Blog / Culture / Video

Life on Mars

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John Rogers wrote a post and engaged in a lengthy twitterbuster (filitwit?; really 21st Century filibusters could be conducted via twitter) with a writer of an article critical of the very recent (and already funded) Veronica Mars Kickstarter. FWIW Kickstarter is a tool not an ethos or a culture or a moral judgement. It or clones of it will be used by everyone and everything, inc. from now on in an ever increasing scale. Money raised from Kickstarter is data-laden money — it’s capitalism plus and that will make it worth it to all kinds of companies to pursue. Step back …

Comics / Video

Support the Stripped Documentary: Final Kickstarter In Progress

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[vimeo 61476049 w=500 h=281] Dave Kellett’s documentary on comics is in the final push and they have a second Kickstarter underway to raise some money for additional footage they think will make their movie that much better.  Take a look at it – especially if you didn’t donate the first go-round give it another look, this is going to be AMAZING and it’s definitely almost done.

Blog / Culture / Games

Tropes in Distress

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This first entry in The Tropes vs Women in Video Games project from Anita Sarkeesian (successfully funded on Kickstarter) covers “damsels in distress” and is quite good: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q] We all grew up with videogames and while I don’t think any of it controls anyone’s behavior (as in the constant political grandstanding over violence in videogames) it does reflect and reinforce attitudes and patterns in society. Examining games with a critical feminist eye is fascinating both because we’re looking at vital pop culture and because Anita is a really good communicator making what could be pretty dry stuff into an interesting walk through …

Blog / Comics

STRIP SEARCH EPISODE 3: GTFO

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So the first episode of the webcomic reality show where there is a contest with not only a winner but a loser.  Today’s contest, as teased last time, is designing a t-shirt. First prize is getting the t-shirt produced and placed in the Penny Arcade store; winner keeps the profits.  Seriously — nice prize and you could tell the contestant were happily surprised to hear it. I have to say; the producers of the show made watching 12 people sketch a t-shirt way more exciting than I would have predicted.  The show is well done.  The staff from Penny Arcade …

Blog / Words

To Read Stack of Comix

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Here’s a shot of my current list of graphic novels I’m reading.  Working my way from the top down probably: Faith Erin Hick, Hope Larson, Kazu Kibushi, Vera Brosgol, Lewis Trondheim, Mark Siegel, Arne Bellstorf, Dean Haspiel, and Joe Sacco. That’s a pretty impressive list of creators’ work on my shelf right now.

Blog / Comics

First Second Slate of Books for 2013

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I am still on many mailing lists for publishers even though I have cut back on reviewing comics in the last year. I just found the First Second Book catalogue that I probably got from them earlier in the year. They’ve got a lot of good stuff dropping this year. Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong – which I’m reading online comes out in print in May. Faith Erin Hicks working with author Prudence Shen Tune Volume 2 from Derek Kirk Kim – comes out in November of this year. I’m pretty excited about that one.  I really enjoyed the first …