A couple of runs of comics:
Justice League Europe, #1-11 (1989-90) - At the time I loved Keith Giffen's broad comic take on Ambush Bug and the Legion of Substitute Heroes but this series appeared just after I stopped paying attention to comics. Since then, I'd heard good things and picked them up cheap. Giffen tosses in some decent ideas like European resistence to a group composed mainly of Americans and the characters' awareness of being second-tier heroes but he often seems hedged in. The characters are usually marked with one or two primary traits so there's an uneasiness between such rudimentary construction and attempts at more open storytelling. The series isn't helped by the weak art and poor printing common to so many comics from these years. Still, it definitely improves and always manages to stay mildly interesting so maybe someday I'll get to the remaining issues.
Fantastic Four, volume 3, #39-49 (2001-2) - As usual, the FF seems burdened by stories so broadly cosmic that they're kind of goofy but the art certainly looks nice. The first arc finds most of the team trapped in the Negative Zone fending off poachers--a promising idea that's too opaquely handled though the parallel story about Johnny forming another team on Earth works much better. (There's a nice one-page meeting with Spider-Man that hints at the potential of putting comics history in the service of conventional notions of characterization.) The second arc shows the problems inherent in cosmic conflict when a being named after an old Santana album decides to destroy, well, Everything Everywhere and Everywhen. For one thing, there's hardly a way to present any plausible motive for such an action; sure this could work as a confrontation with the essential mystery of the universe or some such (& despite all the SF trappings creatures like Abraxas and Galactus are basically gods so the religious tone is appropriate) but this rarely makes for stories of any interest. Second, it's a bit hard to care much about entire realities being destroyed because that's too abstract and more than a bit silly. Third, narrative structure tends to be quite arbitrary. Why is the location to an ultimate weapon hidden in three different realities? Just because. Even worse for this arc is that the ending resolution comes out of nowhere: Gosh who woulda thought that so and so would have a hidden power to do, er, something that doesn't make a bit of sense but apparently saves Everything Etc. Maybe if I'd read the past 20 years of FF this might have worked but even so in terms of this story it's a cheat to bring in material completely unmentioned earlier and still not have it work out sensibly. By the way, there are three credited writers! Just a few tweaks and these issues could have been much better (the alternate realities are for once kinda fun--in one Reed is a Doc Savage figure--and might have been worth expanding) or at least the letters page on the later issues could have filled in background like the earlier ones did. Would be a better use of the space than letting people whine about what they didn't like.
Friday, May 31, 2002
Thursday, May 30, 2002
I finished a game of Civilization III that had been started about five or six weeks ago but had to put aside. The delay meant that I'd forgotten some of my plans (I didn't remember to change to a democracy until the 1860s). Most of the earier games I'd played using a cultural strategy where I would absorb other cities or be first with the technology. This time I decided to try a military strategy and chose to play as Germans (that culture has a military emphasis). However it turned out that my neighboring Romans were culturally weak so I was absorbing their cities and didn't focus on anything military until fairly late in the game. This was also the first time I'd played on a huge map ("huge" is one of the size choices) which I'd hoped would give me time to establish my civilization before conflicting with others. Unfortunately the size meant that each civ was so large that it pretty much had most of the needed resources and luxuries, limiting the opportunities for trading (or need to go to war to gain control). Next time on that size map I'll increase the number of civilizations so that it'll be a bit more interesting.
A problem with Civ3 that I don't remember with Civ2 is that there are now some serious slow spots in the game, usually in the middle after all the initial exploration and basic research has been done but before the endgame space race. The tech tree seems to have been simplified a bit so that now after the first quarter of the game every culture is pretty much researching the same thing. It would have been much more interesting if even into the early 20th century there was a strong possibility of pursuing different research paths so that say one culture might go after strong military technology but another more advanced commercial institutions (there are potential play balance problems but shouldn't be anything crippling). There are also too many spots where cities have been developed as far as possible leaving you again with no real choices and each city being different only in the effects of its placement (admittedly a potentially strong difference: one city might be a poduction powerhouse and another otherwise identical city a weak one due to the terrain).
I'm surprised that nobody has yet--as far as I know--explored the politics embedded in the Civilization games. There's plenty here: about how different cultures are considered to work (such as the military advantages for Germans), winning conditions, control of the environment, how the game rewards physically large civilizations or those with lots of cities, the effects of religion, etc. These aren't necessarily negatives even if some of them seem dubious.
