I will be spending the upcoming three-day weekend away from the Internet, so this week’s entry is a little early.

It’s often said that kids are too busy playing video games to play outside anymore. While such an assertion is probably founded on reasonable observations, I would call the assertion itself into question. Why would kids choose video games over playing outside? Maybe there’s a good reason, but I doubt the people saying such a thing have thought it out that far.

I was a bookish kid, and I played my share of video games in my youth. I also played outside a lot. If the weather was fine and I had the time, I was outside with the other kids in the neighborhood. It wasn’t a question of conscious decision-making; that’s just what we did. I’m sure previous generations all had alternative activities waiting on deck when they were out playing football, riding bikes, or whatever.

One thing that I have noticed—and this is purely anecdotal, so if you’re looking for an empirical argument, pay it no mind—is that previous generations had perhaps a little more freedom during their expeditions to the great outdoors. When my father was a boy, he and his brothers had the run of the town. This might have been the product of being taken care of by a single mom who was in nursing school, which I find wonderfully progressive, but that’s beside the point. They still had a number of friends and family members to look after them, and even so, they would be out for hours at a time. I’ve heard enough long-winded stories about trips to the candy shop and the time Uncle S decided to swim across the river, which was nearly opaque at the time.

For my generation (again, anecdotal), we were a little more tethered. For us, playing outside didn’t mean going downtown to the candy shop on our own, or swimming across canals of industrial runoff. We stayed in the neighborhood. In retrospect, we probably had the supervision of at least one parental authority from the vantage point of at least one kitchen window at any given time. I doubt this was much our own doing. The parents wanted us in their line of sight at any given time.

The less real estate you have to work with, the less fun there is to be had. Combine that with the advent of home video game consoles, and there’s your explanation as to why kids might opt for the X-Box more often than they might have years ago. It’s not that video games are intrinsically more attractive than outside. It’s just something else to do.

But more to the point, why the change? What resulted in the increasing restrictiveness of child freedom? Does anybody really believe it’s what the kids want? If left purely to his own devices, would my father have still gone to the candy shop if he were growing up today, or would he have stayed put on the street on which he lived?

I would guess that it’s something that provides a whole other can of worms, and it’s the increased level of risk-aversion in parents. To cite a few possible examples of parental fears, it could be sex offenders, speeding cars, mercury poisoning, gangs, and so on. Rational examination of these phenomena would reveal that, statistically, there isn’t much to worry about, but if there’s one respect in which ordinarily intelligent adults veer into irrationality, it’s where their children are concerned.

Don’t get me wrong—it’s nice that my mom didn’t want me to get raped. But it’s also hard to develop a sense of independence when you’re stuck on a square block of land, with only so many sights and sounds to behold, and always within the watchful eye of the nearest authorities. And, if casual observation is any indication, the tether grows shorter with each generation.

During outside recess, I remember the playground supervisors interceding when my friends and I had woodchips in our hands. To us, they were the corporeal section of the standard-issue Jedi lightsaber. To them, we were engaged in a struggle to fatally wound one another with makeshift wooden daggers. I’ve heard that some schools don’t even have outside recess anymore.

EDIT:

In an interesting coincidence, Roger Ebert has discussed the same subject in a recent entry on his own blog. Among many other things I didn’t think of, he mentions that parents nowadays get nervous when they don’t hear from their older kids for more than a few hours. This brings to mind another trend parents fret over that they themselves contribute to: juvenile cell phone use.

He also raises the point that today’s school system (and this is not anecdotal, but a documented trend) strongly favors girls rather than boys, a contributing factor to so many boys being dosed with low level stimulants in order to keep them focused. Holy juvenile drug use, Batman.

Superheroes are a genre that isn’t without its potential, but what potential it does have has been squandered on countless bland copycat characters and long-running story threads that don’t get resolved, get resolved unsatisfactorily, or were never based on a good idea in the first place. Even though I don’t particularly care for superheroes, Superman has always been one of a handful of exceptions.

I’m sure one reason is the way that he, more than any other character in the genre, is inextricably linked with and reflective of American culture. Whatever was going on in the life and times of the country was going on in the life and times of Superman. There was no hero to swoop in and save us from the villains who took advantage of our inability to defend ourselves during the Depression, so we invented one. Post-war, Americans wanted a figure of authority to reassure them, so Superman stepped up. During the 60s, a time when we were reflecting upon and questioning the values that had shepherded us through the early adolescence of our country, Superman was questioning himself—and at the height of his physical powers, at that. It is generally accepted that Superman is a walking symbol of the American ideal, whatever form it happens to take at the time.

Post-Nixon, Americans lost trust in their heroes, and that, I think, is what led to a series of progressively weird and misguided attempts to figure out who Superman was to the contemporary audience. (A hard feat for modern writers who never understood who Superman was to any audience in the first place.) It’s very easy to write and read dark, violent Batman stories that confirm the suspicions and fulfill cynical the fantasies. Perhaps a character who staunchly represents optimism and progress is too challenging to the popular sensibilities of today.

Just as a refresher, a “+” indicates a recommended title. “Favorable factor” indicates a title that, while otherwise not recommended, has at least one element of note. A “-“ indicates a title that is not recommended.

SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS (COMICS, 1998)
Tim Sale’s recognizable style has limited applications, most evident here in the form of a pudgy, graceless Man of Steel. The art fares better in other areas, but it’s Jeph Loeb’s overwriting that ultimately sinks this attempt at introspective, episodic storytelling. -

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OST (MUSIC, 1998)
It isn’t the authentic film recordings—it’s better. It’s more complete, more dynamic, far grander in every way. When the trumpets of the Royal Scottish Orchestra announce the three syllables that make up the character’s name, it really swaggers. This is how this music should sound. +

PEACE ON EARTH (COMICS, 1998)
I’ve often thought of Alex Ross as an artist in search of a format. His paintings sure do make the characters look suitably larger than life, but comic book storytelling is almost exclusively the domain of the pencil artist for a reason. Photorealistic watercolor is too dense and self-conscious to really move a narrative—unless it’s a sparse, open narrative such as the one Paul Dini contributes to this project. His perceptive and elegant world hunger parable is a fine canvas for Ross’s arresting style. +

JUSTICE LEAGUE (TELEVISION, 2001)
The format is an interesting choice: 45 minute stories divided into two parts each, featuring an ensemble cast. Timm and Co., perhaps for the first time, seem unsure of their footing at times, unwisely nerfing Superman and committing a variety of other errors. Nevertheless, there are some good stories to be had, and Michael Rosenbaum is a hoot as The Flash. +

SMALLVILLE (TELEVISION, 2001)
The premise: it’s Clark Kent and Lex Luthor, before the costumes, before the alter-egos, before the life-long conflict. The progress towards their destinies is the storytelling fuel, which inevitably runs low once there’s nothing left to do besides put on tights and fly. FAVORABLE FACTOR: The decently written second and third seasons successfully rise above season one’s repetitive freaks of the week. Season four successfully rises above the shark.

SUPREME: STORY OF THE YEAR (COMICS, 2002)
There is an audience out there with a lot of background in Silver Age superhero comics, and there is an audience out there that appreciates obnoxiously clever meta-fiction. The audience for this book lies within the intersection. No, the title character isn’t Superman, but he might as well be. +

BIRTHRIGHT (COMICS, 2003)
Big summer blockbuster storytelling, with big summer blockbuster flaws. Mark Waid seems to realize that relevance isn’t about attempting to integrate current issues, but he does it anyway. But the real offense is that it’s a superfluous remix of a story that’s had more than its share of superfluous remixes. -

RED SON (COMICS, 2003)
It’s Superman, with all the compassion but none of the wisdom to keeps it in check. While the metaphors are obvious and not especially daring, this oddball Stalinist reimagining is a nice way of looking at the classic superhero themes of power and responsibility (eat your heart out, Spidey) from an unusual angle. +

SUPERMAN/BATMAN: PUBLIC ENEMIES (COMICS, 2003)
Interesting concept, abysmal execution. Loeb’s signature overwriting and a prodigious number of cameos supplant any possibility of a story, but—to his dubious credit—at least Superman and Batman don’t get into a brawl for the nth time. FAVORABLE FACTOR: The brief Tim Sale-penciled vignette at the beginning is the one salvageable element in this flashy mess of a comic.

THE GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD (COMICS, 2004)
“Greatest Hits” collections typically place too much emphasis on inclusiveness, sampling various periods in the attempt to represent all of them. Greatness, more often than not, does not fall evenly on the timeline, which this compendium proves as well as any other. FAVORABLE FACTOR: Elliot S! Maggin’s “Must There Be a Superman?” smartly suggests that Superman shouldn’t help too much, while Jim Steranko’s “Exile on the Edge of Eternity” applies innovative visuals to a Clarke-esque storyline.

IT’S A BIRD… (COMICS, 2004)
This Superman writer’s contradictory feelings about the character mirror his contradictory feelings about a hereditary family disease, as told in this (kind of) true story. It’s peppered with short vignettes that cast a critical eye on various elements of the Superman myth, which are interesting if Watchmen wasn’t enough of a deconstructionist’s feast for you. +

JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED (TELEVISION, 2004)
Timm and Co. successfully resuscitate their Justice League project with shorter episodes and a wider variety of characters. They capture an age of superheroes, but aren’t naïve enough to either ignore the many ramifications or stoop to bland superhero cavalcade beat-em-ups. The first season is undoubtedly smarter and much more interesting, but the Flash/Luthor mind swap in the second season is too funny to miss. +

SECRET IDENTITY (COMICS, 2004)
There is a fictional character named Clark Kent, secretly a superhero. There is a real person (or a less fictional character?) named Clark Kent, also secretly a superhero, who lives his double life generally unhappy about being named after the fictional character. I promise the story is more touching and less obnoxiously clever than it sounds. +

ALL STAR SUPERMAN (COMICS, 2005)
The imagination, human optimism, and breakneck storytelling of classic Superman are wedded with modern authorial and artistic sophistication. In my experience, this is not only a definitive and marvelous take on the character, but the superhero genre’s strongest claim to real artistic merit. +

SUPERMAN II: THE RICHARD DONNER CUT (FILM, 2006)
Editor Michael Thau gamely attempts to cobble together a jigsaw puzzle with several missing pieces, and the final picture is discernible enough if you squint hard. This chop-job Superman II, thematically, is a much better companion—indeed, a much better second half—to the 1978 original. It ups the romance and reduces the sound and fury, leaving the final lesson (including that time travel sequence, which works best here where it belongs) all the more bittersweet. +

SUPERMAN RETURNS (FILM, 2006)
Oft-maligned, much-misunderstood, semi-reboot. Director Bryan Singer deserves criticism for not delivering the classical rendition that the title promises. He also deserves praise for daring to hurt the invulnerable man. +

SUPERMAN RETURNS OST (MUSIC, 2006)
John Ottman does an admirable job of devising his own musical take on Superman while integrating the classic cues at the right moments, though his own stuff curiously sounds better rehearsed. It’s much moodier and less grand than the Williams score that precedes it, but it would have been a mistake to not stake out new territory. +

DOOMSDAY (FILM, 2007)
Timm and Co.’s track record was so sterling at this point that the announcement of a spate of feature DVDs probably wasn’t greeted with enough skepticism. It isn’t as bloated or shamelessly commercialistic as its source material, but successfully adapts the rest of the weaknesses. -

JUSTICE LEAGUE: NEW FRONTIER (FILM, 2008)
I’ve not read the book that this is based on, but its poppy artwork is well-matched by the animators. This is a very good-looking film. Too bad the story whips along so fast that there isn’t enough time for the high concept to get off the ground. So much happens, none of it interesting. FAVORABLE FACTOR: It has a clever way of dealing with the evolution of superhero archetypes in the 20th century, particularly Batman’s transition from cold-blooded vigilante to deputized public servant.

