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May I be the first to say...
The Iron-Man movie was better than food, water, oxygen - or any combination of all three. Downey Jr. was every bit the perfect Tony Stark we all expected him to be, the script was one part funny, one part action and never once took itself too seriously or pretended to be something that it wasn't. Iron-Man may be a kind of mediocre comic book most of the time (although there are exceptions), but that was the very best superhero movie that I have ever seen. This isn't the kind of thing I say lightly when among the contenders you have the 70s/80s Superman films, the most recent Batman adaptation and Sam Raimi's fantastic vision of Spider-Man. Where the creators made a few judgment calls regarding Iron-Man's origin, they were primarily superficial and necessary to capture the modern feel they needed in order to appeal to a wider audience than just hardcore comic fans. That said, all changes made were respectful of the original subject matter, right down to the armour designs and the lame original clunky Iron Suit (they even managed to make that seem awesome). I think the fact that it stayed so close to the comic books in both image and tone is largely down to the independent Marvel financing - and because of this - I look forward to sequels and the other films that are being introduced to the new INTERCONNECTED MARVEL MOVIE UNIVERSE! That's right - now that Marvel are independently financing their own films - it's confirmed that the rumours of minor crossovers between Iron-Man and the new Ed Norton version of the Hulk are entirely accurate. Furthermore it seem that both of these movies will be preludes to some kind of Ultimates/Avengers movie. And though it seems unlikely that the rumours of bringing Jackman's Wolverine and McGuire's Spider-Man into a new Avengers movie will pay off (legal bullshit, go figure), this is already enough to whet my geeky appetite. Most importantly - If you don't watch the scene after the credits, you are officially missing out. That is all. To Peace. |
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My little sister sent me a message today.
Hey Mike, It was good to hear you got there ok, your new home that is, your new home where I know you will make a better success then any of us ever would. Although I didn't show it at the time it was also probably the hardest for me to, but I wanted to be strong. I'll tell you now what I really wanted to say then, I'm so proud of you, I really really am. You are one of the rare people who had a dream and pursued it rather than just talking about it... That is what I'll always admire about you. Take care of yourself and of Alice, I'll look forward to seeing you soon. Love you. This was just really nice to receive. I'm going to miss her. |
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Alrighty, so - details.
Yesterday I had to do one of the hardest things I've ever done. My relationship with my parents has often been stressed, with more ups and downs even than usual. Lately though, most of the animosity we felt towards one another has melted away. We still had our individual issues, but for most of the time, we could see past them. Things had gotten to be quite good. So that in mind, leaving them at the airport was tough. Tough and awkward - because I didn't know what to say, and in a very British manner, we were all trying to keep it from getting too emotional. My mum looked very sad, my dad looked like he always does, and my little sister rarely shows much emotion before she's pushed over the edge, but her face was looking kind of red and she kept touching the corner of her eye, and though I couldn't tell whether she was dispatching of tears, this may have been the case. As I said, I didn't know what to say, so I kept it brief, hugged my mum and sister, shook my dad's hand, promised to call them, and left with the feeling of nerves jumbling in my gut. I had to wait for a while until the gate was announced and when it was, I went and sat in amongst the crowd of loud young Americans who would later fill the cabin I was flying in. (As a footnote, never buy a chewable toothbrush from an airport - they're fucking stupid) I fell asleep before take-off, waking up briefly as the plane made its initial ascent into the skies, And then slept for another hour or so. I was right at the back of the plane with my chair against the wall, and comfortable enough, but for the fact that I was in a window seat and couldn't get up and walk around too easily. Though the woman sitting next to me was a friendly middle-aged, American, dance-teacher. She talked to me a little of how she'd been to see her student playing Billy Elliot in London, but I couldn't hear a great deal at that point because the plane made a lot of noise and my ears had popped. I watched Dan in Real Life, which was cute, I guess, but I wouldn't exactly recommend it - then an episode of Everybody Hates Chris. I like that show - it actually reminds me a of where I live now - which is a weird concept for me to grasp. So when I got here, the Taxi ride was easy going enough. I talked a little to the Driver who said he was from Yemin and helped me with my bags. Then once I got inside I contacted Alice to let her know I'd arrived safely - and my parents - and so on. Then I went downstairs to say hi to my neighbours, Diana, David and tiny tearaway Daniel. That was cool, I like having good neighbours, even if it is a foreignish concept to me (my old neighbours were rubbish burning, druggy scum who let their dog bark all night... on one side at least - I hardly heard from the ones on the other, which I guess suited me fine, but you know, nice to be friendly). I felt a little down for a while, thinking about leaving home, but once Alice got here, I remembered what made it so necessary. We had a great night doing very little, hugging, kissing, enjoying one another's company. I feel at home now, because I'm with her. Diana's mum brought us some chicken, which was awesome. I don't know what her recipe was, but I want it. This morning, I made Fruit-Salad for our breakfast - and Alice headed out for work. Later today I'm meeting her for lunch and having drinks/playing pool or something - with Diana and possibly David - and my Guinness swilling Staten Island friend Duane. In the evening we're going to the one place in New York where Ninjas deliver your sushi. All in all, it's going pretty well. |
