest perennial t-shirt design?




(Please note, I’m not trying to make any overt political statements, but more examining the whole person/persona issue when played out in four colors.)

Dammit, Jim!

Apparently skater shoe makers Airwalk have a Star Trek-inspired line of hi-tops.



The only thing is, what self-respecting Trekkie is going to want to wear the red ones?

True Tales of Geekery

(Somewhat appropriate graphic.)

Back in an earlier, simpler time – 2001 – I interned at a locally-based major advertising company (I was doing copy editing, of course). One of the company’s largest clients was Chevrolet, who at the time was working on bringing a new truck/SUV-type vehicle to market.

One thing I never thought about until then was how new vehicles are named. Sure, occasionally the odd name comes out (what the hell is a "Yaris," anyway?) but for the most part the name is just there, just one more part of the car. As it turns out, there are all kinds of ways cars get their names. Often, the engineers or someone at the company will have the name in mind with the concept, and other times the company will just go with whatever the model designation happens to be (your F150, perhaps). And sometimes, someone creative gets thrown in the mix.

(Mildly appropriate graphic.)

It really pains me to admit that I can’t remember his name, but the guy writing the ads for this new Chevy vehicle also happened to be an avid comic reader – the cubicle filled with Spawn toys being an obvious indicator. When he was given the project, this overly-large bastard merging of pickup truck and SUV simply had its project number as a name. The writer knew that X57J4 or whatever it was just wasn’t going to grab anyone. So he went to the place where he knew he’d find powerful, descriptive names, the kinds that jump out at you and pull you in, that lodge themselves in the pop culture consciousness and stay there. That is to say, he looked in his comics. Marvel comics, to be precise.

And there he found his answer. So now you know, whenever you see that ugly beast of a vehicle called the Avalanche driving down the road, you know that it is indeed named after a third-tier member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Which in its own way is almost poetically appropriate.

(Completely appropriate graphics.)

As to how the Aztek got its name, well, that’s a tale for another day… preferably to be told by someone who actually knows it.

Tricks 'n' Treats

With Halloween upon us, it seemed a good time to share some spooky goodies to make this - or any - season a little more creepy and fun...



The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft (Image)
This series captures the essence of the Lovecraft stories well: the
protagonists in Lovecraft’s stories were rarely Everymen, but more
often singular personalities who were haunted by some demon or Elder
God, but more often by their own obsessions. H.P. is presented here as
a struggling writer, so trapped by his own insecurities and familial
dysfunctions that he can’t even pursue the girl of his dreams (a
flapper librarian, no less – yowza!). Writer Mac Carter does a great
job of capturing the energy and vibe of a Lovecraft story while
keeping his own voice, and Tony Salmons’ art fully conveys the
frenetic creepiness of the tale. Unfortunately, the final issue has
yet to materialize, but for now it’s worth tracking down the first
three.



Paranormal Activity
By now you’ve probably heard lots about this
little-indie-film-turned-box-office-smash, but the question remains,
is it scary? Let me tell you something, my friend, it is indeed. By
aiming low – focusing on the actors’ reactions and keeping the scare
level at a slow boil – this film reminds us that, still, the scariest
things are the ones we don’t see. You’ll never look at a hall light
turning on the same way again. (Note: The trailers on the film's web site are far better than the one on Youtube, but really, you'll get way more just going in fresh. At least, that worked for me.)



Drag Me to Hell
A Sam Raimi horror movie about a woman who receives a gypsy curse that
threatens to – you guessed it – drag her to hell. It’s been 22 years
since Raimi and crew made Evil Dead II, and even after all the time
and big budget films Sam proves he never strayed far from his
(Michigan) slapstick horror roots.



The Misfits – “Scream” video
Yeah, it’s old, but still worth revisiting. Bassist Jerry Only revived
the Misfits in the mid-‘90s without Glenn Danzig, to very mixed
lineups and results. But perhaps signifying the peak of the “Misfits
pt.2” was the video for their song “Scream” (from the Famous Monsters
album). Directed by none other than George Romero (in exchange for
their appearance in Romero’s film Bruiser), it distills the zombie
movie to its essence in just under three minutes, and still delivers.

