Whitechapel - Notes From Warren 19apr10

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T06:40:48-07:00

* Atemporality. Recursive culture. Bruce Sterling thinks that's where we're spending the next ten years. In comics -- and I've been doing it too -- it's where we've spent the last ten years. A state of extended postmodernism, focussed on dealing with the business of the 20th Century. We're still having dreams about that very long day, still processing it. The 00's were always going to be about that. Some say that 9/11 was the true start of the 21st Century -- and that, too, speaks to atemporality, with its medieval overtones, its remake/remodel of the fireship and its vessels taken as prizes and turned against their makers. (And its faint echoes of the Ghost Dance, at that.)

* Ghosts of the Belle Epoche abound: recapitulation of earlier art forms, financial excesses, cheap labour, Heston Blumenthal.

* If comics saw around the corner to atemporality... maybe they can see around the corner to what's next, and bring it on faster. Because, let me tell you, atemporality's going to seem really fucking boring to us. I'm working on a couple more atemporal pieces, and then I'm likely to have said all I've got about it, and the idea of spending the rest of the Teens going around in circles makes my blood turn to scabs.

* My interest, as always, is in looking for the new sound, and making things seen that haven't been seen before.

* Part of comics' gift is in the pace of reaction. They sit between music and books in terms of the speed in which contemporaneous works can be brought to market or otherwise disseminated. As Paul Gravett and Peter Stanley said, more than twenty years ago, about the new photocopier technology and the emergence of an enabled and mobile small press: comics are fast fiction.

* Even in the world of physical print comics and the bricks-and-mortar comics store network, I can finish a script today and have the finished object in your hand in three or four months. Sometimes less, if I'm playing fast and loose with solicits text! In webcomics, of course, the timeframe shrinks to the speed at which finished art can be uploaded.

* So, in theory, this is something we're going to see happen, just by dint of reaction speed and the sheer volume of people doing comics. In practise, of course, not everyone is interested in looking for the new sound. The thing to do is tune your receivers, filter through the noise and listen for the strange signal emanating from the cloud.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T07:50:15-07:00

This got me thinking about, oddly enough, "The Venture Bros." -- not about the show itself, but about something it lampoons.

During the 50's and 60's, there was this air of excitement -- Atomic Power was going to make the world an awesome place. A Jetpack in every home. Supersonic this, Jet Engine that. The Jetsons, with their flying cars and push-button kitchens. Jonny Quest's world of benevolent science -- and even Jack Kirby's myriad creations, always speculating, always dreaming, always eager for a future full of wonder. And that future had chrome siding, techno-architecture, and big jet fins.

Since you're talking about breaking out of the recursive loop of post-modern self-examination, maybe it's time for a new future vision. People are eager for change, and maybe fiction can provide a new compelling look at what the future might look like. Is it a new future of Brilliant Science, replacing atomic jet-turbines with nanotech? Or something more spiritual, like what Alan Moore talked about in Promethea? The latter one is probably a harder sell for the mainstream public, but sometimes people surprise us.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T07:51:47-07:00

Since you're talking about breaking out of the recursive loop of post-modern self-examination, maybe it's time for a new future vision. People are eager for change, and maybe fiction can provide a new compelling look at what the future might look like. Is it a new future of Brilliant Science, replacing atomic jet-turbines with nanotech?

Nanotech's been such an sf staple for so long that it's tired even on US network television.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T08:07:38-07:00

At the moment I'm interested in the idea of SF (and culture) that can exist as an understandable object for someone in our past, but also to someone in the future without remixing or remaking beyond maybe a few cosmetic details. About the present, for sure, but also relevant to to people in hundreds of years time in the same way that Shakespeare plays are still interesting stories if you care to scrape through the blank verse.

Because it people are going to start living for hundreds of years culture, I think, is going to have to move through the cycles of new fads and revivals of old fads, and start to exist in periods longer than ten or twenty years.

