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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Jan
21

Links of the Week: January 21, 2011 Edition

Quote of the day: Mark Millar on digital comics;

The Not .99 Method

On the heels of my recent diatribe on digital comics, here are two interesting perspectives on the issue. Mark Millar, creator of Kick-Ass and Wanted, breaks down the numbers on digital comics, showing how creators like himself really aren’t making a whole lot off digital sales yet:

1/ Apple take 30% right off the bat.
2/ In the case of Wanted, Comixology then splits 50/50 with the publisher.
3/ Then the publisher pays the agent and creative team out of the remaining cash depending on their deal.

Millar’s description of this profit model provides justification for the naysayers who believe that digital comics simply aren’t profitable enough for creators and downright industry killers for retailers. On the other hand, at the second link, Warren Ellis shares a business model for digital comics that completely cuts out third party distribution and costs and enables comics creators to sell their work directly to consumers. Inherent in this approach, however, is a requirement by comics creators to completely rethink their publishings models and instead use free online tools like Google Docs, PayPal and others to set up their own direct-to-consumer publishing – all digital, all creator-owned. Ellis is right: 2011 may very well see tons of comics creators making money hand over fist jumping over publishers and retailers to sell directly to consumers.

Scientists Discover Time Teleportation

WTF???

Before, we knew that quantum teleportation works in space. Two identical particles at different locations are linked in such a way that, when you change the state of one, the other one instantly changes in exactly the same way, no matter how many miles or light-years are between them. This is a phenomenon that defies our understanding of reality, and it just got even more complex with this discovery.

University of Queensland’s scientists Jay Olson and Timothy Ralph claim that the quantum entanglement is a fundamental part of the universe, and it works both in space and time, so changing the state of particle today instantly changes the same particle in the future, even while the particle will not exist between those two points.

The presupposition here (I think) is that there has to be something/someone on the other end of the time pipeline conducting the same teleportation experiment. So we can travel forward in time but not back? Pity.

Shackleton’s 100-year-old whiskey unearthed in Anarctica, soon to be drunk

I’m little more than an amateur scotch and whiskey connoisseur, but I can tell you this with some authority: the older it is, the smoother it goes down. Cool story about how they found this whiskey preserved in an old wrecked ship.

The Batman Nightclub ‘Wayne Manor’ Revealed in 1966 ‘Life’ Magazine Article

Chris Sims at Comic Alliance – also of Chris’ Invincible Super Blog fame – has made a name for himself as the world’s only preeminent “Batmanologist.” He has pored through every aspect of Batman pop culture across all media, and his writing has reflected an intense investigatory passion for new AWESOME Batman finds in pop history. In this post, Sims found an old copy of Life Magazine (apparently the ENTIRE RUN is available FOR FREE on Google Books) that featured this spread on Batman nightclub called Wayne Manor. Wayne Manor was built at the height of the “Bat-craze” of the old Adam West Batman TV show in the 1960s, replete with camp but – as evidenced by this INSANE picture – also more popular with the general American public than at any other time in Batman history.

Courtesy of Comics Alliance. Y’dig?

And finally…

New Image Of Kermit, Jason Segel And Miss Piggy At Muppet Read-Through

Courtesy of Bleeding Cool.

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Feb
10

Station Ident: Just Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?

Judging by the increased traffic on the blog, and from the influx of followers on Twitter, my recent forays into new web communities like Third Tribe Marketing are bringing in some new eyeballs to This, Our Foul Blog of AWESOME. Greetings to all you new visitors. Please feel free to browse the archives and find a post of your preference to comment on. I’d love to hear what you think about all these shenanigans.

In the meantime… BATMAN, courtesy of Frank Miller and Jim Lee:

Courtesy of CHUD.com

Courtesy of CHUD.com

This is Must. Be. AWESOME!!! Dot com.

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