Showing posts with label Being a big nerd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Being a big nerd. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Depressing Awesome-ness!
A quick suggestion: Listen to France's Deathspell Omega and check out this thread on Slashdot. It will be awesome. Maybe a little depressing, but mostly awesome. I've thoroughly enjoyed the last 45 minutes of my life.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Cheatin' on y'all
So I play in this band called Wormrider, and this band called Wormrider has a blog. I just posted to it earlier today. The post is about a fan re-edit of the Dune movie. I curse a lot in it. Also I say mean things about George Lucas. It's funny. You should read it. Then you should start listening to my band. That's all the advice that I have for today.
WORMRIDER'S WEBPAGE BLOG THINGAMAJIG LINK!
WORMRIDER'S WEBPAGE BLOG THINGAMAJIG LINK!
Thursday, September 29, 2011
D&D on That Google+ Thingy
Check this guy out!
While I generally prefer the face-to-face-ness of D&D to online RPGs, I'm definitely rooting for this to work out. Partially because it sounds zany and partially because he's calling the campaign "The Mines of the Blood Diamond Clan." How can that not be awesome?
Dude's got a schmancy blog, too.
While I generally prefer the face-to-face-ness of D&D to online RPGs, I'm definitely rooting for this to work out. Partially because it sounds zany and partially because he's calling the campaign "The Mines of the Blood Diamond Clan." How can that not be awesome?
Dude's got a schmancy blog, too.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Feed by M. T. Anderson
Amazon link
I can't wait to teach Feed this coming school year. This book is one of those examples of fiction that leaves the reader off-kilter and a little unhinged at the end. Very powerful, very visceral, and very well attuned to popular concerns about American culture. I look forward to seeing whether actual young adults respond to this young adult novel. This old fogey thought it was pretty excellent!
Yeah, YA dystopias!
I can't wait to teach Feed this coming school year. This book is one of those examples of fiction that leaves the reader off-kilter and a little unhinged at the end. Very powerful, very visceral, and very well attuned to popular concerns about American culture. I look forward to seeing whether actual young adults respond to this young adult novel. This old fogey thought it was pretty excellent!
Yeah, YA dystopias!
Monday, August 1, 2011
Further Reporting on Standardized Tests and Cheating Rates
The New York Times published an article in reference to the article to which I made reference a few posts ago.
I am interested in seeing where this is headed. The pressure for schools to demonstrate continually higher scores on standardized tests from year to year from their students his done nothing but increase since NCLB became the law of the land. Yes, I agree that schools in general and teachers in particular should neither fix statistics, nor help their students cheat. Yes, I agree that accountability to the public helps to ensure a higher quality of service from a school. I just think that we are going about this the wrong way. In Pennsylvania the state standardized tests are created by a private company that is in no way held accountable to the public (yeah, yeah, I know the state government could not renew their contract but that does not happen in practice and they have a de facto monopoly anyway).
The tests do not necessarily reflect anything that is actually taught in any classroom in the state. They do not report on the amount of information learned by individual students as they progress (scores for each grade are compared to scores from the same grade from previos years, not the same students as they advance). The PA state standardized tests do not assess what their creators say they assess and public policy creates situations where cheating is easy, easy to get away with, and very beneficial. Going after "these teachers" who cheat will not fix this problem as they will simply be replaced by more teachers who will be similarly encouraged to become more of "these teachers." If the policy does not change, the problem will persist.
What if we trusted continually trained and licensed professionals to create assessments tailored to determine whether the students learned the presented material? What if we did this on a local level? What if we reported the outcome of these assessments on a bimonthly basis directly to the parents of the students? What if we set time aside for parents to come in and speak directly to these trained professionals? What if parents could contact these trained professionals via phone or email whenever they wanted? The system exists. We've had public schools, quizzes, report cards, parent/teacher conferences, and open sharing of teacher contact information for many decades. It would only require trusting us teachers to do the thing that the public already trusts us to do.
I am interested in seeing where this is headed. The pressure for schools to demonstrate continually higher scores on standardized tests from year to year from their students his done nothing but increase since NCLB became the law of the land. Yes, I agree that schools in general and teachers in particular should neither fix statistics, nor help their students cheat. Yes, I agree that accountability to the public helps to ensure a higher quality of service from a school. I just think that we are going about this the wrong way. In Pennsylvania the state standardized tests are created by a private company that is in no way held accountable to the public (yeah, yeah, I know the state government could not renew their contract but that does not happen in practice and they have a de facto monopoly anyway).
The tests do not necessarily reflect anything that is actually taught in any classroom in the state. They do not report on the amount of information learned by individual students as they progress (scores for each grade are compared to scores from the same grade from previos years, not the same students as they advance). The PA state standardized tests do not assess what their creators say they assess and public policy creates situations where cheating is easy, easy to get away with, and very beneficial. Going after "these teachers" who cheat will not fix this problem as they will simply be replaced by more teachers who will be similarly encouraged to become more of "these teachers." If the policy does not change, the problem will persist.
