Jul
22

Links of the Week: July 22, 2011 Edition

‘Wired’ Magazine Forecasts the Death of the Printed Monthly Comic

Damn decent analysis from Comics Alliance on the evolving debate over printed versus digital comics. CA’s Doug Wolk guest posts for Wired and puts a comprehensive evaluation on all sides of the issue, favoring the coming doom of the $4 monthly printed comic. I’ve been saying this ever since the iPad debuted, but DC Comics‘ recent announcement that all of its future titles will be released digitally the same day as print is a game changer. Moreover, digital comics provider Comixology recently sold Warren Ellis’ entire epic Planetary for a mere $25, a quarter of the price of DC’s Absolute Edition and on par with trade paperback pricing. It’s bold publication decisions like this that will continue to hammer away at the frayed, yellow pages of print comics, badgering the aging black shirted slobs of yore into submission and inviting new audiences to experience these AWESOME comics. Had they thrown in the Planetary specials that weren’t included in the Absolute collections, I may have forked over the cash.

Why Can’t We Preorder Digital Comics?

With more proof that Comics Alliance is becoming my go-to source for coverage on the digital comics debate, David Brothers offers a compelling argument for comics publishers who are trying to figure out to make money off digital offerings in this early stage. While the numbers on digital purchases are not so enticing to comics publishers today, they are trending upward (and will probably explode by the end of the year with DC’s “Great Experiment”). Brothers argues for setting up a preordering program for digital comics similar to how customers can preorder comics from their local comic book store. This could be a good way of tracking trends on digital offerings as well as marketing to the supposed “new audience” DC has cited is circling well outside physical comics stores. I think this isn’t a bad idea but ultimately for this to work, you have to bring the costs down on digital comics. I would pay a year’s subscription for almost any title if you could get each issue under $0.75. What’s more, publishers could also make some serious bank by preordering digital bundles of classic comics stories. I like where the thinking’s going; we just need to keep moving the football down the field.

Warren Ellis at the 2010 Comic Con in San Diego

Warren Ellis. He braingasm you. Image via Wikipedia

 

A Collection Of Rambling On The Subject Of Digital Comics

Warren Ellis, writer extraordinaire and Mad Space Bastard, weighs in on the digital comics debate. A negative tongue from Saint Warren is a likely kiss of death for your product, so Graphic.ly better be paying attention to his UX concerns on their iPad app. Ellis counters comics publishers’ digital strategies with the simple yet elegant solution he devised for his web serial Freakangels: serialize a page a week online then collect finished stories into print editions for on-demand sales. To an extent, he plays to the Old Print Wankers more than those of us at the edge of the digital evolution, which I found odd, but then again, he’s seen the receipts come back on his own digital work.

Anonymous vs. NATO: Get your popcorn ready

So, remember when NATO was all like, “Donchu DARE come all up on mah porch!” and Anonymous was all like, “Bitch, PLEEZ!” and then the internet exploded??? Yeah. This was a topic of great interest at IO Europe a couple weeks ago mainly because no one knew how to deal with it. Purported “cyber-experts” were more in favor of getting their systems completely OFF the internet instead of figuring out creative ways of defending against attacks like LULZsec and responding appropriately. A large part of this fear, I believe, comes from simple inequity in information assurance professionals these days– they don’t know their Googles from their Farmvilles. So ignorant posturing of the kind seen in this article will just antagonize online attack groups like Anonymous. They don’t have to get an operation approved by 10 echelons of command like we do.

New 3D Looney Tunes Announced, Archive Mel Blanc Recordings To Feature

I’ve been fairly disappointed in Warner Bros’ revamped-for-the-21st-century Looney Tunes Show, which has earfucked me with simpering, inane impersonations of the Mel Blanc’s original character voices and insanely horrible musical numbers. So to discover that a creative animation director built new Looney Tunes shorts around archival recordings of Blanc has me giddy as shit. Hopefully, this provides the impetus for more AWESOME GENIUSES like this director to cut up and reinterpret existing Blanc recordings into new takes on his classic characters. I gotta believe the technology is getting close, right?

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Jul
15

Links of the Week: July 15, 2011 Edition

Decades after duty in the OSS and CIA, “spy girls” find each other in retirement

I kind of adore this story about two old ladies living in a retirement home who suddenly remember each other worked for the OSS (the precursor of the CIA) in World War II. The video is hilarious. One of WaPo’s better pieces, I think. More of this, please.