As announced last week, today’s entry is the first of a two-part review retrospective, in celebration of the 71st anniversary of Superman’s first appearance in Action Comics. The first review will be of that first appearance and will proceed onward to about the mid ‘90s. Comics, movies, and television shows will all be included.

As with any criticism you might find on this blog, the following reviews don’t claim to be an objective evaluation of their respective subjects. It’s all my opinion. Don’t expect to agree with them 100% of the time unless your tastes mirror mine exactly.

SUPERMAN IN ACTION COMICS #1 (COMICS, 1938)
Sure, the stories were simpler—the morals less complex, the characters rougher around the edges. But the comics of this era were far more bountiful than those of today. Here, for your consideration, are a recounting of Superman’s origin, a brief sidebar offering a plausible explanation for his (then relatively modest) abilities, and a breezy story introducing many long-term staples—all in a dozen pages or so. Can the ponderous, incremental superhero stories of today really be considered an improvement? +
[Action Comics #1 is available for online reading here.]

SUPERMAN: THE SUNDAY STRIPS (COMICS, 1939)
Reading these stories collected, back to back, is (probably) infinitely preferable to reading them in their original presentation as weekly fragments. The artwork is excellent, and we get to see plenty of Superman in his early days of righteous, if somewhat shapeless, social anger. +

SUPERMAN: THE FLEISCHER CARTOONS (FILM, 1941)
They lack scope, but there are more than enough heroics to make up for it. All the basic elements of the myth are here, drawn vividly in the definitive style of Joe Shuster. These first appearances in fluid motion are as sensational as a flying superhero ought to be. +

SUPERMAN: THE FAMOUS STUDIOS CARTOONS (FILM, 1943)
Obtaining a Max Fleischer property, unfortunately, doesn’t mean obtaining Max Fleischer quality. The difference? Fleischer’s lighthearted sci-fi adventures can be appreciated sincerely. This blatant ham-fisted war propaganda can only be appreciated ironically. –

THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN (TELEVISION, 1951)
It’s Clark Kent as a reporter first, donning the tights only when the stakes are at their highest. Perhaps this choice was a necessity of effects-spare ‘50s television, but it worked better here than it ever has in the comics. +

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (FILM, 1978)
The makers of this picture view the titular character as mythic and human in all the ways that count. In spite of the misplaced time travel sequence, Superman: the Movie makes an excellent case for their position. Everyone in this production delivers, especially Superman himself. +

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE OST (MUSIC, 1978)
The music is larger than life. It’s bold, it’s optimistic, it soars; it is the essence of Superman distilled into sine waves. It is therefore a slur on the composer’s reputation that an otherwise powerful score should be preserved in a sonically anemic, truncated document such as this one. -

SUPERMAN II (FILM, 1981)
There is a profound discomfort when differing directorial visions clash. In this installment, mayhem and hokey tricks overwrite myth and humanity, leaving Superman II a superficial imitation of 30% of itself. FAVORABLE FACTOR: The chemistry between Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder is the strongest holdover from the vastly superior previous installment.

SUPERMAN III (FILM, 1983)
From opposite ends of the cosmos, a bad Superman movie and a bad Richard Pryor movie travel on a collision course. Shrapnel flies. Gravity violently fluctuates. Gene Hackman (Lex Luthor) becomes Robert Vaughn (generic technocrat). Chaos ensues. -

SUPERMAN ANNUAL #15: FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING (COMICS, 1985)
The Watchmen writer/artist duo manages to wed crowd-pleasing action, fan-pleasing Easter eggs, and intelligentsia-pleasing meditations on greener grass. Never mistake it for the inferior television counterpart, which lacks the necessary context. +

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW? (COMICS, 1986)
Dark portent appropriately gives way to sunny optimism in the last Superman story of the Silver Age. It’s heartfelt in its desire to hit all the bases, and while that means a slightly silly everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach, it’s infinitely preferable to the reboot that followed. +
[Superman Annual #15 and both parts of Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? are both available in the trade paperback volume The DC Comics Stories of Alan Moore.]

SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE (FILM, 1987)
You will believe a man can pose on wires in front of a scrolling backdrop. FAVORABLE FACTOR: The film (Reeve himself, actually) has the audacity to suggest that even Superman’s best intentions can’t solve every problem. It’s a great idea that can be, should be, and has been done better.

THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN (COMICS, 1992)
In this tale of masturbatory violence and crass commercialism, our hero is tragically felled by (wait for it) a walking plot device that, quite literally, pops up out of the ground one day. It has no relevance to anything, other than perhaps itself. If Superman is the American ideal, then what does this bode for America? -

SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TELEVISION, 1996)
This amalgam of many editions of the character is too heavy on the post-1986 “earthling” Superman for my taste, but it’s smoother than any blend has a right to be. For the creators, Batman: the Animated Series is still the standard to beat. The third season of this show, smart and thematically rich, rises to the challenge, and the rest of it is pretty good too. +

Though I acknowledge it belatedly, it is June again. I’ll repeat the snippet of nerd wisdom I gave last year, which is that Action Comics #1, dated June 1938, actually hit the newsstands in April of that year. Nevertheless, it seems to be a trend with messianic figures that their birthdays fall whenever the People In Charge say they fall. Thus, this month is Superman’s 71st birthday. And, as a blog-wielding Superman fan, I am obligated to mark the occasion with something special.