I'm not sure if this is atemporal in the sense that Bruce Sterling means it.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T08:09:50-07:00

The future lies in magic.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T09:00:37-07:00

I mentioned Nanotech because the technology exists in infancy, yet is theoretically capable of so much -- rather like Atomic power was back in the 50's. We had the bomb and the raw science, so we knew that it COULD work in some way, it was just a matter of figuring out the little (hah) practical details. Nanotech's in a similar state now, it seems. Of course, for nuclear power, we never did get Jet Packs In Every Home. I'm not as up on the bleeding edge of tech these days, so I'm not sure what else might just on the horizon as far as possible tech revolutions. Between the iProducts and future UI's seen in movies like Avatar, a touch-based interface seems to be accepted as The Way Of The Future, but beyond that, I'm not sure what else to suggest as a possible future vision.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T09:09:50-07:00

Fiction is fast. It eats things before they're even born, sometimes.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T09:38:38-07:00

It's probably a mistake to dismiss the mystical/spiritual side of this entirely. Maybe that's entirely the point? The Atomic Age was about "Science And Reason Uber Alles", after all, so maybe looking for a new technical revolution is the wrong approach.

The trick, I suspect, is blending spiritual/mystical concepts with, for lack of a better phrase, a scientific interface that a layman can get into. Recent works that delve heavily into the mystical -- Promethea, Neon Genesis Evangelion (sort of), The Invisibles -- are sometimes seen as inpenetrable or confusing. But if you "dumb it down" too much, than the beauty and meaning risk getting lost.

Maybe the trick will be to find that sweet spot -- scientific yet mystical, beautiful and transcendent, but still accessible.

I'd like to think that works like FLCL are the right direction for this -- but for every person who praises FLCL as the greatest allegorical description of Puberty ever, I've met others who feel its chaos and "frantic Japaneseness", as one person put it, obscure the work's meaning and even artisitic value. *shrug* Can't please 'em all, I suppose.

Another anime comes to mind -- Denno Coil, which plays heavily with concepts of Augmented Reality. I've only seen the first several episodes, but it was pretty interesting stuff.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T09:50:13-07:00

Went and watched the Sterling video on BoingBoing, interesting stuff. I particularly like the notion of not letting yourself feel 'awe' of the future or past, and I can see how that relates to something like Crecy, Transmet, Anna Mercury or Captain Swing.

Warren's right: Nanotech is a tired meme in many ways - a standard plot device in mainstream TV, and almost de rigeur in comics as a staple not of the future but of the Fantastic Present.

I've got a lot of admiration for Ginja's ideas about kitchen sink SF: narratives that speak to the human consequences of technological change and ecological chaos, rather than focusing on the mechanics of a near-future world. It's in keeping with his wishes to focus more on character, and less on overt world-building. As a technical exercise, I think this is rewarding - it certainly helped me with one of the projects I have been working on recently.

For myself, I'm not sure where I want to go with these ideas, let alone how to transcend them. I've yet to read or imagine a fiction that deals really well with the idea of the earth and its' population being fundamentally unsustainable. Perhaps that's where I'd like to go as a writer (unless I've completely grabbed the wrong end of the stick): to try and imagine, even sympathise with, a character or group of characters who by necessity have no moral framework, whether relativistic or objective. A technological stone-age, if you will - a dog-eat-dog world of fantastic opportunity and very little humanity (which I suppose is not dissimilar to Sterling's notion of Gothic High-Tech vs Favela Chic).

Equally, a post-scarcity narrative that doesn't lead to characters being massively self-interested or creatively stagnant would be interesting to see, although it's once again difficult for me to picture quite how it would work. If the best we can do with post-scarcity is the clean, anodyne Utopian visions of Star Trek TNG, then it's a dead end, clearly. That show is so dated now, it's difficult to watch without laughing - classic Star Trek has more relevance, in terms of design, themes and characters.