What if we trusted continually trained and licensed professionals to create assessments tailored to determine whether the students learned the presented material? What if we did this on a local level? What if we reported the outcome of these assessments on a bimonthly basis directly to the parents of the students? What if we set time aside for parents to come in and speak directly to these trained professionals? What if parents could contact these trained professionals via phone or email whenever they wanted? The system exists. We've had public schools, quizzes, report cards, parent/teacher conferences, and open sharing of teacher contact information for many decades. It would only require trusting us teachers to do the thing that the public already trusts us to do.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
I Totally Got to Play Chain World!
I've been reading a bit about Chain World, a video game revealed at the 2011 Game Design Challenge in SF, CA (if you followed that link, you can skip to the next paragraph). In brief, Jason Rohrer is an independent game designer who created a Minecraft mod, put it on a USB stick, and wrote some rules for playing the game. You only get to play it off the stick. You only play it once. When you are done playing it and saving your alterations to the world, you have to pass it on to someone else. He submitted the game as an entry in a "Video Games as Religion" challenge and passed it off to wander around the world and become the stuff of legends. Each player gets to contribute to the development of the world and the alterations that they make take on stories of their own, get interpreted, misinterpreted, added to, destroyed, or ignored by each subsequent player (like the real world, except one person at a time). Rohrer was player one, while player two was this guy named Jia Ji, a programmer who mostly works to get money donated to charities and disaster relief. Ji, independent of an against the wishes of Rohrer, set up an online auction that would have gotten the game passed on to various celebrities and regular people. One would bid for a slot in the game's passage from person to person. Procedes would go to various charities. Angry blogging ensued. People either enjoyed that the game was already being altered and reinterpreted, or hated that it was being monetized and regulated even for supposedly good causes.
Those who think that this Ji dude is somehow corrupting the game seem to be angry at least in part by the fact that a player is limiting the way that the game is played, and somehow corrupting its original intent. I think that they are wrong, not , however, for the reasons that Ji gives (something about how things should be used to get money to people in need). Ji strikes me as a ridiculous, hippy, goody-two-shoes,spotlight-hogger who needs a hobby other than the thing that he already does for a living (and this Rohrer dude seems pretty zany, too). What has actually happened here is that now everyone is getting to play the most interesting and actually available part of this unimaginably rare game. Li didn't take anything from anyone or corrupt anything. He just took part in the only way that any of us can hope to play the game.
Rohrer created a video game so limited that essentially nobody (or at least a vastly insignificant number of people) will ever get to directly play it. Even if the auction play order is broken (as it may have already been), you will never be in possession of the USB stick even more so than you will never win the lottery. That means that, for most of us, the interesting part of Chain World cannot be the actual playing of the USB stick. It has to be the in-real-life effect of the game. We play it by thinking about it, and sharing some of that thinking with others so that they can also think about it. We discuss and philosophize about the game. People also do this about religion. People get very angry about religion and yell about how other people's interpretation of religion is wrong. We get all hot and bothered about how other people ruin and misuse religion, even for supposedly good causes. Chain World is supposed to be a video game as a religion. I think that Rohrer succeeded, and we can all play at least the IRL part of the game. I'll never see the USB stick, but I did get to read a few cool articles, think some cool thoughts, and write a blog post that maybe a few people will read. Nobody has ruined my shot at playing this particular Minecraft mod. I totally got to play Chain World and it was a fun way to spend about an hour-and-a-half.
Those who think that this Ji dude is somehow corrupting the game seem to be angry at least in part by the fact that a player is limiting the way that the game is played, and somehow corrupting its original intent. I think that they are wrong, not , however, for the reasons that Ji gives (something about how things should be used to get money to people in need). Ji strikes me as a ridiculous, hippy, goody-two-shoes,spotlight-hogger who needs a hobby other than the thing that he already does for a living (and this Rohrer dude seems pretty zany, too). What has actually happened here is that now everyone is getting to play the most interesting and actually available part of this unimaginably rare game. Li didn't take anything from anyone or corrupt anything. He just took part in the only way that any of us can hope to play the game.
Rohrer created a video game so limited that essentially nobody (or at least a vastly insignificant number of people) will ever get to directly play it. Even if the auction play order is broken (as it may have already been), you will never be in possession of the USB stick even more so than you will never win the lottery. That means that, for most of us, the interesting part of Chain World cannot be the actual playing of the USB stick. It has to be the in-real-life effect of the game. We play it by thinking about it, and sharing some of that thinking with others so that they can also think about it. We discuss and philosophize about the game. People also do this about religion. People get very angry about religion and yell about how other people's interpretation of religion is wrong. We get all hot and bothered about how other people ruin and misuse religion, even for supposedly good causes. Chain World is supposed to be a video game as a religion. I think that Rohrer succeeded, and we can all play at least the IRL part of the game. I'll never see the USB stick, but I did get to read a few cool articles, think some cool thoughts, and write a blog post that maybe a few people will read. Nobody has ruined my shot at playing this particular Minecraft mod. I totally got to play Chain World and it was a fun way to spend about an hour-and-a-half.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Damnit. Now I need to be temporarily interested in comic books again.