This year, I’ve decided that the “something” in question will be a two-part review retrospective that will span the entire existence of the character. I’ll start with Action Comics #1 and make selections throughout the ensuing years until I reach present day. Comics, movies, and television shows will all be included. Next week’s entry will be the first, examining Superman’s depictions in decades past. The week after that will pick up where this one leaves off, in more recent years. For anyone left disappointed by my previous attempt at a Superman movie retrospective, hopefully this is consolation and then some. It will be a feast of unbridled nerdery.

This retrospective will also mark the introduction of a new review system. While I’ve done long (frankly, belabored) reviews in the past, I’ve often been met with a single deflating question: “Yeah, but did you like it or not?” I’ve heard this enough times that I figure it’s time to get my priorities in order. To paraphrase Mike Judge, “Most people just want to know if it rules or if it sucks.”

With that in mind, I have attempted to devise a system that will, in no uncertain terms, convey my opinion as clearly and concisely as possible. I determined it would need to be flexible enough to cover a variety of media, which will be heavily stress-tested with the Superman feature. I also decided that the reviews should be shorter in format, more concerned with the meatiest critical content than with meticulously covering every imaginable base. This, I believe, will lend itself much more readily to the blog form.

Quite simply, the reviews will be in capsule format, about a paragraph long each, and will feature one of three ratings. A “+” indicates a recommended title. A “-“ indicates a title that is not recommended. Some titles are lackluster as a whole, but have at least one distinguishing feature that merits notice—a good song on a bad album, a good performance in a bad movie, or whatever. In cases like these, neither a + or a - will be given. Instead, the noteworthy features will be recounted at the end of the review.

I debated going with a more elaborate rating—stars, alphabetical grading, a 0-10 scale, or whatever—but I find that the numbers typically have no relevance. What’s the difference between a 8/10 film and an 8.5/10 film? Either it impressed you or it didn’t. You can get into the more particular aspects of your opinion when you actually write the review.

With that out of the way, I’ll return to writing the 30-odd reviews I’ll be unveiling over the next two weeks.

All two or three people who have been following this blog for a while will remember that I once declared an indefinite embargo on certain topics: namely, the movie industry’s recent interest in the comics medium, and particularly in the superhero genre. My reasoning was that if such an association is a harmful one, then an activist-minded nerd such as me could only be doing further harm by openly bitching about it. There is no such thing as bad publicity, as they say.

I’ve gone around the embargo a few times, testing the waters, further putting off my final decision. As of today, I think I’ve reached it. I still have strong misgivings about both the quality of films in the superhero genre (they’re almost universally crap) and the negative way in which they reinforce the public’s misguided opinions about comics (look at the immense favor Hollywood is doing for this miserable bastard medium!). However, I’m not sure I see the point any longer in ignoring the elephant in the room, fat and smelly as it is.

Moreover, I’ve been contemplating my hostile attitude towards mainstream comics in general. I’m no big fan of superheroes, aside from the big guy, and I’m not sure the majority of the stories in the genre are relevant to anything but themselves. But I think I’ve often tried to shut superheroes out in my various appraisals of the medium, which is probably also a mistake. If I’m going to accept Vladek Spiegelman and other Very Dramatic characters drawn in black and white, then I suppose I also have to accept Spider-Man in his flashy primary colors. It is a fact that the superhero genre still comprises the majority of the comics medium, and it seems a little silly to ignore that fact. It’s a holier-than-thou position, and I have a few too many of those to comfortably manage. Until I hire an assistant, that is.

If there is a main motivating force for my decision, I suppose it’s the confidence that these problems will eventually sort themselves out in a more elegant fashion than mere bitching and shunning could hope to achieve. As long as there are artists working on the fringes of comics to bring in a higher standard of artistic quality, things will be alright.

Nevertheless, I’ll maintain my opinions of the qualities of these various things, and I’ll be sure to say them louder and more often than ever before. Why, did anybody else see the Wolverine movie? Watch out, Plan 9: a new contender has emerged.

—–

It comes to my attention that I haven’t discussed this yet, but Freak Safari has a new feature called Freak of the Day: a daily humor feature that collects news stories about bizarre, funny, and interesting people from all around the world. The entries are written by the Freak Safari forum leaders, including yours truly, so check it out.

Nearly as good as great art, or, at least, great entertainment, is great criticism. For many people, the word conjures to mind stodgy liberal egotists, regularly failing in their attempts to either second-guess or outwit the tastes of the typical moviegoer (which, incidentally, doesn’t exist). For others, it means Consumer Reports-style product reviews. That’s a ridiculous notion in itself, but it’s unfortunately accurate lately. Criticism–REAL criticism–has nothing to do with these things. It is the simple act of experiencing something and attempting to explain, hopefully with some insight and wit, how you feel about it. How your honesty and taste is received by your audience is entirely their fault.

So, who writes real criticism? There is no definitive litmus test, because the vast majority of critics, including the good ones, are hemmed in by the standards and practices demanded by the marketplace in which they appear. Bad critics invest the value of their criticism in their numerical (or alphabetical) ratings. Good critics encourage you, by act of writing, to look past the ratings to the prose. That’s where the real stuff lies.