I think what I take from Warren's comments is a sense of 'waiting for the miracle.' We've already had narratives which reimagine the past; narratives which speculate about the future. The singularity has been discussed and turned on its head and reimagined a number of times. So the question (for me at least) is not so much 'what happened' or 'what comes next' as it is 'what are we, and what will we be'?

I'd like to read something that addressed themes of transhumanism, but not in spiritual / magickal terms (a la Grant Morrison) or in technological / cultural terms (Charles Stross). I have a feeling that just a few generations from now, humans will be profoundly changed... that's what I'm going to spend my time trying to imagine.

Thanks for getting the brain working Warren, sorry that wasn't very comics focussed. As always, I'll be interested to see what's around the corner in your stories.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T09:50:44-07:00

The thing is that the majority of comics is still (sadly) so insular that you can pretty much inject it with anything from the outside world and it be hailed as groundbreaking.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T09:52:02-07:00

a fiction that deals really well with the idea of the earth and its' population being fundamentally unsustainable

...except The Sheep Look Up

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T10:48:05-07:00

@ texture nailed it on the head for me. The technology is irrelevant. Wait, let me back up a moment before I get slammed. Of course the technology is relevant. It has a great part in shaping us because it limits or expands our abilities and focuses our interaction with the world. But it's irrelevant. It's the human condition that's the point. Who will we be? What will the future do to us? What will we do to the future? The old saw about any sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic pertains here. Atomic power, nano tech or whatever comes next, it doesn't matter. It's magic and how we will deal with it, in story and in the world, is what fascinates me. The stories that have always held that special place for me have always been about how people as individuals and as societies have handled the crazy shit that the future throws at them.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T12:48:13-07:00

The thing to do is tune your receivers, filter through the noise and listen for the strange signal emanating from the cloud.

I adore this. I've written it on a post it on the monitor. Inspiring.

As far as content of fictions in this decade goes i'm not exactly thrilled. Science Fiction seems a dead genre to me. The authors of the past dreamed up a future thanks to the promises of the science of their time, sometimes just a few steps ahead. "I was promised Flying Cars" seemed to be the last decades response to sci-fi. Well, what have the new children been promised? I have a teenage step-daughter and she wasn't promised flying cars. She wasn't promised shit.

How can a genre that reacts to the possibilities of science survive when science has stopped promising anything?

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T12:58:56-07:00

"Flying cars/jet packs" was just a meme that got out of control.

Remember, I'm not addressing sf in the above post.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T13:06:44-07:00

Comics absolutely have been 'atemporal' (chasing it's own tail) for the past ten years... to the point where we have been lapped by all other popular and high culture in terms of being a catalyst for weird, visionary ideas.

Current comics seem overly pragmatic. How can we 'see around the corner' if there is no conscious effort to temper the formalism and nostalgia that dominate the market?

@helloMuller Agreed! But for some reason nobody is bringing anything new to the party.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T13:50:23-07:00

Remember, I'm not addressing sf in the above post.

Apologies for the thread digression.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T13:51:44-07:00

@Daniel_Warner I wouldn't say comics have been completely "lapped" by other forms in popular culture when it comes to producing new ideas. If you look at the film industry, they've grown equally lazy, to the point where they're just pulling any old comic of a box and putting it on the fast track. I mean, there was a Watchmen movie released over a year ago. I know that idea had been kicking around for decades before, but it seemed to me like adapting a work so deeply rooted in the medium it was created for just because it had people in goofy spandex said a lot about the states of both industries.

I think there's still innovation to be found in comics these days. I'll point to Johnathan Hickman, particularly his comics Pax Romana and The Nightly News, as examples of some of the more original talent working in comics today. Those comics didn't really seem to have anything to do with anything else on the market at the time, and the unique way in which they were executed has, from what I've seen, yet to be replicated. Even that new S.H.I.E.L.D. book he's writing is unlike anything else Marvel has out right now, and I'm interested in seeing what he can do with the concepts he's introduced.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T14:35:17-07:00

Nanotech's been such an sf staple for so long that it's tired even on US network television.