Quick summary of DC's announcement that in September they will be restarting all of their 52 titles at issue #1 and that many of their heroes will be at least partially reimagined. Also that they will digitally distribute these issues on the same day as the physical releases.
Of course, by the "temporarily" in the title, I mean, "probably for just the month of September." It won’t take me long to realize that I don’t need new superhero stories every month. I have decades worth of them stored in boxes on my bookshelf. I think this is the main problem that DC (and Marvel for that matter) are facing. I love the hell out of some Batman, but I’m not sure that I need that many more Batman stories. These companies need to find new ways to milk their old properties without the cost of monthly publication in any format.
Of course, by the "temporarily" in the title, I mean, "probably for just the month of September." It won’t take me long to realize that I don’t need new superhero stories every month. I have decades worth of them stored in boxes on my bookshelf. I think this is the main problem that DC (and Marvel for that matter) are facing. I love the hell out of some Batman, but I’m not sure that I need that many more Batman stories. These companies need to find new ways to milk their old properties without the cost of monthly publication in any format.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Day 1 of a D&D 3-Shot
In the last few years, my wife and I find ourselves with less free time in general and less free time in common with our friends than we had in college and soon after. Gone (or at least, hard to obtain) are the days when we could bust out the Dungeons and Dragons books, roll up some characters, plan to meet twice a week, and play giant, open-ended campaigns that took years to complete. The all-night play sessions are out as well. We just can't pull any of that off anymore, but we still like the game and the time spent with friends.
The cool thing about those play sessions was the characters. Bringing a wizard from first to twelfth level gives you a deep understanding of who they are, and what makes them tick. You get this organically from repeated experiences. Whole sessions can go by without important plot advancement, just characters practicing being themselves. This is much of what makes roleplaying games cool. You have time to get really invested in the progress of a character.
I am still part of a friend group that get together for roleplaying games, but the play sessions tend to be false starts and one-shots (game sessions where you play disposable characters through a short string of fights agains monsters and then never play with them again after that one time). These are fun, but only in that we are hanging out and drinking beer. You can't get into the characters all that much, and the action has no real purpose. It's something to do, but it doesn't get to the core fun of what keeps me buying Dungeons and Dragons books well into my adult life. I can't swing full campaigns, and one-shot just don't satisfy.
Two days ago my wife and I sent out text messages to a bunch of friends. "Show up @ our place @ noon. D&D 3-shot". About half of the people who we invited showed up and got down to making characters. We agreed to play three times only with this group, and that this campaign would have a closed ending. This was going to be a campaign about plot. The characters would stick around for a little while, so there was some investment in them, but we couldn't spend hours just developing them. They had something to do and they had to get it done quickly. And therein we have the advantage of finite campaigns, they don't have the time for sidetracking or developing characters more than needed. They're satisfying the way that video roleplaying games are. The players get to complete the quest. They don't have to get it done in one night, but they need to get it done.
Afte one session, I'm really excited about where this is going. We have four characters who, while not fully developed, are at least united by a common goal. They have already found some pretty exciting success in moving towards that goal, and, since they are already one third of the way through the plot, they can already see a little bit of what reaching that goal will entail. When the evening ended we knew we'd be coming back for more in a few weeks, so there'll be some anticipation for next time, with the added bonus that next time has to be important. We get to care a little about these characters without having to block out every Thursday evening from not until a billion years from now. I like this 3-shot thing.
The cool thing about those play sessions was the characters. Bringing a wizard from first to twelfth level gives you a deep understanding of who they are, and what makes them tick. You get this organically from repeated experiences. Whole sessions can go by without important plot advancement, just characters practicing being themselves. This is much of what makes roleplaying games cool. You have time to get really invested in the progress of a character.
I am still part of a friend group that get together for roleplaying games, but the play sessions tend to be false starts and one-shots (game sessions where you play disposable characters through a short string of fights agains monsters and then never play with them again after that one time). These are fun, but only in that we are hanging out and drinking beer. You can't get into the characters all that much, and the action has no real purpose. It's something to do, but it doesn't get to the core fun of what keeps me buying Dungeons and Dragons books well into my adult life. I can't swing full campaigns, and one-shot just don't satisfy.