As far as film critics go, it’s hard to find one who has done so much for film and inspired just as much controversy as Roger Ebert. His show with Gene Siskel was originally thought to be a major setback for serious criticism, reducing the carefully thought-out essays of film’s finest period to brief television segments punctuated with thumbs up or down. It is true that Siskel & Ebert was, at best, a mixed blessing. On one hand, it brought a wider attention to film criticism. On the other hand, the wider the seed is cast, the more thinly it lands. Perhaps Ebert is partially responsible for the majority of critics reviewing films in the same way that Consumer Reports reviews vacuum cleaners.

But never mind that. Being responsible for a trend is not the same thing as being part of it. (Just ask Eddie Van Halen.) As always, look past the stars, numbers, and grade-school ratings. It is Ebert’s prose that distinguishes him as one of the most thoughtful and knowledgable film critics still working today. He has come under fire recently for being curiously lenient towards some films and harsh on others, and it has been speculated that his poor health in recent years has colored his logic.

Were I Ebert, I’d find that a little insulting. Not because of its presumptuousness, but because it assumes that the value of criticism is in second-guessing the eventual opinion of the reader, rather than offering an unvarnished account of the critic’s personal experience. Is it a little mindblowing that Ebert liked Knowing better than Star Trek? Perhaps so, but no more mindblowing than the general notion that different people have different opinions. On one side, you have reviews that attempt to pander to the sensibilities of the audience so that they can leave the theaters satisfied, not because they enjoyed the film, but because they knew what to expect. On the other hand, you have reviews that you vehemently disagree with, but are well-written, and packed with informed opinion and insight. I will ceaselessly opt for the latter.

James Berardinelli is another good critic. He differs from Ebert like night differs from day. He’s a relatively recent arrival in the field, having missed the 70s by a couple of decades. Rather than getting his foot in the door as a newspaperman at an early age, Berardinelli distinguished himself as one of the earliest noteworthy online critics. In daily life, he’s an engineer and a baseball fan, who, believe it or not, reviews movies purely because he enjoys doing it. His circumstances give him an invaluable everyman perspective, perhaps not quite as educated in the history of cinema as Ebert, but just as intelligent and respectful of his readers. And like Ebert, I’ve never known Berardinelli to second-guess the tastes of either the audience or his fellow critics.

All too fleeting in criticism is the journalism of Paul Schrader, who is best known as a screenwriter (with some famous collaborations with Martin Scorcese) and director (his Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters is the best biographical drama you’ll ever see about a figure you’ve never heard of). As a graduate student, Schrader wrote criticism often, and has made a handful of contributions to industry magazines since then. His film canon, or rather, his 15 page essay about the ultimate futility of the canon, stirred up a fair amount of talk when it appeared in Film Comment a few years ago. He was a student of Pauline Kael, and it shows in his prose: clear, on point in its understanding of craft, and uncompromising in its expression of opinion. Schrader has stated that he doesn’t like to apply his critical side to his artistic side, but he does so for a brief moment, introducing a catalog of his writings on his website. “Some are youthful, some are wrongheaded, some are pretty good.”

One more choice, somewhat out of left field, is Robert Christgau. He is the only music critic on this list, mainly because I can’t think of any other music critic who writes with the same qualities as the film critics I’ve mentioned. His reviews are uncompromising and careful, but they’re also written in a very unique way. Each is only a few sentences (or even a few words), highly dense, demanding to be analyzed for allusions and multiple meanings. Something has to be said for critics who don’t care who they piss off, because any critic who does isn’t a critic at all.

The semester is coming to an end, and after wading through a proverbial river of shit, I’m nearly to the other shore. The moment I lift my pen from my last exam tomorrow, my week-long vacation will commence effective immediately. As for right now, I apologize for drifting off schedule by nearly a week. Any and all comments can be directed towards the haggard guy who keeps nodding off in the library.

But that’s not what I need help with. My band is trying to win a chance to play in the Common Ground Festival, which is a yearly festival here in mid-Michigan. This year’s acts include Stone Temple Pilots, Billy Squier, Sheryl Crow, and others, and it’s featured ZZ Top, The Allman Brothers, and many other great groups in the past.

In order to win the opportunity to play a couple of our songs in front of thousands of people, our video has to receive the most votes on this site. All you have to do is scroll down until you see the video selector. Scroll over until you get to our video and click in the little circle underneath. This is what our square looks like:

We held second place for a few days, but as of this writing, we’ve dropped to fourth. Tell everyone you know to go to the site and vote for Tyrannovox, also known as the band with the fifth video from the left.

That’s all for now. Before noon tomorrow, I’ll be a dot on the horizon.

This is a subject I’ve been meaning to write about for a while. Now seems like as good a time as any, given that it’s come up on the forum of I Evolved Into This!?’s parent site, Freak Safari.

For those of you who don’t know, the Pirate Bay is a website that facilitates the exchange of digital files—music, movies, games, and so on. In this day and age of controversial online downloading, the Pirate Bay has become something of a celebrity figure in the Internet landscape. Because the site is based in Sweden, the American entertainment companies have had a hard time touching it, until now.

The entertainment industry, represented by organizations such as the RIAA and the MPAA, cites copyright law in its complaints. It maintains that downloading digital files is the same as the theft of physical property. I’m sure you’ve all seen the message at the beginning of many DVDs, which rhetorically asks the viewer why they would steal a movie online if they wouldn’t steal a DVD from a video store (or a car or a television set, for that matter). These people argue that downloading is a violation of property rights, and that it harms their ability to turn a profit.

I don’t have a hell of a lot to say about this that people already don’t know, so here are just a few position points.