It's interesting how nanotech is a standard sf staple in novels, comics and US TV shows, but has not been featured as a central concept in cinema. Sure, nanotech might get mentioned as some type of McGuffin gizmo in films like Ballistic (2002), but nanotech has never been center stage. You'd think some film company would've come up with a big nano-disaster movie concept concerning a gray goo event, or there would be an adaptation of something like Prey or Crawlers. But no. Maybe this means that cinema's pace of reaction is quite a bit slower than other mediums.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T14:44:32-07:00

I'll point to Johnathan Hickman, particularly his comics Pax Romana and The Nightly News, as examples of some of the more original talent working in comics today. Those comics didn't really seem to have anything to do with anything else on the market at the time, and the unique way in which they were executed has, from what I've seen, yet to be replicated.

See my post above. Jonathan was really smart is doing what he did, but personally it left me completely cold (from a visual/design POV).

PS: Don't get me wrong — I like and respect Jonathan's work, its just that TNN really hammered home how insular comics are.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T15:18:56-07:00

What exactly do you mean by TNN being insular? As in requiring too much knowledge of the previous modes of the comics mediums, history, etc.? Because that is one of the series I have been giving non-comic reader friends ove the past few month, as a "you gotta read this" type of deal. And I've personally experienced very positive overall reactions to it.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T15:21:11-07:00

The Nightly News was okay but, at its core, it was a simply a merging of reasonable vector graphics and (sometimes) interesting factoids.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T15:25:18-07:00

Just some random thoughts here

- Aren't all events reiterations of previous ones? If you know the rules of the system, chaotic or otherwise but ultimately a closed, finite one, you can predict the next iteration. A truly original event \ thought \ idea therefore is either a system rule previously not acknowledged, or an introduction of a new element into the system from outside its boundaries.

- An act of god has managed in 24 hours to do what no act of terrorism has ever \ will ever manage to do - close most of Europe's airspace. 9/11 - the biggest act of man-made terrorism - had most immediate effect worldwide on the internet, which was practically brought to its knees. Man-made terrorism best affects man-made things. In the 00s, we became more digital. Surely that makes digital terrorism most likely. And I mean terrorism, man-made approximations to acts of god.

- Is it possible to terrorize the group consciousness \ collective effort? Or to poison it? And what would that mean? If we're talking about the collective groups of efforts organised online a la Clay Shirky? He describes such efforts as the mass amateurisation of an action. e.g Journalism -> blogging. But the key word is 'amateurisation'. I hate the word 'meme' (it's just a sticky idea, like the tune you can't get out of your head) but it could fit in here. Wired ran the story last of how Dan Kaminsky realised how to poison DNS and thus 'steal the internet'. DNS is an automaton sure, but it was supposed to be absolutely solid. Collective effort is far more fragile. Storylines have done small scale ideas like that as precursor to something else. The Stargate:Universe opener did that to an extent, like Last Starfighter did before that. Even Global Frequency has a mindwipe meme issue. Ipcress file, Manchurian Candidate focus on single brainwashes etc. But they are 20th Century applications and targets. Everything's becoming digital. Is the Feraliminal Lycanthropiser as a wav file the first stone axe in this path (OK, probably not, but it makes me laugh). Fifty years down the line, will digital terrorism amount to simultaneously hacking and resetting all the matter transmitters of the world during the rush hour, with no Scotty to save the millions of commuters mid-transfer.

- Is there any need for a nanotech/grey goo movie? We've had umpteen variants of 'Body Snatchers' (sentient and organised nanotech) and stuff like Cabin Fever for the goo \ unorganised nanotech.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T16:21:04-07:00

What exactly do you mean by TNN being insular?