Writers in Hollywood

As I learn more about the world of writing in Hollywood, I’m comforted by the observations of old guard prose scribblers like Raymond Chandler. In this 1945 Atlantic article, Chandler describes the differences between Hollywood scriptwriters and the novelists with whom he counted himself. Chandler’s AWESOME style is on display here, maintained from his fiction writing into this piece. It’s a notable historical portrait as well, rife with comparisons to the Hollywood film scene of today.

The Black Futurists

The World Futurist Society tipped me to this description of an AWESOME looking exhibit at the Sargent Johnson Gallery in The African American Art and Culture Complex in San Francisco. The exhibit features works of black futurists, from science fiction writers to bass players from outer space. People call it “Afrofuturism.”

Homefront and Propaganda In Video Games – What Are They Trying To Tell You?

G4 has a fun list of video games with brief queries about their inherent propaganda value. Most take the form of “war porn” games like Call of Duty, but there are some surprises. I had no idea, for example, that Teh Mad Christians had created a Left Behind video game adaptation where you apparently combat the forces of darkness with… prayer. Kinect that shit up, preacher!

Not Giving Up

Naltorian seer Jamais Cascio delivers a sanguine third option to the debate over how transformative future technologies like AI could either enslave humanity or set us free. Cascio argues that technology is already part of who we are; that Rejectionist and Posthumanist perspectives on bio-technical evolution ignore fungible interpretations of humanity. I enjoy Cascio’s commentary not just because of his unique perspective, but also because of his engaging writing style. This is a man who once briefed a social business crowd on how the future will be made of people, so I find it compellingly AWESOME that the guy’s writing just FEELS GOOD. He’s good people, and you should get there.

Is this the roster for DC’s new Justice League?

We can now confirm that this AWESOME Jim Lee is indeed a portrait of what’s being referred to as the “DCnU” Justice League. Set for debut in just a few short weeks, rumors circulated rampantly about DC Comics‘ relaunch of its entire line of comics. People were horrified, outraged, amazed, and excited for such a crazy turn of publishing events, all circling around the consolidated relaunch of every title to appeal to new readership. DC press releases since haven’t been as encouraging (there’s some good stuff but there’s also plenty of mediocrity) but this image is still something to get excited about.

The new cast of Geoff Johns' and Jim Lee's JUSTICE LEAGUE.

Disorienting Brand Conversions

My Modern Met logo designer Graham Smith makes your brain hurt with these weird brand swaps.

Image via My Modern Met

Anti-grav self portraits reveal the everyday life of a person who can levitate

AWESOME, AWESOME photoblog discovered by io9 of Tokyo photographer Natsumi Hayashi. Hayashi’s self portraits involve a degree of photography legerdemain where she sets up the shot then jumps to capture the effect that she’s actually levitating. It’s a supercool story of someone fudging reality to create abject beauty. The photos below are some of my favorites.

Image via yowayowacamera.com

Image via yowayowacamera.com

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Jun
10

Links of the Week: June 10, 2011 Edition

Been a while since I’ve stunk up your linkses. Lots popping in the world of AWESOME. Let’s see what’s up.

Welcome to the Glee Lantern Corps

I hate Glee. I love Green Lantern. Makes for an interesting mix.

10 innovative digital books you should know about

I haven’t audited every one of the digital books Peter Meyers lists here, but there are some fairly AWESOME looking concepts. I really think tablets are the future of transmedia storytelling and that the book experience needs to be redefined for them. There’s an incredible app listed here from the New York Public Library that’s downloadable for the iPad: every photo and article they have from the 1939 World’s Fair, which is an AMAZING experience on the iPad.

U.N. Report Declares Internet Access a Human Right

I don’t think people realize how huge the implications for this are. The U.N. is basically saying a human’s access to the unrestricted information on the Internet is equal to that same human’s right to be free. In the wake of the Arab Spring, this sets up immense shifts in the ubiquity of the global Internet, perhaps even paving the road for the persistent integration of web connectivity to human biology. This is a big moment that will appear on historical timelines decades from now.