1. Stealing physical property and downloading copies of digital information are not even close to the same thing. The PSAs the distribution companies place at the beginning of DVDs are glib and deliberately misleading.

2. The jury is still out on whether or not unauthorized downloading is economically harmful to the people who generate and legally distribute the content. Given technological advances in the past, such as cassette tapes and VCRs, I strongly doubt that this is the case, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the opposite is true.

3. The jury is still out on the effectiveness of copyright law in itself. Its ostensible purpose is to give content generators (e.g. composers, filmmakers, writers) an economic incentive towards greater creativity in two ways: firstly, by protecting their right to determine who gets to buy and sell their stuff, and secondly, how copies of that stuff get used. Historically, there is indication that this doesn’t have the intended positive effect on the output of the creators, and there is some indication that it has a negative effect.

4. There is also a question of rightful ownership: can you own an idea? Can you own a piece of information? It might be quick and easy to say yes, but think about it. What is ownership? I would say, in the most basic sense, it means the right to determine who gets to use something and how. Can you control who uses information and how they do it? Assuming it’s possible, do you have that right? It’s easy to see how discrete, individual copies of the information can be controlled, but what about the information itself? It is because of this that new information delivery technologies often pose problems to copyright law (which, incidentally, hasn’t been significantly revised since the 1970s).

The problem that digital technology poses is fairly novel: the copies are not finite, are not physical, and do not deteriorate in quality with each generation. They are, for practical purposes, not copies as we typically think of them. What is being traded is the information itself, which spreads on the Internet like a virus, much as a catchy tune spreads among people’s brains when they whistle it or play it around each other on the radio. (I’m still waiting for the music industry to press charges against people for “stealing music” by getting it stuck in their heads through the duplication technology of humming or singing.) You might say that the controversy over digital downloading says as much about copyright and the nature of ownership in general as it does specifically about movies or MP3s.

So if copyright law doesn’t have a perceptible economic benefit, and if it has such a great difficulty defining exactly how or why people have ownership over information—never mind defining just what forms that information can appear in—then what use do we have for it, and why is the entertainment industry so intent on preserving it as it currently is? I confess I have no idea. I don’t think there is a rational reason, and if there’s no rational reason, then making a rational argument isn’t going to have any effect on anybody in a position to do something about it.

Perhaps instead they’ll pay attention to a cold, hard fact that anybody can understand: the genie is out of the bottle. Technology and democracy always advance; they never retreat. Fight against them and you lose every time.

The following is an I Evolved Into This!? investigation into the death of Dr. Lawrence Kutner. He was a member of a medical diagnostic team under Dr. Gregory House beginning in November, 2007. While it appears that Dr. Kutner died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the absence of a motive has left numerous questions unanswered.

To probe this matter, we hired a private investigator. What follows is a series of excerpts from his written correspondence.

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Rorschach’s journal. April 6, 2009. Visited Kutner domicile tonight. Filled with ridiculous childhood affectations—expensive trinkets with no practical purpose. Is this what people do with empty lives? Purchase material possessions to fill void? Possible suicide explanation: no meaningful direction in life, using materialism and child regression as coping mechanisms. Educated liberals, so-called doctors, perhaps not so better off than the rest of us as they let on.

Moving into bedroom now. Police left death scene mostly untouched by their meddling fingers. Dried blood, gun still in place. Prints on gun? Red herring either way. No sign of murder, indicating clean, careful killer. Or no killer at all. No hidden compartments in wall, under bed, or in bottoms of drawers. No apparent clues in domicile.

After leaving, checked tavern up street, one of Kutner’s usual haunts. Found potential talker. Burned his skin with spoon heated over hot plate, but gleaned no new information. Disappointed. Broke his nose just to be sure.

Starting tomorrow, will interview Kutner’s associates. If killing was premeditated, chance is good that one of them is responsible.

Rorschach’s journal. April 7, 2009. Tracked down Lisa Cuddy, director of hospital and Kutner employer. Hard, emasculating façade betrays accommodative attitude. No self-respect. She sickens me. For authority figure, she has no sense of responsibility for own failings, preferring excuses and pretending situation is out of her hands. Claims to have no information about Dr. Kutner and is appropriately emotional.

Also spoke to Robert Wilson, oncologist. Sad sack attitude, but was ready and talkative with various details. None of them relevant. May know more than he lets on, and might require more time for second interview. May not have to injure him if he continues to cooperate.

Rorschach’s journal. April 8, 2009. Today, spoke to Dr. Remy Hadley, teammate of Kutner. Hadley is secretive and guarded. Attempts to cultivate atmosphere of mystery and intrigue around self; comes off as annoying instead. Overt tendencies towards lesbianism are obvious cry for attention, and nearly as distracting as her enormous forehead. Hadley is noteworthy as discoverer of Kutner’s corpse. Makes her insight valuable, and places her high on list of possible suspects.

Interview difficult, Hadley not forthcoming at all. Arouses mistrust, but perhaps too obviously suspicious to be for real. Even so, keeping on guard around Hadley at all times and keeping her in mind as person of interest in case.

Spoke with Dr. Chris Taub as well, another Kutner colleague. Less closed off in comparison to Hadley, but no less smug and much slimier. Deliberate amorality implicates him as possible suspect, though terseness on subject of suicide hints at sympathy for victim. Taub’s personality reminds me of old joke:

Politician dies, goes to gates of Heaven. St. Peter says, “Must spend one day in Hell and one day in Heaven, then make your choice.” Politician goes to Hell for 24 hours. Surrounded by golf courses, barbecues, and treated to wine and caviar by Devil himself. Everybody having good time. Then, politician goes to Heaven for 24 hours. Everything serene, peaceful, quiet. Many angels, harps, clouds. After time ends, St. Peter asks, “Have you made choice?” Politician says, “Hate to admit it, but would rather go to Hell for eternity.”

