Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Road, road, middle thereof

-The clock is winding down on the current Hate Poll (as I've decided to call them), but you still have a few hours to vote.

-Don't know if this has been making the rounds, but I have no idea what the fuck Larry Young and Kevin Church are arguing about here. (Related: this and this. Apparently.) I had never heard of Cory Doctorow before this, honestly, so I guess I came into this mess at something of a disadvantage. (Bear in mind (a) I don't read too many non-comics blogs and (b) I read almost no science fiction which doesn't incorporate word balloons, and even then it had better feature very pretty art.) So does Larry Young have a problem with Kevin Church? And isn't it a bit weird that Church's blog is suddenly the source of so much angst? I always considered it a nice, inoffensive place.

A couple more things: (1) Points to Young for his comments re: "snark," a word I really hate. But it's probably derived from a fairly old word, and thus cannot really be considered "fake." (2) That Patton Oswalt thing Church links to bears all the telltale signs of something written by a Gen X dude who hasn't actually spent much time with Gen Y kids. They're motivated, organized, and committed (maybe to the point of annoyance, honestly). And hey, plenty of Gen X people are just as politically active and motivated, it's just that these are the sorts of people who Patton Oswalt has (presumably) never mingled with socially. (For the record, I think Oswalt is pretty funny; compared to other contemporary stand-up comedians, he's uproriously funny.)

-While we're on the subject, this sure is a crowd-pleaser, isn't it? I should go reclaim my scanner from my wife and join the party! I'm thinking of doing a "caption this" thing, but I can't decide if I want to use Palestine or From Hell. Decision, decisions!

-Denny O'Neill checks in with the second half (or third, depending upon his whim) of his Green Lantern vs. Politics piece, and I'm sort of really disappointed. O'Neill stops well short of calling Hal Jordan a goose-stepper, partly I guess because he doesn't want to imply that either Julie Schwartz or Gil Kane supported such ideologies (do note that John Broome is conspicuously absent from this line of speculation--what is Denny O'Neill failing to tell us?). He does gesture at some pro-authoritarian post-WWII sentiment which the two might have shared, but again stops shy of actually trying to draw any conclusions. And I'm not entirely sure if O'Neill is using the term realpolitik correctly. (It's a German language special here today! Which is great, cause it gives me the opportunity to tell a joke which no one has ever laughed at. Q: How does Otto von Bismarck make doughnuts? A: With blood and custard. If any of you have event the faintest idea what I'm talking about here, please leave a comment and let me know.)

The failure of this article to say anything interesting could be easily remedied had O'Neill embraced a more poststructuralist approach. "Julie Schwartz probably wasn't a fascist" could be quickly replaced with "Green Lantern was portrayed as the ultimate expression of organized adolescent fantasy, a brightly-colored Nazi who just was 'just following orders.'" It's just a matter of embracing your inner passive voice, maaaan.

-I would think a self-professed Comic Snob would have slightly fewer positive things to say about Kevin Smith than the average comics reader, but I guess I stand corrected.

-I swear I've heard this story before. Like, repeatedly.

-This is the funniest thing I've ever read on Bully's blog. Although it's more of a head-scratcher than a knee-slapper.

-Is there a video-game vs. comics war brewing that I didn't previously know or care about? I probably wouldn't bother commenting on it, but this piqued my interest:
"Oh, and while we're on the subject, you're wrong about the "great literary works" thing. Like, silly wrong."


Is this implying that there are "great literary works" being produced in video games? I play quite a few, but I've never seen one which approached the depth of an episode of Quincy, M.E. Video games as art--sure, I could see a case being made. Video games as literature is fucking stupid, though. Maybe I should bear in mind that these are probably people who consider Stephen King the single greatest writer of all time.

I'd also like to note that reading the comments there has left me with a newfound appreciation for comics fans. Christ.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I should go reclaim my scanner from my wife and join the party! I'm thinking of doing a "caption this" thing, but I can't decide if I want to use Palestine or From Hell. Decision, decisions!

Last summer I was planning to do one of those posts that scanned out-of-context comics panels and added allegedly hilarious captions that amounted to little more than describing the image in face-rocking awesome karate Chuck Norris BOLD FACE! Except all the panels would come from Safe Area Gorazde, Daddy's Girl, When the Wind Blows, and, of course, Maus. ("They're turning the little mice INTO SOAP!")

Then I decided it wasn't worth spending that much time on a micro-fad I disdain. Loathing, sure, I get that, but not disdain.

Dick Hyacinth's Ghost said...

I think we've come to exactly the same conclusion, cause I really can't see messing around with the scanner long enough to do this either. I hate using the scanner, which makes the popularity of these kinds of posts all the more baffling.

Greg said...

Well, I thought the Otto von Bismarck joke was pretty darned funny ...

Dick Hyacinth's Ghost said...

This is only going to encourage me to make more historical jokes.

Batiduende said...

Stephen King? You give them to much credit. I play video games, but I void VG message boards because I don't need to talk to more people who think Final Fantasy VII is the pinnacle of storytelling.

Dick Hyacinth's Ghost said...

So are you saying that video game fans don't know how to read? I always suspected as much. So that makes them fat, virginal, acne-ridden, hygiene-challenged, emotionally-stunted illiterates. Did I miss anything there?

And everyone knows FF7 is plagiarizing PS2 (by which I mean Phantasy Star 2--fuck Sony asshoels for stealing there abbreviation!!!). Square fanboys r teh suk. LOLOLOLOLOLOL

(In all seriousness, I quit playing FF12 because I hated all the characters so much.)

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