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
14

Draft These Badasses to Improve US Communication Enterprise

Pundits, researchers, textperts, and academics all love to talk about how they would fix the United States’ fragmented, crapped-out communication apparatus. The overarching web of demon seed spunked across drab refurbished halls in the Eisenhower Building on 17th Street NW barely covers the Sarlacc maw of offices, officials, and assholes manning the guns of This, Our National Communication Nightmare. All suggestions for reform mandate – nay, demand! – leadership in renovating this sad enterprise, this broken transistor, these crusted lips. Though none of these tremendous gasbags has deigned to ask the question most important to we lowly peasants of the pen: “Who shall lead us?” Submitted then, for no approval, is this list of AWESOME, kermodial badasses. Executives in 21st century organization and innovation. Preeminent princes of creativity. Visionaries of the better and the righteous.

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter.

Image via Wikipedia

Jack Dorsey – Creator & CEO, Twitter

Just interviewed The President using crowdsourced questions from Twitter. Twitter. A social media tool that has archived millions of impressions from people around the world and is on the way to becoming so ubiquitous that it’s considered a utility by some. Elegant simplicity and craftsmanship are his weapons. I think he knows a thing or two about designing a communication enterprise.

Image via The Guardian.

Andy Carvin – Senior Strategist, NPR

“The Crowdsorceror” who mounted a one-man content curation campaign in realtime around popular protests and demonstrations in the Middle East that later became known as the Arab Spring. Compelling, earnest believer in the power of people. His examples inspire legions of communicators to standing applause at his speaking engagements. To Carvin, community comes first. Imagine his style of realtime information gathering applied to intelligence or information operations problems.

Image via TVNewser

Jon Stewart - Host, The Daily Show

America’s funnyman turned mega-popular fake news host, consumed by millions of Americans as “real” news. Despite obvious satirical takes on journalism, staunchly defends That Which Is Right by attacking The Wrong, from Fox News insidiousness to Cramer’s role in puffing up the housing crisis. Genuinely loves America. Imagine his tenure leading government international broadcasting efforts.

 

 

 

 

Image via brosephstalin.com

Tim Hwang – Founder, Web Ecology Project, The Awesome Foundation, and The Institute for Higher Awesome Studies

A philosophical cog caught between the wheels of web analytics and netnography. Cultural researcher and student of human interaction offline, online, and elsewhere. Observer of society, real and imagined. Teamed with the right agencies, his timely insights about social communities could make AWESOMEthe work of thousands of government communication professionals.

Image via AV.com

Fred Wilson – Venture Capitalist and Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures

Social entrepreneur and investor in socially transformative technologies. Believes in the transcendant like Hashable, Etsy, Foursquare, GetGlue, Kickstarter, and more. Blogs regularly about the whys and wherefores, the how-to’s, and the aspirational dreams of his investments. Imagine a federal executive who apportions program funding according to the good of society versus short-term gains or even strategic objectives.

Image via Gawker.

Peter Thiel - Serial VC, Hedge Fund Manager

Avowed investor in the impossible, from artificial intelligence to social networks like Facebook to data analytics supergiants like Palantir. Believer in not just debating future technology and social innovation but making it happen. Convener of social creatives to discuss building an objective American future. Elusive yet visionary. Skates the edge of politics with controversial libertarian-esque views on economics and democracy, a modernist perspective badly required by an ever evolving communications ecosystem.

Image via bookgalaxo.com

Tony Hsieh – CEO, Zappos

The man who brought happiness to millions and made fun a core capability of his company. Committed to making the world a happier place, a mission sorely needed in the personnel departments of hundreds of government agencies.

John Lasseter - Chief Creative Officer, Pixar

The man who built an animated powerhouse out of a tiny studio no one believed would succeed. Since producing some of the most endearing animated films in the modern age, has merged his multibillion dollar studio with Disney to usher in a new era of Imagineering. Our communications enterprise, currently swarmed with ill-trained personnel that barely understand the social phenomena happening around them, requires creativity of this man’s magnitude.

Image via Screencrave.com

Image via Headshift.com

Lee Bryant – Co-founder & Director, Headshift

A social business maestro, he advocates for clients to change the way they do business instead of simply hanging shiny new social media toys on their websites. Understands the complex challenges of technology’s promises and shortcomings in solving organizational and communications problems. Also, very British.

Image via The Huffington Post

Baratunde Thurston – Vigilante Pundit, The Onion

Champion for The Right in all things Wrong. Outspoken advocate for diversity, a trait we see too rarely in government. His infectious influence could inspire legions of public diplomats, strategic communicators, and information operators at all levels. Laughter mandating shot caller of madness. Imagine his effect teaching communicators in institutions across government how to be AWESOME and not just govvies.

David Kilcullen – Counterinsurgency Guru

An early advocate of fighting ideologically against al-Qaeda versus hand-to-hand. Believer in people-focused counterinsurgency security. Sees war as competition managed by influence instead of shootouts and bombings. Widely regarded as the smartest man on the planet when it comes to strategically understanding the wars of the future. If the Defense Department continues playing in deployed communications – and it will – then it will need a shamanic leader like this man to responsibly pilot the interagency minefields such across-the-board coordination that will require.

Image via The Washingtonian

Official portrait of United States Secretary o...

Image via Wikipedia

Robert Gates – Former Secretary of Defense; Former Director, CIA 

The ultimate honest broker in all things government. From his perch as SECDEF, fought interminable battles with service cultures and DOD dinosaurs, breaking down inflated budgets and streamlining operations. Put this same right-is-right tenacity to work reforming and leading the rehabilitation and redesign of America’s communication enterprise across agencies, and we will see magic.

 

 

 

 

Mae Ferguson. Kind of a badass.