ComicsAlliance Recaps The ‘Smallville’ Series Finale

I make no secrets about my loathing of Smallville, a television show that could have presented a thoughtful yet entertaining mainstream exploration of Clark Kent’s pre-Superman life to a wholly new audience. Instead, the show featured cheesy “re-imaginings” of classic Superman comic book stories, horrible dialogue and characters, and outright disrespect of everything that makes Superman special. And yet, it ran for ten fucking years. What insipid assholes actually thought this was a good show??? In any case, Smallville’s series finale retained the degree of silly ridiculosity established in the 10 years prior with everything from killer planets to Tom Welling never actually putting on the Superman suit. Chris Sims and David Uzumeri at Comics Alliance continue their horrified deconstruction of this television travesty in the wit-filled mockfest that any Smallville review deserves. Definitely one for laughs.

There’s Something Happening Here…

Futurist Venessa Miemis tipped me off to this dark, dark vision of the future, where the optimism of our modern social and technological advances is crushed by the realities of today’s economic and political downfalls. Dave Pollard, writer of the blog How to Save the World, presents an extremely well-researched and sourced assessment of the current state of the world and how he thinks we are all on an inevitable downslide into hopelessness and decay. Pollard notes several observations of evidence for this assessment that make a lot of sense despite my own personal hopes for a better world in the future. It’s a frightening punch to the gut that everyone should check out and comment on. This is our world we’re trying to save here, people.

Bleeding Cool’s Coverage of DC Comics’ Relaunch Announcements

Last week, I wrote about DC Comics’ ballsy move of relaunching its entire line of comics with new #1 issues and publishing them digitally on the same day they see print. This week, DC has slowly rolled out announcements of new creative teams and directions for their 52 new titles in September. The content is not as impressive as originally thought. Initially, this was presented as an opportunity to recast its universe into a more modern, future-looking and diverse playground for new audiences to discover. Unfortunately, the selection of creative teams for some of these titles is backward-looking, in my opinion. The Batman titles, for example, feature the exact same creative teams as they do now, just mixed up a little bit. They also include two titles written by artists who have since been unable to get their books out on time. I’m not sure how revolutionary this is going to be for modern audiences.

DC's rebooted TEEN TITANS #1 by Scott Lobdell and Brett Booth.

There are some positive indications, however. DC is taking this opportunity to indeed ratchet up the diversity factor in their books. We’re seeing more women, more heroes of color, and more international representation amongst team books. It also looks like a design edict has come down the pike from DC Editorial to ensure women’s costumes are much more appropriate for modern audiences, as opposed to the pervert suits we’re all used to. I think these are all positive steps toward modernizing the DCU for maximum appeal to that key young demographic that has proven so elusive to them over the past 20 years. I’m most intrigued by the inclusion of a brand new title featuring Batwing, the Batman of Africa:

 

BATWING #1 by Judd Winick and Ben Oliver.

Although, I would have been much more impressed in DC’s attempts to diversify their lineup had they given an ongoing title to the Muslim Batman of Paris:

 

Nightrunner – the Batman of Paris! He’s a Muslim, y’all!

 

Get clickin’, y’all!

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Apr
22

Links of the Week: April 22, 2011 Edition

Trying to get back into the swing of things after recovering from a trip to the Emerald Isle. Jet lag lasted way too long. Here is big dump of links from the past month or so. As always, other notable things I found cool and interesting are all captured on my Pulse Posterous feed.

Raymond Kurzweil, an American academicand author.

Image via Wikipedia

2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal

 

Lev Grossman writes this TIME Magazine article about futurist Ray Kurzweil and his predictions for the coming Singularity. It’s a very comprehensive and thorough look into the implications of Kurzweil’s thinking, from life extension to machine awareness. What struck me most about the piece, however, was how Kurzweil’s impetus for his work boiled down to his overriding desire to bring his deceased father back to life. Kurzweil believes wholeheartedly that humans will be able to resurrect the dead at some near point in the future, possibly from as little as preserved DNA. Thus, he has taken to extending his own life via any means necessary, like consuming a massive amount of nutrient and supplement pills per day. It really speaks to me that Kurzweil believes in such a rapid explosion of technology and why he wants to be around to see it. This is a must-read for all you futurists, singularitarians and transhumanists out there.