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Another lesson in comics: Jargon
Something that I've found people have trouble understanding with regards to comics - is the language employed in conversation to describe specific groups of comics - be it old comics, modern comics or publishers, people just don't get it. Jargon Okay - so I'm going to break this down into easy to digest sections - using a Nerd/English dictionary type format. Firstly... Publishers DC: Now I've been to the DC comics building and had a little tour around it, yet I'm still not sure what DC stands for. I think it's Detective Comics - and every source I've consulted seems to back that up, however gingerly. Alice insists that it's something other, but near as I can tell, the company named itself after one of its longest running publications - the comic that contained the first appearance of Batman. DC comics is considered to be the father of the modern comic industry by most. They were the first publishers to feature superheroes as we know them and they're definitely the oldest company around. Notable characters include Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, The Justice League, The Justice Society and many more. They also own the adult imprint Vertigo - and produced such notable titles as Sandman and Preacher. A popular idea seems to be that DC features more godlike characters - whereas Marvel features the more down to Earth types. Where is true that DC characters often seem to exhibit godlike abilities - they're still generally tethered to humanity in some sense... then you have Batman who is essentially a normal human whose life was ruined by the realistic enough loss of his parents at a young age, so in my eyes, it's all much of a muchness. Marvel: Marvel are DC's biggest rival. Most of the biggest comic book movies of recent years have been spun from Marvel stories. X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Iron-Man, Electra, Ghost Rider, Punisher and the Hulk - all Marvel flicks. Although they published some comics way back in the Second World War under the name Timely Comics, such as Captain America, Namor and the original Human Torch and Angel books, Marvel really took off in the 1960s when they put the Human in Superhuman - with titles such as Spider-Man, the X-Men and Fantastic Four. They've since specialized in creating comics about flawed characters that are supposedly more relatable than their DC counterparts - a formula that DC themselves have even begun to emulate, to a degree. Marvel were also the first company to pay close (or at least closer) attention to their inter-title continuity. Stan Lee, co-creator of most of Marvel's primary heroes has stated that it was always his intention to have the events in one comic reflected in the pages of other marvel titles. Before this, DC had crossed over between titles, but their sense of continuity had been fickle at best. This is another way in which Marvel's success encouraged DC to adapt. The Big Two: As DC and Marvel are the biggest and most well-recognised publishers in the industry, they are often collectively referred to as 'The Big Two'. You'll most likely hear this in artistic circles - but it crops up elsewhere. I.e: 'if you want to get work with one of The Big Two...' Indy Publishers When a comic is good - but Marvel and DC won't dare publish it... or when a kid graduates college with an idea that might sell - or when creative teams from The Big Two have had enough of rules and guidelines - or when a creator believes that they have to work for a smaller publisher to maintain their artistic integrity - if a creator wants to create, but not to give up ownership of their creations - then there are several smaller companies around to pick up the scraps (and I mean it in the best possible way, some of the best stuff out there is indy... also most of the worst). Examples of such companies are Image, Dark Horse, Dynamite, Top Cow and many more. Wildstorm used to be a prime example, but are now owned by DC and can't really be considered indy. Eras Golden Age This is the term used to define the 30s and 40s era of comic books. Much of it was propaganda based and very, very campy. Silver Age The Silver Age represents the dawn of Marvel Comics and DC's first big reboot in the 60s through to the 70s.This is kind of the Happy Days of comic books. Bronze Age The Bronze age is the most poorly defined era in comic history. It roughly spans the late 70s to the early 90s. It's sometimes referred to as the dark age - as the 80s marked a change in the industry, with the introduction of much darker and grittier writing (Watchmen, Dark Knight) that's now much more common. Modern Age My favourite age. We're still pushin' that envelope.
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Candy Floss deadline drawing near.
So you know - we'll be setting a new theme in about a week, guys. If no one minds, I might choose this one. Hehehe..
