Cory to fanboys – bite me
Jan 29Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing editor, speculation fantasy author, and all-around wet blanket, had another poke at comics today as he wrote up the second trade collection of Warren Ellis’ Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. – as ever, it got my goat. I continue to disagree with the term Underwear Perverts as any sort of useful comment on comics, particularly when the user hasn’t, you know, barely reads superhero comics. Warren has earned it – Cory, not so much. He calls out an X-men-sure-do-come-back-to-life-a-lot” joke as deft lampooning. So…
Anyhow, I debated (and I’m still debating) commenting directly to the man himself, using Boing Boing’s new comments system, only to find about a half dozen people have, at this writing, beaten me to the punch.
“Enough already please, Cory. You’re beginning to sound like the guy who thinks “We are the Knights Who Say ‘Ni!'” is still a good line.”
Cory’s response?
“Deal with it.”
Rightly so. There is no dealing with Cory directly, obviously, so we should deal with it. The dude has his bespectacled, self-styled Intelligentsiac head up his ass. There will be no moving him – better to focus our efforts on promoting the best in superhero comics to everyone besides him.
Superhero comics have an important place in popular culture, and reflect the era in which they’re printed – it includes post-modern deconstruction, but it should never exclude the roots of the form. Yes, some of it is bad. A lot of it is awesome. The bad is no reason to whitewash the awesome, just to appear hip and clever.
I’m still going to tell him that X-men joke is stale, though.
Extra! Extra! Read the Alert Nerdian!
Jan 17
Download: Alert Nerdian broadside PDF – January 2008
Download: Alert Nerdian broadside PNG – January 2008
Download: Alert Nerdian broadside GIF – January 2008
Consider it experimenting with a Warren Ellis brainchild – or perhaps conducting a peer review of similar experiments by our favs at Ectoplasmosis. Regardless, our first foray into physical print, broadsiding in this case, is available for you to download and read. Further more, we encourage you to print a copy or two (or ten) out and share with the world. Leave them in the office lunch room or on a bus seat. It’s up to you!
We’ll be doing this, as the banner suggests, monthly, though the second hit will come slightly faster than normal, as we’ll be aiming for the first week in any given month rather than mid-month as with issue one.
Bathroom stalls. Library notice boards. Included in the envelope with your gas bill.
The plan will be to formally publish a year’s bushel of broadsides along with our upcoming Alert Nerd quarterly ‘zine – which is looking for clever people, it should be said.
Tucked underneath a windshield wiper. Left in the apartment lobby. Dropped off at the local BiMonSciFiCon.
Cinematic Titanic Launches: The Oozing Skull
Jan 17
Back at the start of November the word went out that Joel Hodgson and faces/voices familiar to fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 had begun a new-generation, MST3K-style project – Cinematic Titanic.
Then came the snows and holidays, accompanied by terribly stomach flu (for me at least) and I forgot all about it. Until now! Yes, indeed, their first DVD is out and they await your cash, for which you will receive in return, funny.
Only Better… Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Jan 15
I watched the new Terminator television series these past two nights – I wasn’t anticipating it though. I knew it was coming, but the calendar wasn’t circled. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the office Terminator fan bursting into the lounge (where I was happily watching a re-run of something on Discovery – I think it was that show with the sextuplets), I would have missed it.
And in short, I liked it ok. I didn’t hate it. I did run through the Terminator timeline mantra with the others, trying to sort things out, and while I’m disappointed they didn’t stick to their guns and leave the story in 1999 (thus putting it nicely between the second and third movies), it did not fill me with the same disgust some hardcores have been expressing online.
However, I did think it odd that time-traveling soldiers from the future opted for the cheeky Hang In There kitty poster as a Terminator proof disguise for their wallsafe (which sticks out into the alley, apparently) – after all, it is 2007. Surely they could have been a bit more topical. But where they dropped the ball, I picked it up and ROFL’d for hours.
See above.