Trailer: Another Earth

Here’s a trailer for an intriguing film I first heard about from some friends who caught its premier at Sundance this year. The buzz around this indie sci-fi movie has been lighting up the internet in recent months, and this trailer should give you all the rationale you need to find it when it releases.

Watching People Skydive in Slow Motion Is Absolutely Mesmerizing

Seriously. This video is just magical. Click through it for a larger hi-res version… and prepare to be amazed.

Experience Human Flight from Betty Wants In on Vimeo.

Is a Social Currency System The Next Big Thing?

Dave Armano poses some questions about Empire Avenue, a new “social currency” system that’s part game, part stock market, part influencer metrics ecosystem. I’ve been playing around with Empire Ave for a while now, and its potential as a measurable environment for influencers – based on their social connections via networks like Facebook and Twitter – is immense. Be sure to check out the comments for good discussion on Armano’s post, and if you’re interested in trying out Empire Ave, make sure you buy several shares in yours truly, Du4. :)

Friday Five: What Gamification means for Digital Marketers

Edelman Digital gives a pretty succinct summary about the concept of “gamification” that’s been buzzing around digital circles since SXSW.

Hidden camera photos reveal the secret lives of scifi toys

Image by Thurston Roscoe

Leave it to io9 to find Thurston Roscoe’s hilariously staged photos of toys from our youth and what they do when we’re not looking. More fun photos at the links.

Many More Clips From The New Looney Tunes: Marvin The Martian, Yosemite Sam, Road Runner And More

I had no idea that Warner Brothers was working on a brand new Looney Tunes cartoon starring all our favorite WB cartoon characters from the Friz Freleng / Mel Blanc era. The animation looks SOLID too. Check out this clip of Foghorn Leghorn and Daffy Duck, which features some pretty advanced humor I was not expecting from a Cartoon Network show aimed (presumably) at kids. As an unabashed fan of classic Looney Tunes, I am SO EXCITED for this show’s premier on May 3rd. More vids at the link courtesy of Bleeding Cool.

Yakuza to the rescue?

Apparently, Yakuza gangsters in Japan are pitching in to help dig out people trapped and injured in the recent Japan earthquake. Code of honor indeed.

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Apr
01

Links of the Week: April Fool’s Edition

Top Shelf Announces “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1988”

Alan Moore’s titular comics title organizing popular characters in Victorian and British literature follows to its logical conclusion as Moore and O’Neill bring it to the States:

Gmail Motion

A new way to communicate: send your email by simply licking a stamp!

The Aurors Trailer (Harry Potter TV Show)

Looks like a strong effort from FX Networks now that the film franchise is coming to an end.

In Baffling Move, The Huffington Post Erects Paywall Solely For NYT Employees

I don’t like ‘em either.

Google Changes Helvetica Font to Comic Sans

There are no words.

Image courtesy of Zp2it

Regularly scheduled linksharing returns next week. ;)

Mar
25

Links of the Week: March 25, 2011 Edition

Roqbot Reinvents the Jukebox as Social Game

 

A mid-20th-century 24-disc Wurlitzer jukebox. ...

Image via Wikipedia

Here’s a more detailed article from Wired on the coolest app I discovered at SXSW 2011. Roqbot puts control of internet enabled jukeboxes in your hands via your mobile device. You become a DJ with your own list of music that follows you around to participating locations with Rocqbot enabled jukeboxes. When you check into those venues, you can then control the jukebox’s playlist with a system of credits and rewards. Pretty great solution for all those bars you go to that keep playing “Freebird.”

Norman Spinrad’s QUARANTINE

Only Warren Ellis could send a link to a sci-fi story about a bio-attack on New York that makes everyone have uncontrollable diarrhea. Spinrad’s latest novella deserves a look for that concept alone, but I’m also intrigued by Spinrad’s publishing model for this story. He’s going direct-to-reader via Amazon for a $3 mini-ebook. Worth checking out.

In The Midst Of A Massively Successful SXSW, Foursquare Tackles Venue Harmonization

TechCrunch has a good rundown of who I saw as the SXSW 2011 “winner,” Foursquare, and why. Dennis Crowley‘s plans to open up Foursquare’s checkin data to local businesses, with which they can create dashboards of customer information, is a brilliant application for the location-based service. Where this social tool was once seen as a frivolous game, I think the data built from its users is going to change the way brick and mortar business works in the future, particularly if those businesses are having a hard time staying open due to online competition. Even more importantly, as TechCrunch notes here, Foursquare is going to try and crack the nut of venue harmonization: developing a single online data set for each physical location someone could check into, regardless of what geolocation service they prefer (Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook, etc).

