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.)

Art is dead and Detroit is art

R.I.P.

Detroit's about to lose another gallery. It's confirmed that C-Pop, Detroit's very own high/lowbrow art gallery, is shutting down in June. Having prominently featured several local artists (Glenn Barr, Tristan Eaton, and the ubiquitous Niagara) along with national/international talent (Anthony Ausgang, Robert Williams, and Shepard Fairey), C-Pop has truly been an institution in this city for a decade and a half.



The good news (if you can call it that) is that their last exhibition (which takes place this Saturday, May 2) looks pretty kick-ass. Along with works from all the above-mentioned artists will be art by H. R. Giger, Winston Smith (did a lot of Dead Kennedys art), Liz McGrath, and this blogger's art crush Tara McPherson. You can find the info on C-Pop's Myspace page.

On a similar note, I stumbled across this Time Magazine online piece about our fair city entitled "Detroit's Beautiful, Horrible Decline". It features shots from French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre series "The Ruins of Detroit," which captures the city in all its post-apocalyptic glory. I have to say, the shots are rather nice:

The William Livingston House
The United Artists Theater

Perhaps it's fitting that another gallery should be closing. After all, as things slide, Detroit is becoming less of a city and more of an installation piece (just ask Tyree Guyton). So who needs the confines (and politics) of an enclosed display space, when you can simply go down the street and be in the art itself?

That's Monday for you.

ManiFISTo

Detroit and comic books have a lot in common: both have given culture some of its greatest icons; both are often maligned and misunderstood by people not familiar with them; both enjoyed creative and economic peaks, only to see their fortunes slip into decline; and, unfortunately, both have a core of fans whose attitude is, "If you aren't one of us, stay out!"

For decades, comic books have been considered a cultural wasteland. So has Detroit. These ideas couldn't be further from the truth.

Detroit gave the world Motown, Joe Louis, Sam Raimi, and, oh, a little thing you might have heard of called the car. Comic books gave us Superman, Spider-Man, Maus, and offered young kids the idea that inside every nerdy high school student or mild-mannered reporter was someone who, under the right circumstances, could be a true hero.

(Oh, and at least for now, Hollwood is all about mining both.)

With this in mind, Ladies and Gentlemen, we proudly present Comics Devastation!

This isn't just a blog about comics (although mostly it is). It isn't"Members Only." You don't have to be "in the club" to "get it." Like comic books, like Detroit, this blog is for everyone, if they're only willing to give it a chance. It'll talk about the good, and the bad, of both Detroit and comic books - because both have given a lot to the world already, and both still have plenty to offer.

Fist image courtesy The Aquitaine.