So he goes to Hell, and finds self in wasteland of fire, brimstone, lava, and eternal torture. Politician says to Devil, “Why so different? Everything much nicer before.” Devil says, “Yesterday, just campaigning. Today, you voted for us.”

Good joke. Make everyone laugh.

Rorschach’s journal. April 9, 2009. Taub interview failed to yield new information. Unpleasant. Had to shower after. Hoping for better results with Dr. Eric Foreman. Foreman is last of Kutner’s associates under Dr. House. Unavailable for interview tomorrow. Very bad. Trail going cold.

More disturbing is unavailability of Dr. House himself. Inquired many times, always told House is too busy for interview. I am sure he is avoiding me. House has reputation for misanthropy, irritability, and drug use. Current list of suspects: Hadley, Taub, and House.

Rorschach’s journal. April 10, 2009. Spoke briefly with Dr. Foreman. Not interested in him as suspect; spent more time inquiring about Dr. House. As current team member with longest-standing association with House, Foreman most likely chance of establishing contact with House in immediate future. Foreman is unusually intelligent and appears qualified for job. Rumors of childhood delinquency aside, Foreman is least-likely team member to have involvement in Kutner killing. Honest and open. Tendencies towards amorality, but not murder.

Most frustrating on topic of House. In this respect, Foreman is at home in this civilization of bureaucracy, middle-men, and unaccountability. How many must die face-down in puddle of own deceit and irresponsibility before society stops compromising on matters of truth and justice?

Rorschach’s journal. April 11, 2009. On hunch, got in touch with Drs. Robert Chase and Allison Cameron. Pair served on House team for three years with Foreman before departing; embarked on unethical sexual liaison in meantime. Can’t imagine why. Have never seen more clear-cut case of closet homosexuality than Chase. Cameron herself more intriguing. Irritating personality, but obsession with everybody’s personal problems adds possible value to testimony about colleagues.

Cameron’s attempts to offer insight reek of confirmation and hindsight biases; Chase makes no attempts at all. Nobody knows anything about Kutner. Possible suicide motive: alone, had no regular contact with associates outside of work setting.

With every interview, murder trail goes colder. But with every interview, murder theory becomes more complex. Obvious motives and suspects not panning out; case for murder no less mysterious than at beginning of investigation. If drugs or professional jealousy are involved, interview with Dr. House more imperative than ever.

Rorschach’s journal. April 12, 2009. Finally tracked House down at apartment. Had high hopes for interview, but ran into stonewall at every turn. Resisted urge to physically challenge him, refrained from searching apartment for illegal drugs and weapons prior to his return from hospital at 11 AM. Have rarely met more potentially dangerous men than House. Cold, calculating, rational, expert manipulator. Affectations and organization of apartment, plus obsessive personality, imply desperation to remain in control. To have all the answers.

Did not remain with House for long; will certainly meet him again. House now number one murder suspect. For all his rationality, House acts on reasons beyond own understanding, beyond reason. Unpredictable. Willfully treats human beings as objects, including patients. Takes amusement in such behavior. Obvious sociopath, irrationality behind the rational mask. Loose cannon. Would take a man of House’s observational skill and meticulous attention to detail in order to successfully murder Kutner and cover up as suicide. Would take House’s tendency towards one-upmanship to engender professional jealously towards other doctors with similar qualifications and traits. Would take House’s practiced façade to avoid suspicion from colleagues.

If House as dangerous as he seems, next meeting with him may be last. If so, this is final journal entry. Do not know to what extent House will go to in sustaining illusion of innocence, but do not expect him to admit murder. Whatever specific nature of Kutner’s death, House may be involved.

This post is the conclusion of my coverage of the MSU Comics Forum 2009, which began in this post.

Saturday, March 28, 2009, 1:56 PM

It appears I’m missing the “comics in the (university) classroom” panel. Unfortunate, but the name sounds as though it would have some overlap with the previous discussion anyway.

Saturday, March 28, 2009, 2:27 PM

I hear clapping coming from within the rinky-dink Spartan room, signaling the end of the discussion that I missed. It was probably scintillating, so pretend I wrote several pages about it.

The next panel begins at 3:00, and will focus on comics creators. While I find the subject of comics framed in a scholarly context to be deliriously interesting, I’ll admit it’s worn a little thin for today, so it’ll be nice to dig into something that’s purely about comics in itself. The discussion will take place among four Michigan comics creators: Gary Scott Beatty (DC’s “Ultimate Guide” series), Ryan Claytor (And Then One Day), Jason Howard (The Astounding Wolf-Man), and David Peterson (Mouse Guard, obviously).

I will sit here with my thumb up my ass until then.

Saturday, March 28, 2009, 3:02 PM

The last panel of the day begins, to “a round of silence,” as Gary Scott Beatty quips.

Saturday, March 28, 2009, 3:08 PM

Petersen, to Beatty’s prompting, discusses achieving the success of Mouse Guard through word-of-mouth and online buzz. He stresses the importance of posting on forums, keeping a current website, and having a healthy amount of luck. Howard (again, to Beatty’s prompting) turns out one issue of Wolf-Man per month. That’s the round of opening subjects.

Ryan Claytor joins the table at this point. Not only is he a Michigan comics artist, but he’s also a teacher here at MSU.

Saturday, March 28, 2009, 3:16 PM

Howard discusses developing artwork from a script. He finds it takes more inspiration to do the quiet, reflective pages than the action-packed “robot fighting a tank” pages. Understandable. The author he works with, Robert Kirkman, sounds like a strong collaborator, though I have no personal experience with The Astounding Wolf-Man.