A problem with Civ3 that I don't remember with Civ2 is that there are now some serious slow spots in the game, usually in the middle after all the initial exploration and basic research has been done but before the endgame space race. The tech tree seems to have been simplified a bit so that now after the first quarter of the game every culture is pretty much researching the same thing. It would have been much more interesting if even into the early 20th century there was a strong possibility of pursuing different research paths so that say one culture might go after strong military technology but another more advanced commercial institutions (there are potential play balance problems but shouldn't be anything crippling). There are also too many spots where cities have been developed as far as possible leaving you again with no real choices and each city being different only in the effects of its placement (admittedly a potentially strong difference: one city might be a poduction powerhouse and another otherwise identical city a weak one due to the terrain).
I'm surprised that nobody has yet--as far as I know--explored the politics embedded in the Civilization games. There's plenty here: about how different cultures are considered to work (such as the military advantages for Germans), winning conditions, control of the environment, how the game rewards physically large civilizations or those with lots of cities, the effects of religion, etc. These aren't necessarily negatives even if some of them seem dubious.
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
Lies (Jang Sun-Woo 1999) - The only other Jang film I've been able to see is the corrosive A Petal though Lies is the only one to get a US release, due to the subject matter probably. Based on his Director's Statement, Jang was apparently trying to head into Bataille territory but this is instead mostly tedious and while it might be revolutionary in Korea or Jang's head, hardly anybody else will care.
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The Time review of the new Insomnia barely mentions the original in passing towards the end of the review. Now maybe that first film is possibly irrelevant to the remake (though would a remake of High Noon fail to get reviews barely noticing the original?) but you can imagine the editorial staff thinking "Norweigan film" was something of a joke. If they didn't and decided to downplay it anyway then they're worse journalists and practically incompetant critics.
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Andrew Hussey The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord (2001) - Well it's hardly news that Debord was an unpleasant control freak which may be why I probably shouldn't have been surprised that he was also a wannabe aristocrat, justifying his leeching off the wealthy to support a high-class lifestyle by claiming it was anti- (or at least non-) capitalist. That's not entirely untrue--patronage does predate capitalism by centuries--but still there's something a bit creepy about it. Hussey does effectively capture a sense of adventure and conflict but also a kind of sadness for somebody who seemed so fundamentally out of time. No doubt some Situationist buff will attack the bio for slighting Debord's writing/thought or otherwise denying his applicability to whatever year is on the calendar but this placing into history has its own value.
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The Time review of the new Insomnia barely mentions the original in passing towards the end of the review. Now maybe that first film is possibly irrelevant to the remake (though would a remake of High Noon fail to get reviews barely noticing the original?) but you can imagine the editorial staff thinking "Norweigan film" was something of a joke. If they didn't and decided to downplay it anyway then they're worse journalists and practically incompetant critics.
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Andrew Hussey The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord (2001) - Well it's hardly news that Debord was an unpleasant control freak which may be why I probably shouldn't have been surprised that he was also a wannabe aristocrat, justifying his leeching off the wealthy to support a high-class lifestyle by claiming it was anti- (or at least non-) capitalist. That's not entirely untrue--patronage does predate capitalism by centuries--but still there's something a bit creepy about it. Hussey does effectively capture a sense of adventure and conflict but also a kind of sadness for somebody who seemed so fundamentally out of time. No doubt some Situationist buff will attack the bio for slighting Debord's writing/thought or otherwise denying his applicability to whatever year is on the calendar but this placing into history has its own value.
Monday, May 27, 2002
Just returned from my parents' where I got to watch TV, an unusual idea. (I don't have cable and can only occasionally pick up a couple of local channels.) Watched an episode of Friends that's the only one from this current season I've seen and one of their worst. This show invariably falls flat on its face when trying to be "serious." Doesn't help that only one of the actors (Kudrow) can handle that.