Question Everything: Max More on Singularity 1 on 1

One of my new favorite regular reads via Pulsememe is Socrates’ Singularity Blog. This latest post features a 50-minute long interview with “futurist and strategic philosopher” Max More. This is my first exposure to More, and I’m an instant fan. More is the CEO of the Alcor Life Extension Institute, a private sector entity dedicated to preserving one’s body past its normal lifespan. This basically involves employing cryonics technologies to freeze one’s brain (they even offer full body suspended animation!) on the hedge that in the future, humans will invent technology to resurrect the dying or dead tissue.

That’s not even the interesting part of the interview though. More – a name self-chosen based on his predilection toward transhumanism – offers tons of different insights into how one can immediately begin living a posthuman life. The most interesting piece of this interview to me was how More describes his diet and exercise regime, which are based on the “paleo” system:

The Paleo diet throwback as a model for transhuman evolution poses so many cool discussions. But the thing that’s so inspiring about this is that Max More is actually living the posthuman life NOW. More (whom I was surprised to learn is the husband of fellow transhumanist and futurist Natasha Vita-More, whose talk at SXSW sent chills down my spine) speaks with a wonderful degree of belief and authority for transhumanism, and he espouses a message that should kick even the laziest of armchair futurists out of their chairs and into action. Check out the three previous videos of his talk with Socrates at the link or listen to the podcast.

 

 

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Mar
04

Links of the Week: March 4, 2011 Edition

Not much to report this week due to a flurry of Du4licious activity in prep for this week’s Sister Cities International conference in Arlington. But a couple things did catch my eye.

Congressman Rahm Emanuel (center) with Sol Sch...

Image via Wikipedia

Revealing the Man Behind @MayorEmanuel

 

Like many across the country, I fell in love with the raucous foulness of Rahm Emanuel‘s parody Twitter account, which started broadcasting shortly after Rahm left the White House to run for mayor of Chicago. As @MayorEmanuel’s popularity grew, so too did the mystery of who was really behind it. In this Atlantic article, @MayorEmanuel’s pilot is revealed: Dan Sinker, a Chicago punk rocker and new age digital storyteller. Sinker describes @MayorEmanuel as performance art, a new sort of digital political commentary that weaves in and out of fiction, celebrity, and current events. I’m massively intrigued by the potential of using Twitter in a manner like Sinker did. Anonymity is so easily protected on this network, there are huge opportunities for persona manipulation… which makes me wonder about the future of digital identity. Great read.

On Revolutions

Pretty interesting perspective on the Middle East protests from Chris Guillebeau at The Art of Non-Conformity. Guillebeau has made a name for himself as a “travel hacker” by finding inexpensive means of visiting all sorts of places around the world. He is, in my opinion, a true citizen diplomat (public diplomacy peeps: take note). His experiences flying into Afghanistan, Libya, and Iran (!), give him an interesting “average joe” insight to what’s really at the forefront of people’s minds in those countries. Highly recommended read, and be sure to subscribe to Guillebeau’s blog too. It’s a must for nonconformists, proto-world dominators, and doowutchyalikes.

Announcing: Open Foresight & The Future of Facebook Project

Venessa Miemis is at it again with what sounds like an AWESOME forecasting initiative via Kickstarter. She has already interviewed several notable social media and tech influencers and has opened up her research questions to the public on Quora. I highly recommend EVERYONE go and participate in this project. I’ve blogged about Venessa before, and I think her work as a modern digital/social futurist demonstrates a LOT of required skills we as humans need to adopt to adapt to the new digital lifestyles in which we find ourselves.

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Feb
25

Links of the Week: February 25, 2011 Edition

Skipped out on doing these for a couple weeks as I head my head down in the trenches producing pages for a brand new writing project I’m cooking up. Sometimes, you have to quit consuming to create. This week, we’re back!