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Writing in my LJ, usin' a newly downloaded client
I have FOUND this client called SEMAGIC. You can do all this FUNKY shit Henceforth, I shall be an insufferable multicoloured blotch on your friends list.*
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Open your mind and join me on this rough journey through the ups and downs of comic book history, hopefully delivered in a way that you will understand and appreciate, regardless of who you are, or how much you know. My goal is to give everyone the ammunition that they need to hold their own in a conversation with hardcore geeks (like yours truly... I know what you're thinking. 'Michael, you're too sexy to be a geek...' well I was as surprised as you are - so imagine how my parents felt when I spent my money on comics instead of cigarettes like all the other kids? Anyway, I digress). Part One - The Summer Blockbuster. So the important side effect of this ratings war - is the summer blockbuster itself. Generally in the form of a miniseries - generally (but not exclusively) about seven issues long - and generally involving some form of Shark Jumpage. For those of you who don't understand that phrase - it relates to an incident in one of the final episodes of Happy Days where the writing got so desperate that they had Fonze jump over a Shark in an attempt to claw back ratings. Ever since - similar desperate acts in TV shows, films and Comics are referred to as the point where the writers 'Jump the Shark'. Examples of this in comics are so numerous that writers don't tend so much to jump the shark as the do aerial acrobatics above it without ever touching the water. It's No Secret War One of the earliest summer block busters in comics was a shark jump in itself. I'm speaking of the first Marvel Comics Secret War. If you have ever been a Wrestling fan, you could liken it to a WWF Royal Rumble. In fact, that's exactly what it was. A Marvel Comics Royal Rumble. For no apparent reason - all of the major marvel characters, good and bad were sucked out of their lives and placed on a planet to kick the shit out of each other - for no other conceivable reason beyond selling comics... Although that said, it wasn't bad for it's day - the writing was at least bearable, and it kept you guessing. The in-story Commissioner of this event was an omnipotent entity known as the Beyonder. Why did he get them to fight? Well that wasn't really made too clear. What became of him after Secret War? Well... going back to Happy Days for an apt reference... In the early seasons of Happy Days, the Cunningham family had a second son called Chuck. His character was later considered redundant, an embarrassment, or a mistake - and so he was written out of the series. He just went upstairs one day and never came back down - later writers just pretended that he never existed in the first place. This action in a TV show, comic or film is referred to as 'Chuck Cunningham Syndrome'. As it was with Chuck Cunningham, so it was with the omnipotent Beyonder. Mid-Life Crisis on Infinite Earths Another early example of the Summer Blockbuster is Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Eighties DC comics event that was so confusing that lots of hardcore fans still don't understand how it worked. I'll do my best to explain here - but you might end up with a headache and a case of fatigue. It's like the Comic Book equivalent of the Off-Side rule in football. Most people don't understand it, they just pretend to and acknowledge its existence. DC comics had been producing comics since the early 1930s and their continuity had gotten quite confusing. See - in the Golden Age (AKA, the early days of the industry), DC created the modern superhero. Superman, Batman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and so on - they've all existed in some form for a very long time. But Golden Age comics had all the depth of an episode of I Love Lucy, so when the super hero began to die out, DC replaced their Golden Age characters with completely different superheroes that bore the same codenames. This worked in much the same way as the recent reboot of Battlestar Galactica. A completely different show was spun off of the same concept. The only difference is that unlike Battlestar, the original DC comic characters were introduced into the then current mainstream DC continuity as inhabitants of an alternate universe. That's when the confusion arose. DC had two continuities now - Golden and Silver Age. Both of which had elements that writers wanted to draw from. As if that weren't confusing enough - they were buying out other companies like Fawcett Comics and Charlton Comics - and introducing a new alternate universe with every time their monopoly expanded. So why was Crisis on Infinite Earths necessary? Well they decided to simplify everything. They'd assume that each alternate world were a shark... then they'd combine them all into one shark and then they would do a big back-flip over that shark. Essentially - they manufactured a confusing event to remove all of the alternate universes and replace them with one single universe to rule them all. Conclusion A basic formula can be derived from examining these early examples - one that can be applied to any comics blockbuster, old or new. Desperation + Shark Jumping + Character Crossover + Creative Team (good or bad, doesn't matter) + Marketing Ploys = Summer Comics Blockbuster Applying this to Crisis, you'll see that it all applies. Desperation to make DC comics more accessible lead a creative team to write a tale that jumped the shark in more ways than one - with the introduction of new characters, the Deaths of Supergirl and the Flash, the destruction of the Multiverse. They marketed this heavily and created the summer blockbuster. And now to a more recent big Marvel event, Civil War: Marvel were desperate to one-up DC, so they got together and formed a huge shark jumping idea about Spider-Man unmasking to the public, Captain America dying, all the superheroes fighting - gave it to a really good creative team, marketed it with everything from in-comic previews to actual movie trailers on their website - and they got themselves a summer blockbuster. DC's Infinite Crisis? Desperation, blah blah blah, great creative team, revisiting the long buried ideas from Crisis on Infinite Earths after twenty years in a shark jumping event that killed many characters including Superboy and marketing with variant covers, ads, so on and so forth. Bam. Blockbuster. Identify these elements in any blockbuster and you'll be able to bluff your way through conversations with nerds, no problem. Even me. Class dismissed. |
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Candy Floss Update!
The current theme is Cigarettes - and so far, to my knowledge there have been two submissions. Dmitry Pavlovsky: Michael Bramley: The theme 'deadline' is at the end of this month. If you run over that, that's fine, but expect a new theme to be posted in the opening days of May. Faerie Ring |
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Temporarily taking the reigns
Those of you who expressed an interest in Candy Floss lately - it seems as though the guidelines weren't so clearly stipulated. For your reading pleasure, I shall now lay down the law for you in a series of easy-to-read bullet points. * Anyone can join in at any time. * Deadlines mark the opening of another theme, but take as much time as you need to finish your story - you don't owe us anything. * Try not to feel too constricted by the theme. It's there to provide abstract inspiration for participating writers - if it's not doing that for you, just remember that your story can be as close to, or far away from the theme as you desire. Interpret it however you want, there is no right or wrong. * * Anyone else who feels like writing an update post is more than welcome. Feel free to credit the writers next to the links to their work and spread the Candy Floss word - the more people we can get involved, the better. All the best!
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accomplished