Two days ago my wife and I sent out text messages to a bunch of friends. "Show up @ our place @ noon. D&D 3-shot". About half of the people who we invited showed up and got down to making characters. We agreed to play three times only with this group, and that this campaign would have a closed ending. This was going to be a campaign about plot. The characters would stick around for a little while, so there was some investment in them, but we couldn't spend hours just developing them. They had something to do and they had to get it done quickly. And therein we have the advantage of finite campaigns, they don't have the time for sidetracking or developing characters more than needed. They're satisfying the way that video roleplaying games are. The players get to complete the quest. They don't have to get it done in one night, but they need to get it done.
Afte one session, I'm really excited about where this is going. We have four characters who, while not fully developed, are at least united by a common goal. They have already found some pretty exciting success in moving towards that goal, and, since they are already one third of the way through the plot, they can already see a little bit of what reaching that goal will entail. When the evening ended we knew we'd be coming back for more in a few weeks, so there'll be some anticipation for next time, with the added bonus that next time has to be important. We get to care a little about these characters without having to block out every Thursday evening from not until a billion years from now. I like this 3-shot thing.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Everyone and their moms link to this . . .
Okay, so this post is linked to from so many places it's hardly funny. So it's been months since I posted and all that I can muster is a link to someone else's post. But this stuff is golden! Orson Scott Card ranting about J. K. Rowling. He uses the phrases "shot her wad"! Brilliant! Brilliant! Pure poetry! Enjoy.
Ender could totally kick that Potter wimp's ass, anyway!
I'll post some of my own nonsense soon enough.
Ender could totally kick that Potter wimp's ass, anyway!
I'll post some of my own nonsense soon enough.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Gary Gygax, RIP
all around the world the unwashed masses share a great loss
we shuffle through our days in our black trench coats and our ties,
our glasses ever so smudged, and our hair ever so tossled
we take a moment to mourn (in our own socially awkward way)
our collective uncle.
dear gygax, i raise my guisarm (not my halberd, not my pole-ax, there
is a difference, goddamn it!) to you
the weight of your worth will be measured in gold pieces
and then converted to electrum pieces and platinum pieces to save on the zeroes
thank you for the poison usage rules
for the grand master of flowers, for thief-acrobats
and drow fur
thank you for alignment languages,
for mandatory follower attraction
and for the great lord cuthbert
because of you i will always be able to look back on kinder, less simple days
when caveliers began at level -5,
when there were more cantrips than level 9 spells
and when psionic combat took six to ten steps, three tables, four die
roles, and yet was explained in a single column at the very end of the
dmg index
may your soul live on in the happy hunting grounds
under the shade of a lessor wolf-in-sheep's-clothing plant
or perhaps in nirvana, marching with the modrons, hand in hand with
primus, the one and prime
though i may live to reach the venerable age category (and its wisdom bonus) i will always remain indebted to you
sleep well, beautiful soldier
until one of your millions of nephews gets his hand on a ring of major wishes
and brings your soul back to the prime material plane
we shuffle through our days in our black trench coats and our ties,
our glasses ever so smudged, and our hair ever so tossled
we take a moment to mourn (in our own socially awkward way)
our collective uncle.
dear gygax, i raise my guisarm (not my halberd, not my pole-ax, there
is a difference, goddamn it!) to you
the weight of your worth will be measured in gold pieces
and then converted to electrum pieces and platinum pieces to save on the zeroes
thank you for the poison usage rules
for the grand master of flowers, for thief-acrobats
and drow fur
thank you for alignment languages,
for mandatory follower attraction
and for the great lord cuthbert
because of you i will always be able to look back on kinder, less simple days
when caveliers began at level -5,
when there were more cantrips than level 9 spells
and when psionic combat took six to ten steps, three tables, four die
roles, and yet was explained in a single column at the very end of the
dmg index
may your soul live on in the happy hunting grounds
under the shade of a lessor wolf-in-sheep's-clothing plant
or perhaps in nirvana, marching with the modrons, hand in hand with
primus, the one and prime
though i may live to reach the venerable age category (and its wisdom bonus) i will always remain indebted to you
sleep well, beautiful soldier
until one of your millions of nephews gets his hand on a ring of major wishes
and brings your soul back to the prime material plane
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Graphic Novels that I Dug
Wow! I need to post more often! Grad school really sucks up any writing time that I ever had. The next few weeks should see a few more posts as I'm between semesters.
This is part of my final project for a class on Young Adult Literature that I just completed. Links are for wimps, look these up on your own!
10) Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan
This is the story of a pride of lions who escape from the Baghdad zoo after it is bombed by the American military. The lions encounter a number of other escaped animals as they try to get out of the city and recreate their society. The tale parallels the lives of many people living in Baghdad, dealing with the destruction of their cities and trying to make the best of the new society that began to spring up around them. Strong themes of responsibility to others (including members of other social groups, personified by different species of animals) versus the need for self preservation permeate this graphic novel.
Contains some violence and some minor adult language.