Read what is being said. You'll see your mistake.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T17:40:38-07:00

Ohohohoho, i see now. My mistake, the point makes much more sense in the context of earlier ones. And I can wholeheartedly agree.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T17:42:16-07:00

i love thinking about whats around the corner, but im such a goofy jackass i always end up just thinking about what would make me laugh instead of actual possibilities for what will materialize and harden as an accidental "trope" of the times. i think there may be a lot of the "2012 means apocalypse" gunk floating around in the air. partly as a symptom of people seeing something cataclysmic as more likely than a real change in the fucked up systems that we (well, most of us) are trapped as part of, partly as it is kind of scary-an actual cataclysm, not 2012 itself.

i have a feeling that once enough people breathe the sigh of relief in the next five or so years and realize that we are already partially in 'the future' and that everything is an open slate in one way or another, we may see some new patterns emerge. its one reason i like totally batshit insane fiction- its so many things all at once that everyone SHOULD find some part to attach themselves.

as far as comics, i want more of THE INTIMATES, less ULTIMATE COMICS AVENGERS in the next wave of mad ideas.

that was a little rambly. sorry. this is a hard subject for me to get out in an eloquent manner.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T21:17:52-07:00

The future stops inspiring awe once it becomes the present and the novelty wears off. My grandfather could have told you that, and he didn't own a pair of shoes until he turned eight.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the theme of fiction in the 21st century will be "human interaction in the age of magic mirrors" -- but it'll be about the interactions, not the mirrors. I mean mainstream fiction, of course, not genre fiction. That will likely stay self-absorbed and nostalgic for decades to come. (Look for the "adult" version of Spongebob Squarepants in 2020, coming soon to a wallmount [very] near you.)

I'm assuming William Gibson (or one of his clones) was saying this ten years ago. I wouldn't know. With the eventual exception of Neal Stephenson, I stopped reading science fiction around seventeen, when I got bored with cyberpunk and discovered sex and drugs and William S. Burroughs novels and learned that my local police chief kept a list of known homosexuals on the dashboard computers of his employees' cars and promptly stopped giving a shit about cyborgs in sunglasses. Real life is much, much weirder and more interesting than anything you can imagine, and all the back issues of Popular Science in the world won't change that.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T21:28:31-07:00

That said, there is something to be said for novelty before it wears off. Hell, I'm a latecomer to Twitter, and I can't seem to stop...

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-19T21:33:52-07:00

Highly interesting.

I don't think there ever will be another "new sound." Or rather, I don't think there can be. I think the trappings of modern media and it's role in culture and society won't allow for it. Audiences don't want a new sound, or a new visual, they want a new experience. An album, or comic, or movie isn't going to cut through it all anymore. (That isn't to say that amazing things can't be done in those formats, or that they shouldn't be.) I think the future standout projects will be all of the above and more. The new sound must be the new look must be the new App must be the person next to you. I feel one of the true seeds of future dissemination of one's narrative is NIN and 42 Entertainments Year Zero Experience. As creators we need to start considering how our audience affects our narrative on top of the narrative affecting them. Past that, I see it going from singular entities to communities. Not that many steps removed from what Whitechapel is now. An anthology mmorpg with new content daily including comics, music, video, prose. A comic that creates itself by the characters creating comics.

The world has long lived a barely subconscious fiction of itself. Loosely, I think the "new sound" will be that fiction projected (probably quite literally via modern tech) on our reality. People will (I pray) finally recapture the ability to entertain themselves. I think the Atemporality aspect of this will be the entertained entertaining their entertainers, of course, that's always been, but I think the immediacy of it will increase.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-20T01:23:48-07:00

There will always be a new sound. It may owe a huge debt to what's come before, but that doesn't mean it's not new. It's just not alien, is all.

No idea what it's going to be, though. I've been enjoying the look back in comics simply because it's been working so hard on building the future, but as to what it's going to evolve into? Not sure. I do know that it's going to get harder and harder for the top creators to do any work for Marvel/DC seeing as nobody wants to give away their creations for near enough to free to make no difference. In terms of comics, at least, I suspect that's going to define the next decade pretty strongly.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-20T02:11:31-07:00

What is around the corner of time for comics?
The answer lies in the youth, and their minds, as always. Scott Pilgrim is a good starting point, I think, a hyper-realized version of millennial life. One foot in reality, one foot in the superego of culture as a whole. Old comicheads might have some pretty strong numbers right now, but a new fan is born every minute and they are the ones that will shape comics through their purchases and own work.

