"Help, I'm being held prisoner in a complaint box"

Taking a break from prepping stuff for tomorrow's class - thanks to forgetting my keys, I can't inside my office, where all of my previously prepared [read: stuff from last year] course materials are - to post a rhetorical question about the new TV shows I've been watching tonight [the remote doesn't work, so I've been watching NBC all night].

When you get a starring role on network television, does that automatically mean you get to bring in past co-stars in guest cameos?

In Bionic Woman tonight, there were a string of distinct appearances from BSG actors, and in the pseudo-cop-show Life, one of the key witnesses was Michael Cudlitz, who was one of the sergeants in Band of Brothers alongside Life star Damien Lewis. Maybe I'm just making a big deal out of this, but if Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith show up in tomorrow night's Earl, then I claim dibs on a groundbreaking theorum.

Bionic Woman was actually a damn good show, and I think it'll be the new show I start watching this year. I tend to pick two primetime shows each TV season - one drama, one comedy - that I watch through the end of the season. Last year was Heroes and Knights of Prosperity, the year before was the Office/Earl comedy hour and Invasion (I never said I picked good shows).

fudge

Reasons why my week is already ruined:

1) I left my bathroom bag at home, so I don't have my deodorant, toothbrush, eyeglasses, contact fluid/cases/spare lenses

2) I grabbed the wrong set of keys as I left, so I can't get into my office, the department computer lab, or even the building

3) Since I've got a bunch of work to get done, I left extra early. Since most of the buildings, including the Union, don't open until 7am, I've spent the last 45 minutes sitting outside looking like an idiot

4) I have to pee [see part 3]

5) I still have a bunch of terrible drafts to read and edit

[UPDATE - a food services worker took pity on me and let me inside, so the mutant mosquitoes aren't biting any more]

Normally, the above image would cheer me up and make me laugh, but some days you're Barkley, and some days you're Godzilla - today's a Godzilla kind of day...

Why not?

I usually think these things are slightly pointless, but I thought this one was kind of fun...

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car)
Boots Alero
2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)
Chocolate Thin Mint
3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name)
K-Gee
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Red Dog
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Link Coldwater
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)
Geeke
7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink)
The Yellow Latte
8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)
Mark Ivo
9. STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy)
Sandlewood Skittles
10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names )
Mary Marvin
11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter)
Heitkamp Hartford
12. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower)
Autumn Peony
13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”)
Mango Sockie
14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree)
Grapefruit Willow
15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”)
The Sewing Rain Tour

Review of Douglas Wolk's 'Reading Comics' (very rough draft)

Douglas Wolk’s Reading Comics defines the field of comic studies and provides an innovative theoretical framework for future scholarship, all the while promoting comics as a distinct combination of aesthetics and text.
Wolk divides his text into two parts; the first five chapters summarize past comics scholarship and develop his own theoretical framework, while the more extensive second section consists of a series of separate analyses of an assortment of comics creators, both artists and writers. His first chapter begins by establishing a broad definition of comics that charts the history of comics as a progression from pulp books confined by industry conventions to the current variety of creative works; Wolk concludes that comics should be understood not simply as a literary or visual form:

Comics are not prose. Comics are not movies. They are not
a text-driven medium with added pictures; they’re not the
visual equivalent of prose narrative or a static version of a
film. They are their own thing: a medium with its own
devices, its own innovators, its own clichés, its own genres
and traps and liberties. The first step toward attentively
reading and fully appreciating comics is acknowledging that.
(14)

While Wolk is by no means the first critic to contend this point, he provides an especially convincing argument, including a lighthearted dialogue in which he defends himself from Straw Men embodying possible challenges to his foundational claims. Wolk then previews his argument for comics auteurship with an exploration of the evolution of art comics as an accepted and distinct form, comparing the change in style with the parallels in mainstream comics. Using Kant’s aesthetic philosophy, Wolk suggests that, even in images that are not realistic (including what Wolk calls “ugly comics”), we can readily find aspects of the comic that are both things of “beauty” in their composition and narrative function, but also “good” – the emergence of individual style within imposed conventions.