9) Hellboy: Seed of Destruction by Mike Mignola
Hellboy has been a recognizable superhero detective for over a decade. Especially after the release of the popular movie a few years ago, Mignola’s character has made his way into youth culture. This is the collected first few issues of the original Hellboy series. The character is a demon turned supernatural detective. He fights Nazis, witches, fairy tale monsters, and Rasputin himself. Relatively light on violence, the stories pull from a number of different resources, especially Irish folk tales and science/fiction from the early 1950s. The book contains many sympathetic characters, including some of its major villains and deals with Hellboy’s struggle to use the legacy of evil that he has inherited to serve and protect.
Contains references to the occult and some minor adult language.
8) Maus and Maus II by Art Spiegelman
These two graphic novels did wonders to get the genre recognized within literary circles. The two books tell the story of a man hearing the tale of his father’s experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust. All characters are portrayed as different animals depending on their nationality. Spiegelman does not shy away from brutal depictions of the attempted extermination of the Jews by the Nazis or the extreme (and sometimes troubling) lengths that the victims could go to in order to survive.
Contains some disturbing scenes of violence and some racist/anti-semitic language.
7) WE3 by Grant Morrison
This is a collection of a three issue mini-series from a few years ago. Three animals (a dog, a cat, and a rabbit) are outfitted with cybernetic exo-skeletons and advanced weapon systems by the U. S. military. They are trained as assassins by a doctor who lets them free when she is unable to reconcile the needs of the military with cruelty to other living things. The three animals make their way across the country, trying to escape their human captors. The military begins pursuing them to save an investment in money, but eventually realizes that they must also protect the innocent humans that the animals encounter. This story explores the moral grey area of animal testing and the dangers that weapons can be to innocent bystanders.
Contains numerous scenes of violence.
6) Blankets by Craig Thompson
Thompson tells a semi-autobiographical story of growing up in a conservative Christian community. Two middle-school aged boys learn to negotiate the desires of their parents with their own needs for self-expression and their budding interest in girls. We follow them from their hometown to a Christian Youth summer camp. Thompson deals with issues of family expectations, accepting the faith of others, and determining one’s own faith.
Contains some adult language and frank (though well-balanced) discussions of the validity of conservative religious upbringings.
5) Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
Web comics are very quickly becoming a major fad within a number of age groups. This is a collection of the first series of publications by Jeff Kinney about a middle school boy making his oblivious way through life. The dialogue and stories are amazingly realistic. Kinney writes like my 10-year-old brother, and his character is completely clueless. The light humor is used to portray the awkward middle school years and children’s places in the family and the community. Students who enjoy this book can read weekly web-published material containing the same characters and stories.
Contains some comical mischief.
4) Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loab and Tim Sale
Everyone knows Batman. Here we have a reprint of an early 1990s story arc that retells the origin of Two-Face, one of his better known villains. This is a much more direct detective story than the typical Batman fare. Loab and Sale spend much of the story exploring the various villains of Gotham City, often portraying them in a much more humanized light than in the past. We see Batman reach out to a few of them out of charity and a desire for companionship. We also see him kick some serious butt and drive around in his flashy car with his flashy weapons. The plot is very intricate for a typical superhero mag and actually expects the reader to pay attention to details and think.
Contains some violence.
3) Violent Cases by Neal Gaiman
This beautifully (and I mean BEAUTIFULLY!) illustrated graphic novel is set up as Gaiman explaining a strangely fractured memory from his early childhood. Through a serious of flashbacks, Gaiman pieces together memories of a doctor who strangely resembles Albert Einstein (and tells great stories about Al Capone), his father (always depicted from the shoulders down), and an amusing group of children (who occasionally pay some attention to the protagonist). The story delves in the unreliability of memory and the way that adults sometimes overly romanticizes their younger years as children roll their eyes at yet another story of “the good old days.”
Contains some mild adult language.
2) Zero Girl by Sam Keith
Playing around with the idea of the teenaged superhero, Keith tells a story about an outcast girl who suddenly realizes that she has some strange super powers when she is in contact with round objects. Using power derived from the proximity of abandoned tires and drink coasters, she battles the bullies at her school and nurses a secret crush on one of her teachers. The story eventually becomes a mystery to determine the source of her odd powers and the context of memory of blood on a circular tea doily. Keith’s story deals with the trials of growing up, the pain of unrequited (and immature) love, and the simultaneous desires to belong and to stand out.
Contains some violence and some adult language.
1) Bone: One Volume Edition by Jeff Smith
Bone is the story of three cartoon cousins who get run out of their hometown and find themselves in a Lord of the Rings inspired fantasy land filled with dragons, knights, and old women who race (as in see who can run faster) against cows. The quirky story has a huge cast of characters and a very unique art style that blends cartoon-y Sunday comic strips with more detailed graphic novel styles. This epic and imaginative story deals with friendship and responsibility, and the consequences that secrets can have on families. The story gradually blooms from the zany exploits of a group of cute, fuzzy animals and humorous characters to a pretty serious tale of adventure and children growing into their (initially) unwanted responsibilities.