I think that the superheroes punching each other in the tights genre needs to go to bed. There's not much more that is new that can go on there - plus anything shocking or game changing is always retconned to normalcy (Captain 'Merica should have stayed dead).

I'd like to see better (read:user friendly) tools for creating comics put into more hands, shake it up, and see what comes out. Ok, you might argue anyone can pick up a pen, or mspaint or photoshop, but my point is in comics image (pictures) really are everything. Like when I scan the new webcomics thread, if art doesn't catch my eye, I'm not going to read it at first glance. It doesn't matter how well written it is, because I won't pick it up to find out.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-20T02:31:44-07:00

I re-watched Sterling's lecture on atemporality and came away with this: that thought, and possibly language, in the age of the network has become spatialised. It's not temporal any more. We don't think or plan in sequences but, rather, proceed in almost simultaneous actions. The availability of information about the past and of speculation about the future on the web has artificially transformed what was seen as a linear, temporal progression to a visible plateau of readily searchable and usable data.
The simultaneity of the network has replaced the linearity of the printed page. The hyperlink has replaced the actual bodily process of looking at a footnote, going to a shelf, finding another book and bringing it back to your shelf. This has made plain what historians like Hayden White have been talking about for so long, and what authors like Pynchon have been proving in their fiction, that the sense of linearity in history and narratives themselves was itself artificial. It's not such new observation but it's becoming more and more observable and verifiable.
Now, what does this mean for the creative artist? I don't see how anything completely new can ever be created, seeing as most "new" creations were pastiches or combinations anyway. If art has been a continuous re-shuffling since the renaissance, what makes anyone think that anything "new" is around the corner? Maybe it's been here and gone anyway, because noone paid it much attention. This idea of newness might be more viable in relation to new media platforms and technologies. It might be even closely related to the ways in which morality and tolerance will be transforming over the next few decades. In the end, new ideas will always create their own criteria for their own appreciation and judgement anyway, so maybe, like Sterling says, just go for it. Celebrate the atemporal and maybe that will lead to the other side.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-20T03:12:49-07:00

Edit: Wrong thread.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-20T03:15:52-07:00

@Alec9k I'll concede that comics and movies are about even in their track record for figuring out new and uneasy ideas. Film, however, does have the festival thing going for it which ostensibly encourages experimentation and the incorporation of larger ideas into the medium.

I was thinking more about novels. Novelists seem to get there first.

I can also agree with you about Hickman -- he is a smart guy and he has guts... so does his work.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-20T04:09:14-07:00

Disclaimer: This post might be missing the point a little...or completely.

Fiction chasing its tail without input from what's going on outside of it. I'm just imagining all those awful Cold War novels of the mid to late 80s that were churned out by the square kilometre of amazon rainforest and wondering what they'd look if they'd taken the Bulldog Drummond view of world politics. Imagine Clancy's Jack Ryan as a racist, jingoistic tough-guy talking in terms of empire.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-20T04:53:06-07:00

Real life is much, much weirder and more interesting than anything you can imagine,

Ain't that the truth.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-20T05:51:14-07:00

Seems like facing the nostalgia is a good place to start. If you take your cues from science, it's almost impossible not to be amazed/confused by what's happening in the world of the really fucking small (quantum computing, nanotech, blah, etcfuckcet). Everything up here on the surface is an effort to make a more efficient UI. Serving to augment our perception. Seeing in different wavelengths, using sound to move things or destroy them. Biggerfasterstrongerbetter.