The Future of Work

I’ve specifically tried to not link to or quote anything from the big social media men on campus like Brogan or Godin. It’s simple linkbait for one thing, and more importantly, a lot of their content lately has been less than interesting. This post from Chris Brogan, however, is a spot-on bit of writing. Others have been writing about how we’re changing the definition of “work” in the 21st century, but Brogan has a good summary of the high points in this conversation here. I think more of us should be sticking this post in front of our bosses and every worker over the age of 25 in this country.

Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators

Developing this week is a Rolling Stone story about LTG William Caldwell‘s orders to an Afghanistan IO/PSYOP cell to influence the perceptions of visiting U.S. legislators. There is a HUGE kerfluffle happening in DC over this, and it’s the latest ding against military psychological (or information support) operations. On the front lines, Joint forces – and particularly the Army, historical home of the PSYOP regiment – have been trying to make sense of convoluted legislation and backwards policy governing the employment of information warfare in combat. There are clear lanes between strategic communicators, and one is that IO/PSYOP pros are only allowed to deploy their craft against foreign populations. To do so against Americans would be an illegal propagandizing effect, which seems to have been committed by LTG Caldwell.

That said, the modern information environment is such that easy distinctions between what’s propaganda and what’s neutral information are fast becoming irrelevant. Worse, America’s national security apparatus has essentially thrown in the towel on addressing this issue, afraid to engage the White House and Congress on the very real need to reform our en toto strategic influence and communication capability. Until such a thing happens, mistakes like Caldwell’s will continue to provide justifications to know-nothings in the Pentagon and on the Hill to further eviscerate our badly-needed interagency strategic communications and influence budget.

FUBAR: Army Inquiry Taints Its Next Chief

For those not familiar with the U.S. Army‘s non-warfighting components, this should be an interesting read. The Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, or TRADOC, should be designing the doctrine of the future and developing or modifying training programs across the force to support soldiers’ learning needs against future threats. Instead, TRADOC is INFESTED with old, ineffectual men trapped in the Cold War who are convinced the U.S. will be going to conventional war again any day now. I think Ackerman is way too lenient in this Danger Room post. Having worked at Fort Leavenworth myself for a TRADOC element, I can say with authority that the Army’s future leaders are FUCKED if we keep guys like Dempsey in charge of things. Buddies of mine who have recently graduated Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth have told me that things are getting somewhat better: counterinsurgency training is finally attaining primacy. But if I were Secretary Gates, I wouldn’t have nominated Dempsey for Chief of Staff of the Army with such a horrid track record for backsliding behind him at TRADOC.

Kirk to Clapper on Muslim Brotherhood: WTF?

I used to have a modicum of respect for James Clapper, former Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and recently appointed Director of National Intelligence. However, he has made a number of embarrassing gaffes answering questions in public lately, so many so that I’m beginning to think the guy really doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I echo Congress’ WTF on this one. If ANYONE should know ALL the nuances of the Muslim Brotherhood – to include its doctrinal promise to subvert America using its own legal system – it’s the top intel guy in the country. FAIL.

Pentagon’s Clandestine Killers Get New Chief

Here’s some good news: the only uniformed officer of the American military for whom I would lay down in traffic is taking over Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the military command that coordinates the activities of Delta Force, Navy SEALS, and other elite American special ops teams. Major General Joseph Votel was nominated by Secretary Gates for his third star last week and command of JSOC. I worked for Votel on the IED Task Force back when he was a wee colonel and I was a wet-behind-the-ears contractor. He’s the type of leader we need more of in our government: fearless, risk tolerant, intensely dedicated to his people, and a true patriot. I’m really proud that he’s achieved such success.

Many STAR TREK Bridges, No Bathrooms

Count on my new favorite pop culture blog, BADASS DIGEST, to find the OCD Star Trek fan’s guide to every bridge design in the history of the series.

Image courtesy Ex Astris Scientia

Happy 50th Birthday, Bruce Timm! [Art]

To round off this week’s batch of catch-up links, here’s Comic Alliance‘s tribute to Bruce Timm, one of the AWESOMEst animators and comic artists EVAR. Timm was one of the design brains behind the landmark Batman: The Animated Series from the 1990s, which went on to spawn a host of AWESOME television featuring DC characters (Superman, Justice League Unlimited, etc). Aside from his inimitable artistic style that defined said generation of DC characters, Timm’s an amazing storyteller and producer. He has since left television behind but not the DCU: Timm continues to adapt popular DC storylines and characters into direct-to-DVD features. Comic Alliance has a full gallery of their favorite Bruce Timm art at the link.