Mae Ferguson – President & CEO, Fort Worth Sister Cities International

People forget citizen and cultural diplomacy are cornerstone elements of strategic influence, and because of that, they remain ill coordinated with the rest of our national communication apparatus. Mae has the terrier-like tenacity and management expertise to round up the various bit parts of cultural programs and get them working properly in alignment with national influence goals. A long time nonprofit leader, she has achieved a lot with strangled budgets and limited personnel. Disclosure: she’s also my Mom. :)

Who am I missing?

I know you’ve got some ideas about kermodial badasses we need to draft into service of our faltering national communication enterprise. Tell me who they are in the comments.

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
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
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
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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Jan
14

Links of the Week: January 14, 2011 Edition

Heavy on the art this week, so feast thine eyes!

Concept Art from the Teen Batman Series that Never Was, Gotham High

Holy AWESOME, how great would this animated series have been?! More pics at the link.

Image courtesy of Jeff & Celeste

Image courtesy of Jeff & Celeste

A Hands-Off Look at L.A. Noire’s Hard-Boiled Detective Stories

Here’s a first-hand account of Rockstar Games‘ upcoming L.A. Confidential-inspired video game L.A. Noire. This game looks amazing. There’s a trailer at the link with some cuts of in-game video, and it’s some of the most lifelike CGI I’ve ever seen. Can’t wait to play it– I’m a sucker for the old Raymond Chandler type detective stories from the 1940s and 1950s, which this game promises to deliver in spades. Even cooler, Aaron Staton – best known as Ken Cosgrove from Mad Men – plays the lead character in the game, and his visage in the trailer is stunning.

The Evolution of the Batmobile [Infographics]

Keeping with this week’s Batman theme, here’s a supercool infographic of the evolution of the Batmobile’s design over the years. The image below is just a tease, and the full-on insane-o HUGE graphic is available from some crazy mofos over at AutoBlog. The full pic is insanely detailed and accurate with plenty of shout-outs to any Bat-fan of the comics, movies, or cartoons.

Image courtesy of Comics Alliance

Art Break: Annie Wu

I found this via Badass Digest (a new entertainment blog from the creators of the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas). Very fun reinterpretation of the Justice League as a punk band.

Image courtesy of Badass Digest

Dubai Assassination Followed Failed Attempt by Same Team

Speaking of insane-o, here’s a frickin’ MAD story about the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai last year. Al-Mabhouh, a high-ranking member of Hamas, was the target of what must the mos clown-shoes black ops unit of the Mossad. This unit assed its way through one botched attempt on the guy’s life and then totally exposed themselves during the second attempt (which succeeded). The story goes into detail about how these supposed “super-assassins” are the Mossad’s most highly trained, highly secretive killers. Yet the team made TONS of freshman errors in their tradecraft surrounding the assassination, things that (in my experience) would make the most junior intelligence operative guffaw in scorn. Some great reporting here from Threat Level.

That’s it!

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Jan
07

Links of the Week: January 7, 2011 Edition

Back at it in 2011. Let’s see what’s AWESOME so far.

11 Actionable Trends For 2011

I got burned out on 2011 predictions almost as soon as the first ones started trickling out in November. However, David Armano‘s and Steve Rubel‘s work at Edelman Digital bears some notice. I got really excited to see some of the trends they report because of the work I did in 2010 involved things like Thought Leadership, Attentionomics, and Transmedia Storytelling. Also, Armano is required reading for social business enthusiasts and pros alike, so dive into this AWESOME preso.

A List Of The Best Of The Best Meme Lists Of 2010

Great roundup of all the “best of” lists tracking the best memes of 2010. I’m really surprised the Inception meme didn’t rank higher on most of these lists, because I laffed my ass off reading that one when it first hit. Still, I can’t get enough of The Bed Intruder:

Transcending the Human, DIY Style

This is a crazy article from Wired‘s Threat Level blog about a girl doing low-tech body enhancements out of her kitchen. She’s literally inserting magnets into her fingertips so she can develop a new magnetic “sense,” in addition to many other body modifications. There’s apparently a huge craze for body mods in the UK. It’s transhumanism and posthumanism on the cheap.

Humanity’s Next God: You?

Venessa Miemis continues to ask the questions of the future. In this new post at emergent by design, she references an Economist article that posits humanity is due for a new religion and a new god. The subsequent discussion features some pretty fascinating thoughts about humanity evolving to a godlike state, something I’ve been wrestling with myself recently. Of course, me being me, I had to wonder in the comments section if now is indeed the time for Mark Millar‘s RELIGIMON concept from his run on The Authority to come to fruition.

Image courtesy of Comic Vine

Scraps – by Henry Rollins

This contribution from Henry Rollins to Vanity Fair‘s blog is just… surreal. Rollins does this poetic thing every so often, and it’s just… mesmerizing. To this day, I associate Rollins with his death metal work so I get shocked when he delivers writing of this quality. He did something similar for Les Claypool years ago on a song called “Delicate Tendrils,” which features Rollins reciting this parable of modern life metaphorically represented by hyenas stalking you as an animal. Amazing, AWESOME shit, man. Really worth a look.

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Jul
11

Engaging in a “Now Media” Continuum, Part 3

Here’s the third part of my MountainRunner Institute talk from our “Now Media Seminar” on July 6th. Hope you dig!

Jul
08

Station Ident: Groovin’ and Movin’

Apologies for the lack of updates over the past couple weeks. I’ve been wore out from traveling so much lately, and it’s been nice to just chill out at the hizzy with Mrs. Dufour for a while. That said, I’ve got some GREAT new content coming at you that I’ve managed to collect from my travels into AWESOME. Be on the lookout for a lot of fun posts soon.

In the interim, check out this hilarious Ke$ha / Star Trek mashup from the brilliant minds at Major Spoilers:

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