Contains some scary scenes.
This is part of my final project for a class on Young Adult Literature that I just completed. Links are for wimps, look these up on your own!
Top 10 Graphic Novels for Adolescents
(and for us old folks, as well)
10) Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan
This is the story of a pride of lions who escape from the Baghdad zoo after it is bombed by the American military. The lions encounter a number of other escaped animals as they try to get out of the city and recreate their society. The tale parallels the lives of many people living in Baghdad, dealing with the destruction of their cities and trying to make the best of the new society that began to spring up around them. Strong themes of responsibility to others (including members of other social groups, personified by different species of animals) versus the need for self preservation permeate this graphic novel.
Contains some violence and some minor adult language.
9) Hellboy: Seed of Destruction by Mike Mignola
Hellboy has been a recognizable superhero detective for over a decade. Especially after the release of the popular movie a few years ago, Mignola’s character has made his way into youth culture. This is the collected first few issues of the original Hellboy series. The character is a demon turned supernatural detective. He fights Nazis, witches, fairy tale monsters, and Rasputin himself. Relatively light on violence, the stories pull from a number of different resources, especially Irish folk tales and science/fiction from the early 1950s. The book contains many sympathetic characters, including some of its major villains and deals with Hellboy’s struggle to use the legacy of evil that he has inherited to serve and protect.
Contains references to the occult and some minor adult language.
8) Maus and Maus II by Art Spiegelman
These two graphic novels did wonders to get the genre recognized within literary circles. The two books tell the story of a man hearing the tale of his father’s experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust. All characters are portrayed as different animals depending on their nationality. Spiegelman does not shy away from brutal depictions of the attempted extermination of the Jews by the Nazis or the extreme (and sometimes troubling) lengths that the victims could go to in order to survive.
Contains some disturbing scenes of violence and some racist/anti-semitic language.
7) WE3 by Grant Morrison
This is a collection of a three issue mini-series from a few years ago. Three animals (a dog, a cat, and a rabbit) are outfitted with cybernetic exo-skeletons and advanced weapon systems by the U. S. military. They are trained as assassins by a doctor who lets them free when she is unable to reconcile the needs of the military with cruelty to other living things. The three animals make their way across the country, trying to escape their human captors. The military begins pursuing them to save an investment in money, but eventually realizes that they must also protect the innocent humans that the animals encounter. This story explores the moral grey area of animal testing and the dangers that weapons can be to innocent bystanders.
Contains numerous scenes of violence.
6) Blankets by Craig Thompson
Thompson tells a semi-autobiographical story of growing up in a conservative Christian community. Two middle-school aged boys learn to negotiate the desires of their parents with their own needs for self-expression and their budding interest in girls. We follow them from their hometown to a Christian Youth summer camp. Thompson deals with issues of family expectations, accepting the faith of others, and determining one’s own faith.
Contains some adult language and frank (though well-balanced) discussions of the validity of conservative religious upbringings.
5) Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
Web comics are very quickly becoming a major fad within a number of age groups. This is a collection of the first series of publications by Jeff Kinney about a middle school boy making his oblivious way through life. The dialogue and stories are amazingly realistic. Kinney writes like my 10-year-old brother, and his character is completely clueless. The light humor is used to portray the awkward middle school years and children’s places in the family and the community. Students who enjoy this book can read weekly web-published material containing the same characters and stories.
Contains some comical mischief.
4) Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loab and Tim Sale
Everyone knows Batman. Here we have a reprint of an early 1990s story arc that retells the origin of Two-Face, one of his better known villains. This is a much more direct detective story than the typical Batman fare. Loab and Sale spend much of the story exploring the various villains of Gotham City, often portraying them in a much more humanized light than in the past. We see Batman reach out to a few of them out of charity and a desire for companionship. We also see him kick some serious butt and drive around in his flashy car with his flashy weapons. The plot is very intricate for a typical superhero mag and actually expects the reader to pay attention to details and think.
Contains some violence.
3) Violent Cases by Neal Gaiman
This beautifully (and I mean BEAUTIFULLY!) illustrated graphic novel is set up as Gaiman explaining a strangely fractured memory from his early childhood. Through a serious of flashbacks, Gaiman pieces together memories of a doctor who strangely resembles Albert Einstein (and tells great stories about Al Capone), his father (always depicted from the shoulders down), and an amusing group of children (who occasionally pay some attention to the protagonist). The story delves in the unreliability of memory and the way that adults sometimes overly romanticizes their younger years as children roll their eyes at yet another story of “the good old days.”
Contains some mild adult language.
2) Zero Girl by Sam Keith
Playing around with the idea of the teenaged superhero, Keith tells a story about an outcast girl who suddenly realizes that she has some strange super powers when she is in contact with round objects. Using power derived from the proximity of abandoned tires and drink coasters, she battles the bullies at her school and nurses a secret crush on one of her teachers. The story eventually becomes a mystery to determine the source of her odd powers and the context of memory of blood on a circular tea doily. Keith’s story deals with the trials of growing up, the pain of unrequited (and immature) love, and the simultaneous desires to belong and to stand out.