Throughout the second part of Reading Comics, Wolk will locate the “personality” of the comic creator as central to his analysis; he admits that such personality is easier to notice in alternative and independent press comics that are scripted and drawn by a single creator than in mainstream publications produced by entire staffs of writers, artists, and editors. Wolk is quick to note, however, that many personalities can be found within mainstream comics – after all, even the loudest detractors of Rob Liefeld’s distinctive anatomies can hardly deny his influence or the instant identification of a “Rob Liefeld” comic book. As such, Wolk’s analyses each focus on a single creative personality (with the exceptions of Will Eisner and his “disciple” Frank Miller, who Wolk connects in their dramatic influence on mainstream conventions, and Craig Thompson and James Kolchalka, who represent opposite ends of the early-90s trend of autobiographical comics), ranging from the Hernandez brothers to Steve Ditko.

Early on, Wolk admits that his selection of subject “personalities” is not meant to be a representative sample of all comics, nor is he attempting to establish a comics canon; rather, his choices are “comics and cartoonists I think are interesting to discuss” (137), mostly American books (Wolk repeatedly apologizes for not considering manga in any of his discussions) and series that are widely available. Wolk’s analysis tends to focus predominately on the art and visual layout of each personality, but he includes sections on Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and Tomb of Dracula as examples of distinct narrative personalities that connect disparate artistic accompaniment.

Reading Comics struggles to unite popular superhero monthlies and independent alternative books. Wolk laments that “the schism between the two big American schools of comics - […] ‘the mainstream’ and ‘art comics’ […] is becoming wider and bitterer” (11). Even though many of his theoretical claims reinforce the similarities between the two schools – Wolk devotes an entire chapter to dissecting the evolving style and aesthetic of mainstream superhero comics – but the distinctions between mainstream and art comics are reinforced throughout the book. At one point, Wolk notes that, no matter how similar the two might be, the distinction between them persists due to the radically different readerships and the very different expectations these readers bring to the texts.

Douglas Wolk ends his discussion of comics as comics with a brief prediction about the future of comic creators. While the current trends suggest a split between “the rough wave and the smooth wave,” between highly individual, “transgressive” minicomics and webcomics, and drawings and the “self-consiciously pretty” styles utilized by trained artists. However, Wolk finds promise not in the schism, but in the possibility of new distinct personalities, styles that are clearly the artists’ own.

Great moments in classic Russian literature

I found this a few minutes after I posted the earlier stuff, and I wanted to toss it up here before I forget:

Crime and Punishment AND BATMAN!

I try to be good hard-worker-man, but refrigemater so messy, so so messy

Sorry for the lack of content lately, I'll try to get back in the habit of posting at least once a week. Let's go with the bullet points for today:

• Good news: Finally heard back from IJOCA - they're going to publish my reviews of two books, Doug Wolk's Reading Comics and the collection Comics and Film. Now all I have to do is finish reading the books and write the darn things. I'll post the drafts when they're ready (at least one has to be finished by Wednesday afternoon)
• Bad news: After the first week of the football season, I'm 1-2, with my only win being from the no-money-just-for-fun work league (although it was a monster win). If I had just played Randy Moss, instead of wussing out, I'd be 2-1
• Good news: The St. Xavier Bombers are 3-0, after beating Cleveland powerhouse Glenville, despite having their best offensive player sit out with a sore ankle (Specht's saving him for GCL games, the ones that really matter). For the last two weeks, all but 7 points have come from Danny Williamson, a Wide Receiver/Kicker/Punter/Kick Returner/Defensive Back - dude deserves a D-I scholarship for his conditioning alone
• Bad news: Even though the Bengals won last night's MNF, they looked absolutely terrible - the offense must have just stayed in the locker room at halftime, and if Shayne Graham doesn't kick the ball into the end zone, it's a guaranteed return TD. If you're forcing 5 turnovers and the game still comes down to a last-second goal line stand, you're in trouble. And yes, that was a bullshit interference call on Todd Heap, and I'm not saying that just because I have Heap on one of my fantasy teams
• Good news: I'm tentatively scheduled to teach CMM 345 - Classic American Film next Winter at UD. Not only do I finally get an upper-level class (it's my turn in "The Show," to quote Kevin Costner), but this is my first step to replacing the Lainster
• Bad news: Nothing kills a good mood like reading terrible work from a student who you've devoted significant one-on-one time to helping, especially when it's clear that said student has pretty much ignored everything you've told them
• Good news: since I have to end this post on a high note, I should mention the trailer for the new Iron Man movie - I'm not really a fan of the character (especially as of late), and I pretty much expected high levels of suckitude, but...the trailer actually has me excited about the movie, and my excitement is only increased by shots of Jeff Bridges' evil bearded industrialist villain. Nothing against Kevin Spacey, but Bridges is now my #2 pick for Lex Luthor (after Clancy Brown) in the next Superman movie that doesn't suck