There was a jaw-dropping episode of Frasier where Frasier's assistant is temporarily replaced by a black woman who is a full-blown trash-talking stereotype. It couldn't be any more blatant if they'd given her an Aunt Jemima kerchief and a bucket of fried chicken; heck that might have been better because you'd know what's going on and not suspect the writers actually believed the stereotype. In some sense this may not be too important: For centuries comedy has thrived on stock figures and people who most complain about stereotypes would instead prefer "role models" which are just different names for the same thing. But on a show that otherwise does have carefully delineated--if necessarily broad--characters this is a stupefying lapse, especially since the show focuses on Frasier's reluctance to criticize her because she's black. At the end she absolves Frasier of his white guilt and takes a job prepared by Mr. Deus Machina.
A History Channel documentary on the disappearance of Amelia Earhart spent significant amount of time on a theory that she'd been misdirected and captured by Japanese intelligence officers at the Emperor's request. But the documentary didn't offer a single piece of evidence for this and the only report by another Japanese officer is presented third-hand. Why not just say Earhart was captured by UFOs if the filmmakers obviously don't care about reality? Especially when they criticze the perfectly reasonable and quite likely idea that she simply crashed into the oceans as lacking in "evidence." The documentary spends most of the opening on the testimony of an island woman who claims Earhart was held prisoner and later executed but again she's so blatantly lying that it's hard to put any faith into filmmakers who don't bother to point out any of her discrepancies.
A Learning Channel show on the Loch Ness monster did mostly focus on the reasons that there's certainly no such animal but still felt it necessary to illustrate stories with false recreations.
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Star Wars: Episode 2: Attack of the Clones (Lucas 2002) - Too bad they couldn't clone Samuel L. and have him play every role.
There was a jaw-dropping episode of Frasier where Frasier's assistant is temporarily replaced by a black woman who is a full-blown trash-talking stereotype. It couldn't be any more blatant if they'd given her an Aunt Jemima kerchief and a bucket of fried chicken; heck that might have been better because you'd know what's going on and not suspect the writers actually believed the stereotype. In some sense this may not be too important: For centuries comedy has thrived on stock figures and people who most complain about stereotypes would instead prefer "role models" which are just different names for the same thing. But on a show that otherwise does have carefully delineated--if necessarily broad--characters this is a stupefying lapse, especially since the show focuses on Frasier's reluctance to criticize her because she's black. At the end she absolves Frasier of his white guilt and takes a job prepared by Mr. Deus Machina.
A History Channel documentary on the disappearance of Amelia Earhart spent significant amount of time on a theory that she'd been misdirected and captured by Japanese intelligence officers at the Emperor's request. But the documentary didn't offer a single piece of evidence for this and the only report by another Japanese officer is presented third-hand. Why not just say Earhart was captured by UFOs if the filmmakers obviously don't care about reality? Especially when they criticze the perfectly reasonable and quite likely idea that she simply crashed into the oceans as lacking in "evidence." The documentary spends most of the opening on the testimony of an island woman who claims Earhart was held prisoner and later executed but again she's so blatantly lying that it's hard to put any faith into filmmakers who don't bother to point out any of her discrepancies.
A Learning Channel show on the Loch Ness monster did mostly focus on the reasons that there's certainly no such animal but still felt it necessary to illustrate stories with false recreations.
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Star Wars: Episode 2: Attack of the Clones (Lucas 2002) - Too bad they couldn't clone Samuel L. and have him play every role.
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
Will Eisner Comics & Sequential Art (1985) - Eisner has done more thinking about comics than almost anybody else but he's done that thinking in the form of comics. So while this is certainly fascinating reading and an intriguing explication of some of the elements of the comics medium, it's also in many ways fairly superficial. The prose sections are blunt and obvious but still feel padded out. Some of it--especially towards the end--are far too brief to be of any help. But the book's illustrations and numerous full-length stories are the real key, especially with Eisner as a guide to some of their highlights. You might still be better off carefully reading and re-reading a volume of The Spirit Archives but this certainly doesn't hurt.
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For years I've been meaning to read Sainte-Beuve and today decided to see what's in my library. The good news was four entire shelves, three of primary works (including multiple volumes of correspondence) and one of secondary. The bad news is that except for three biographies it was all in French. You'd think a library planning to aquire that much would have bothered to also find something in English.
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For years I've been meaning to read Sainte-Beuve and today decided to see what's in my library. The good news was four entire shelves, three of primary works (including multiple volumes of correspondence) and one of secondary. The bad news is that except for three biographies it was all in French. You'd think a library planning to aquire that much would have bothered to also find something in English.
Monday, May 20, 2002
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