Contains some violence and some adult language.
1) Bone: One Volume Edition by Jeff Smith
Bone is the story of three cartoon cousins who get run out of their hometown and find themselves in a Lord of the Rings inspired fantasy land filled with dragons, knights, and old women who race (as in see who can run faster) against cows. The quirky story has a huge cast of characters and a very unique art style that blends cartoon-y Sunday comic strips with more detailed graphic novel styles. This epic and imaginative story deals with friendship and responsibility, and the consequences that secrets can have on families. The story gradually blooms from the zany exploits of a group of cute, fuzzy animals and humorous characters to a pretty serious tale of adventure and children growing into their (initially) unwanted responsibilities.
Contains some scary scenes.
Friday, August 17, 2007
That Cyberspace Dude (and a whole lotta parentheses)
So I have this gigantic chip on my shoulder about having the coolest wife in the world. For real. She just started skateboarding to work. We play Dungeons and Dragons every weekend with our friends. She reads comic books. I am the winner of the geeks!!!
Yesterday Anna (yeah, coolest wife in the world) and Erik and I went to see William Gibson (you know, that writer guy who coined the term Cyberspace) talk at the Free Library of Philadelphia. He started out by reading most of a chapter from his new book, Spook Country. While I generally hate hearing writers reading their own work, this wasn't the worst thing in the world. It was nice to get a sense of the cadence of Gibson's voice before the Q and A started. For a man who writes such fast paced fiction, he talks very slowly in ridiculously long sentences. Hearing him read first was a good primer.
The half-hour question session was only enough time for three questions (HA!). Gibson used the questions to segue into a bit of a lecture on the role of science/fiction in describing the present. He talked for a bit about how fiction set in the future is limited by the culture and technology of the present. He went on to discuss the actual length of the present - He claims that Wells had three years of "present," he had three months when he started writing in the late seventies, and we are now at three hours - and how this makes writing sci/fi a bit more challenging now. He doesn't have as much time to take everything in and digest it as he used to. Now the world changes drastically in the few months that it takes him to actually write a book. Pretty neat idea.
I also liked that he and the woman who introduced him both mentioned his actual lack of knowledge about the technology that is so central to his books. He claims to get by on learning contemporary language and slang and then letting the reader fill in the blanks on their own. I like the way that "decks" and the devices that connect people to cyberspace (in Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive) are never actually described and yet, as a person somewhat (very somewhat) versed in computer usage, I have an idea of what they must look like. I imagine that, had I read the books when they were first published in the early to mid eighties, I would have a very different view of the look of the technology. This makes the books continue to feel feasible while Arthur C. Clarke's supposedly impressively painstakingly (adverbs, deploy) researched 2001: A Space Odyssey seems pretty dated these days. Believable language over believable science. Also don't ever unambiguously (yeah, more adverbs!) date your stories. Lessons learned with a vengeance (and, BOOM, a cliched adverbial phrase, fools!).
William Gibson has a blog.
William Gibson also has an incomplete bibliography.
Yesterday Anna (yeah, coolest wife in the world) and Erik and I went to see William Gibson (you know, that writer guy who coined the term Cyberspace) talk at the Free Library of Philadelphia. He started out by reading most of a chapter from his new book, Spook Country. While I generally hate hearing writers reading their own work, this wasn't the worst thing in the world. It was nice to get a sense of the cadence of Gibson's voice before the Q and A started. For a man who writes such fast paced fiction, he talks very slowly in ridiculously long sentences. Hearing him read first was a good primer.
The half-hour question session was only enough time for three questions (HA!). Gibson used the questions to segue into a bit of a lecture on the role of science/fiction in describing the present. He talked for a bit about how fiction set in the future is limited by the culture and technology of the present. He went on to discuss the actual length of the present - He claims that Wells had three years of "present," he had three months when he started writing in the late seventies, and we are now at three hours - and how this makes writing sci/fi a bit more challenging now. He doesn't have as much time to take everything in and digest it as he used to. Now the world changes drastically in the few months that it takes him to actually write a book. Pretty neat idea.
I also liked that he and the woman who introduced him both mentioned his actual lack of knowledge about the technology that is so central to his books. He claims to get by on learning contemporary language and slang and then letting the reader fill in the blanks on their own. I like the way that "decks" and the devices that connect people to cyberspace (in Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive) are never actually described and yet, as a person somewhat (very somewhat) versed in computer usage, I have an idea of what they must look like. I imagine that, had I read the books when they were first published in the early to mid eighties, I would have a very different view of the look of the technology. This makes the books continue to feel feasible while Arthur C. Clarke's supposedly impressively painstakingly (adverbs, deploy) researched 2001: A Space Odyssey seems pretty dated these days. Believable language over believable science. Also don't ever unambiguously (yeah, more adverbs!) date your stories. Lessons learned with a vengeance (and, BOOM, a cliched adverbial phrase, fools!).