And of course...


Candy!!!

Blacker than Blackest?

As we know, the DC Comics universe is deep into their latest Giant Crossover Event, Blackest Night which features, among other things, a villain reviving a whole slew of dead characters to wreak all kinds of havoc on the living heroes. It also seems to be resurrecting DC's status with fans (will Final Crisis ever truly be forgiven?), as the series has been August and September's top selling book. And, setting aside thecheap gimmicks to sell tie-in books, the buzz around the book seems pretty positive (haven't read it myself, so I can't comment).

So, with that in mind I found it very intriguing to hear about Marvel's newest Mutant Crossover Event, Necrosha which features, among other things a villain... reviving a whole slew of dead characters... to wreak all kinds of havoc on the living heroes.



Perhaps this is just coincidence; As I pointed out last post, zombies are everywhere at the moment, and both events sound like they've been building for a while. And yes, Marvel did start putting the Marvel Zombies series years ago. Still, one could see a trend developing with Marvel, were one so inclined:

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I leave it to you to decide...

Jumping the Undead Shark

Well, hello there. Yeah, guess it has been a while, and the blog was starting to resemble one of those abandoned houses Time Magazine is writing about – you know, not taken down, but not maintained, just a withered reminder of the glory that once was and we all hope could return.

So in that spirit, and appropriate to the upcoming holiday, the topic at hand for this post is: zombies.

I had set out to write this entry after reading about the Night of the Stripping Dead, but before I could, I encountered last week’s Savage Love article, which featured a question form a reader regarding the ethic of – you guessed it – zombie sex (you’ll have to scroll down for it).

In case you missed that, someone wrote to a national sex columnist to get advice on the morality of having sexual intercourse with the living dead.

Seriously, people.

All of this reinforces a question I’ve been asking myself lately: has the zombie phenomenon hit its peak?

Of course, a lot of this ties into the release of the movie Zombieland – which, despite its use of the modern running zombie is hilarious and worth seeing. Interestingly, it seems that whoever did the marketing for that movie knew their stuff, as I’ve seen the movie promoted by several Zombie Walk groups (including

Detroit’s own). And with AMC producing a televised version of Image Comics’ series The Walking Dead, it seems the march of the pop culture undead is going to be a hard to put down as the monsters themselves. (In this case it may not be a bad thing, since if the show turns out even half as good as the book, it’ll be one of the best series on TV). And lest we forget, while you’re waiting for the show you can always read some zombiefied Jane Austen.

Yes, everywhere you look, there be zombies.

But why does there seem to be this tendency of late to turn everything into a phenomenon anyway? Time was, you could be into pirates or ninjas or robots or primates or whatever it was, and it wasn’t a big deal, it was just what you were into. Mainly because you were ten, and ninjas were the baddest-ass thing you’d ever heard of in your entire decade-long life. But now, it doesn’t seem to be enough to just like, say, pirates. You have to be “OMG!! Pirates!!!” Everything becomes this grand statement pop cultural identity.

To further illustrate this, I give you a prime example: bacon. Once it was simply fried pig flesh that many people enjoyed at meals. Then came Baconnaise, and all its offshoots. Then the April Fool’s Day joke Bacon Lube, which proved so popular it became a real item. There are bacon t-shirts. I’ve seen a Beer and Bacon happy hour at some hipster bar. That thing that used to be just to make you stop being hungry? It’s now something you show off to demonstrate your hipness.

This could be a result of the constant barrage of cultural input we get. If you’re some artist or Hollywood executive trying to cut through the endless sea of stimuli to get your product/creation/message across, and you see some wave that people are actually paying attention to (especially if those people are in your target demographic), well, wouldn’t you try to ride it as far as you could?

Or maybe it’s just that I’m not used to the things I like being mainstream. It’s kind of like watching a band go from playing dive bars to packing stadiums – you’re happy for them, but it’s just not the same. Then you start saying how they’re not as good anymore, and anyway none of the new fans get the band like you do.

But I digress…

Now the question is, with vampires making a comeback, will the zombie be pushed out of the undead spotlight? After all, what could possibly be a bigger draw than a bunch of shuffling, rotting corpses?