This AWESOMEST image EVAR brought to you by Comics Alliance and DC Women Kicking Ass.

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Feb
04

Links of the Week: February 4, 2011 Edition

Happy Febs!

Major paradigm shifts in the history of the wo...

Image via Wikipedia

What Is The Singularity And Will You Live To See It?

This is a great, concise backgrounder from io9 on the concept of The Singularity, something I’ve referred to once or twice in my posthuman posts. This formerly science fiction concept – and now more speculative possibility – involves a point in time where mankind’s technological evolution happens so fast that there will come a point where our comprehension and application of edge knowledge occurs simultaneously. It’s a tough idea to wrap your head around mainly because of the possibilities involved and each person’s perceived ideas of what The Singularity may look like when it happens. What do YOU think The Singularity will look like?

Apple policy may set up a roadblock for digital comics

So continues the latest in the drama of online comics and how creators and publishers make money off them. Dark Horse Comics, which originally planned to debut its own proprietary app for digital comics last month, was derailed by Apple’s policy that all apps in the iTunes store MUST offer payment methods via iTunes in conjunction with any other payment mechanisms said apps features. This ensures Apple gets its cut of digital purchases, which almost kills the profitability of some digitally produced comics.

Interesting

Here’s a great, fun little story from The New Yorker on the real life man behind Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man in the World. I respond to fun, engaging characters in advertising when they’re part of great stories. Like the Old Spice Guy, The Most Interesting Man in the World is one such AWESOME character. I’ve often thought about writing a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-type crossover story involving famous, AWESOME ad characters like these. Regardless, this is a great histoire of the man behind the character and well worth the read.

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Jan
28

Links of the Week: January 28, 2011 Edition

Neil Pasricha: The 3 A’s of Awesome

I love me some TED Talks. Here’s the author of 1000 Awesome Things describing how he came up with that blog and subsequent book. As purveyor of all things AWESOME, I feel for the guy and get where he’s coming from. The downer part of this is that Neil’s presentation isn’t terribly… AWESOME. In fact, it’s kinda weak. If you’re gonna go AWESOME, bro-han, you gotta go BIG. Get some pep and CRUSH that sucker.

[Bit of an aside: I actually think that while his concept is pretty rad, the actual content leaves something to be desired. He should aim for 1000 AWESOME Things instead of 1000 Awesome Things.]

Why You Can’t Work At Work

What? More videos? Send the AWESOME, son!

Jason Fried’s frustration is shared by many, but I think a lot of that frustration comes from the tension that springing up in the modern workplace between social business and the 1.0 workplace of collaboration. People confuse meetings with collaboration and hierarchy with order.

The 5 Critical Social Media Skills You Need To Disperse

I saw Jay Baer speak at BOLO 2010 in Scottsdale last year, and he touched on these skills before codifying them (with Amber Naslund) in this post and his forthcoming book The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter, and More Social. He’s right on the money with every one, from Listening to Brand Immersion to Engagement. Business MUST understand that their people will ALWAYS BE MARKETING. A.B.M. ALWAYS! BE! MARKETING! If these businesses miss the boat on empowering their people to become marketers on the brand’s behalf, then they will risk those same people talking negatively about the selfsame brand. Be human, people!

China’s Global Dominance Tour: Next Stop Muslim World

This is more than a little significant. Fast Company‘s article is short on the details, but I HIGHLY encourage people to start paying attention to what China’s up to internationally. If you combined the entire population of China with the total number of professed Muslims, you would get a number worth paying attention to.

Amazon Launches Kindle Singles, Saves Long-Form Journalism

Long-form journalism that’s not book length? Not a bad business model here. At $1-$5 a pop, this is a GREAT way for writers and reporters to make some scratch off magazine-plus length journalism that’s too short for book distribution and too long for magazine inclusion. Further, it sets up a direct-to-consumer relationship, which is good for journalists and bad for journalism companies that can no longer charge a percentage against the writer for any work he publishes. I think you’re about to see a ton of for-profit writers start generating some AWESOME work this way.

Have a Great Weekend!

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