William Gibson has a blog.
William Gibson also has an incomplete bibliography.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Not Quite Mecca
Anna and I just got back from our vacation on the west coast. We did plenty of camping, sightseeing, eating, etc on our way from San Fransisco to Vancouver. One of our stops was in Seattle at the Science-Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. The three-or-so year old museum shares a building with some kind of music experience project something-or-other that seemed to be a giant Hendrix memorabilia clearinghouse. It's pretty obvious that the Sci-Fi museum is young and still in the early stages of developing and diversifying its collection, but we were able to see some pretty neat displays.
The museum starts you off in a cluttered room hosting a number of displays that give various overviews of the media genre. The Hall of Fame contained all of the satisfying names of writers, directors, and artists, but was, again obviously a very young display. They were still inducting the Gene Roddenberries and the Ridley Scotts. The sci-fi and history display was equally predictable and young feeling. The display had parallel timelines showing historical/scientific/cultural events and events specific to science fiction. While the display tried to draw connections between, say, the Cold War and Orson Wells' War of the Worlds radio fiasco, the timelines were not mapped on to each other well and both lacked satisfying explanations. Still a work in progress.
What I really dug about the museum were the constant nods to fandom. Many of the costumes on display were created for and worn at conventions by fans. The museum also had video loops of various sci-fi celebrities describing their experiences at conventions, both as fans and as personalities. The underlying message of these displays tended to be that the genre exists only because of its rampant fans. Certainly its us fans who pay to visit the museum, and who declare our favorite books and movies to be somehow fundamentally different from the rest of speculative fiction. We also love to hear about how wonderful we are and how much our idols think we rule. Nice marketing work.
I was also into a display that presented science fiction as a number of different "what if . . ." to be explored. It listed some relatively popular stories and boiled them down to a simple question. Wells' "The Time Machine" became "What if a man went to the future and got stranded?" Pretty neat, and it seems to work well enough and it's fun to figure out the questions for various other stories.
My school is letting me teach a sci-fi class spring semester of this year and I am trying to figure out a way of using this idea of boiling down to "What if . . ."s as the introductory ideas to the course. I haven't completely worked it out yet, but I was thinking I could also have the students think of what concessions the audience must allow the writer to make for the story to work. In Star Wars, we have to believe that the events happen long ago and far away, even though most of the characters are human. We also have to believe in some sort of Force that works like magic, but can be explained using science. This might be a nice way of getting students to start picking apart some of the stories and try to get to the meat of what they are actually saying to the audience. Something to think about over the next few months.
Check out the links on the Wikipedia page that I posted under Electronic Reading List. Most are pretty neat.
The museum starts you off in a cluttered room hosting a number of displays that give various overviews of the media genre. The Hall of Fame contained all of the satisfying names of writers, directors, and artists, but was, again obviously a very young display. They were still inducting the Gene Roddenberries and the Ridley Scotts. The sci-fi and history display was equally predictable and young feeling. The display had parallel timelines showing historical/scientific/cultural events and events specific to science fiction. While the display tried to draw connections between, say, the Cold War and Orson Wells' War of the Worlds radio fiasco, the timelines were not mapped on to each other well and both lacked satisfying explanations. Still a work in progress.
What I really dug about the museum were the constant nods to fandom. Many of the costumes on display were created for and worn at conventions by fans. The museum also had video loops of various sci-fi celebrities describing their experiences at conventions, both as fans and as personalities. The underlying message of these displays tended to be that the genre exists only because of its rampant fans. Certainly its us fans who pay to visit the museum, and who declare our favorite books and movies to be somehow fundamentally different from the rest of speculative fiction. We also love to hear about how wonderful we are and how much our idols think we rule. Nice marketing work.
I was also into a display that presented science fiction as a number of different "what if . . ." to be explored. It listed some relatively popular stories and boiled them down to a simple question. Wells' "The Time Machine" became "What if a man went to the future and got stranded?" Pretty neat, and it seems to work well enough and it's fun to figure out the questions for various other stories.
My school is letting me teach a sci-fi class spring semester of this year and I am trying to figure out a way of using this idea of boiling down to "What if . . ."s as the introductory ideas to the course. I haven't completely worked it out yet, but I was thinking I could also have the students think of what concessions the audience must allow the writer to make for the story to work. In Star Wars, we have to believe that the events happen long ago and far away, even though most of the characters are human. We also have to believe in some sort of Force that works like magic, but can be explained using science. This might be a nice way of getting students to start picking apart some of the stories and try to get to the meat of what they are actually saying to the audience. Something to think about over the next few months.
Check out the links on the Wikipedia page that I posted under Electronic Reading List. Most are pretty neat.
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