Petersen, just as much as Claytor in his autobiographical work, mines his life to inform his stories. His characters in Mouse Guard are based, to some extent, on people he knows. It isn’t a process of writing his friends into the story, but lifting certain personality traits that are interesting, have chemistry, and are useful for developing the story.

Apparently, he took almost 10 years to publish Mouse Guard, partially due to his discovery of Redwall. It’s not hard to imagine why, since anybody who knows what Redwall is probably thinks of it when they find out about Mouse Guard.

Saturday, March 28, 2009, 3:27 PM

Beatty is the author of a self-contained series called Jazz: Cool Birth. He makes the point that it’s important to have an artist who’s competent and has an appropriate style, but also has a personality that’s compatible with the material. He has to have a three-dimensional understanding of what the author is trying to say.

Claytor takes the floor to discuss developing art style. He discusses style as the sum of influences, which is a good, if predictable, point that applies universally. He cites the tiny comics in the margins of Mad Magazine as a primary influence. Claytor, incidentally, drew the poster for the Forum this year.

Howard discusses liking certain artists as a kid without knowing why, then figuring it out later as he delved into art himself. He found that he was drawn to very stylistic artists—in other words, artists whose strong sense of identity appeared very directly in their work. The obvious con is that it might not lend itself to marketability (DC and Marvel both always had a “house style” that they preferred their artists to work in), but I doubt that bothers the artists who choose not to work in that fashion.

Saturday, March 28, 2009, 3:49 PM

The next question is on character development and world building. Claytor has the luxury of running his work by the people who appear in it, being an autobiographer. His rule is to be as true to the characters, through action, dialogue, and situational interaction as he possibly can. It’s more about “personality, rather than a cool-looking robot.”

Howard, being an artist, is concerned first and foremost with “What do I want to draw over and over?” He is, of course, being slightly facetious, but it is a very real concern. He has to do the work, and if he loses interest in it, the work will suffer. It also produces an interaction with the author: if he designs something the author finds visually appealing, the author will incorporate it into future scripts.

Petersen has the unique problem of making mice that look convincingly like mice but act convincingly like humans. He has to differentiate them and ensure that their visual differences are significant and reflect their personalities. He also details the interesting process of giving a mouse a beard—a unique challenge, for obvious reasons.

Beatty believes in doing enough thinking about the character and their world that the voice just comes through him, which is fair enough. It’s not so much a conscious process for him as it is an intuitive one. By putting himself at the point of history he’s writing about, he channels the characters and the writing comes out. He doesn’t create worlds, so much as he uses “the world that’s already there.”

Saturday, March 28, 2009, 3:54 PM

A question from the audience: “What’s the hardest part of making a comic book?” Claytor responds that the writing is the hardest part. He finds it easy to sit down at the drawing board, but the process of creating the characters, revising the stories, and so on and so forth, is the trying part.

Howard quips, “For me, it’s waiting for writing.” In all seriousness, he finds it challenging to get through the work, regardless of whether inspiration is flowing or not. Petersen agrees, and adds that figuring out the layouts and the drawings is a process when he doesn’t already have a good idea on tap.

Beatty’s most difficult part is finding the audience. His books “don’t have spandex, explosions, large breasts…” It’s finding an audience of adult readers who like to read, will accept something different, and so on. He’ll find plenty of sympathy from me.

Saturday, March 28, 2009, 4:05 PM

Another audience question: “What do you do to get yourself through [the business process]?” and what happens when art and business collide. Beatty stresses the importance of patience and loving the work, because it isn’t exactly a get-rich-quick scheme. He also details the long process of submissions and rejections, which becomes routine at some point.

Petersen cautions on being smart during that period, so “you don’t lose your shirt.” He finds himself fortunate that he can make money doing this full time, and prefers breaking even doing this than making money doing something he doesn’t love as much. To him, self-promotion is a careful process of providing stuff at multiple price points (ranging from free to rare items at hundreds of dollars) in order to maximize his access to his potential audience.

For Howard, it’s about being able to look at his own work clinically, analyzing it for its professionalism. If he were the big cheese of a company, would he hire himself as an artist, based on this work? He understands that it’s a competitive world, and that he must strive for the best in order to be marketable. It takes a certain level of honesty towards oneself, but also a sense of balance between business acumen and passion.

Claytor seconds everyone else’s answers, and adds that it’s important to keep himself excited about what he’s doing. He discusses setting up tours for himself, to do in-store signings—first regionally, then across the country (plus a couple of Canadian provinces). This was during a summer break after grad school and took place over the course of three months. He also stresses that it’s important to acknowledge his own limitations. He knows his flaws (forgetfulness being an operative example) and compensates for them (keeping extensive documentation for the details of his various engagements). Basically: “Think about what excites you, know your limitations, and work around them.”

Beatty runs a site called Comic Artists Direct, which keeps him in touch with the community of up-and-coming people in comics. He cautions that professional comic book artists have to be able to do everything, making it one of the hardest art jobs in the world.

Saturday, March 28, 2009, 4:09 PM

Next comes the announcement of the winner of the amateur comics submissions contest. I’ve said nothing about it so far, and it would be absolutely irrelevant to anybody who isn’t actually here, so I’ll forgo covering this particular part of the event.

That brings this panel, and my participation in the MSU Comics Forum, to a close. Hopefully I’ll make it again next year, and hopefully I’ll have a personal submission for the contest I just mentioned. That ought to give me more reason to talk about it. At any rate, things have been interesting, and I’m glad this opportunity sort of dropped into my lap at the last minute.