I feel like there are some premises that we've all agreed on for a long time. The idea that the human race SHOULD keep going. The idea that we're headed toward Apocalypse or Enlightenment. Why not both? One for some, one for others. Seems most likely to me. Right now, some people live in heavenly rapture (and still go off and find what is lacking plugging holes with drugs, surgery, etfuckcet) while others are sold into sexual slavery, fighting in the jungles. The idea that that will change with either greatly diminished or greatly increased resources is (to me) insanity. We've gotten this far as a species not because we make huge leaps, but because we're uniquely primed to weather change. Our average is better than average biologically. There are probably dogs more equipped for reality than some people, so don't think I'm trying to elevate humanity. I'm just saying humans are good at being humans. Again, in facing nostalgia, I think that after cyberpunk we get caught recognizing that everything is just a retouched picture of past successes. This is why we like the magickey stuff. The new stuff isn't the enemy, it isn't a new UI, it's a different world. I don't know that we challenge (often enough) our perception of...

We're not bound anyway. When I read that each black hole could contain a Universe. When you look at the mechanistic view of our own Universeasquantumcomputer, I see a way to take a break from the nuts and bolts cultural limitations of past practices. There are infinite what if's that haven't been asked. Higgs boson doesn't make new gun. It doesn't do anything. It is a tea leaf. Maybe it doesn't make me bigger stronger better, but maybe the problem of the past/future goes away. The technological singularity and how humanity will face it. Maybe that's a little too terminator, but what if it's just a way of making a UI for the universe. What would you do if you could put your hands on the controls. Might not work here in our world, but every black hole has a universe. there are tens of millions of super massive black holes. I don't know that I could stop if I wanted to.

Avoid the temporal problem by stepping outside of time.

I am new here, is there any place to talk about just writing? (not an artist) big fan of this place though. Smart folks.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-20T06:56:37-07:00

As a small tangent, I'll mention that the event of process in creating is still very important. My students this year are great at executing tasks, but for shit at moving past an initial idea. The attack is there, but there's no skill at building, at planning and re-working. I feel this is a huge gap that really needs to be kept full.

Relating this back to the main idea of the thread, I think what's around the corner for comics is people who plan and see a longview as being "revolutionary". Storytellers much more interested in the longview of what a told story will impact down the road, rather than "events". Writers/artists who are skilled at working an idea and going through the process of creative building.

I love DMZ because I really think Wood has a long story to tell, and lots of things he wants to investigate. I think that Hickman's SHIELD comic resonated so well with me because it hinted at a floodgate of stories waiting to be told. World-building, not event building. Hell, look at the hyper complex world Carla Speed McNeil's FINDER has; that's some first class longview world building. Thank God Dark Horse had the sense to pick her up finally and get her stuff back in wide print.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-20T08:26:36-07:00

The future of comics will be the combining off all genres. Teenage Mutant Ninja Zombie Robot Monster Transhuman Steampunk Vampire Bounty Hunters. With nanobot based weapons. Okay hopefully that's not it. Also, please reassure me that comics won't follow the "reality" trend that made me cancel my cable subscription forever.

The best comics and comic trends of the future have yet to be imagined or discovered. That's what makes thinking about it so exciting. And with that, I'm off to the webcomics thread...

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-20T08:31:57-07:00

In the vein of longevity and real life...I hope there's another Pekar in the works somewhere. I like the slice of life stuff, Eisner's autobiographical work, New York Four, DEMO, Little Blue Pills (can't remember the author but fantastic comic), Spiegelman, etc.

What I'm saying is the mundane, the ordinary, can be turned into something more through comics. There are a lot of crazy things going on in the world, a lot of people with stories (everyone has at least one in them!), and I want to read them all. The world and the future are merely the sum experiences of their inhabitants.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-20T09:01:54-07:00

[removed, irrelevant]

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-20T09:07:58-07:00

Relating this back to the main idea of the thread, I think what's around the corner for comics is people who plan and see a longview as being "revolutionary". Storytellers much more interested in the longview of what a told story will impact down the road, rather than "events". Writers/artists who are skilled at working an idea and going through the process of creative building.

I was thinking the same thing when I was reading this thread. The thing I think is going to be 'new' and 'exciting' is going to be better storytelling. The comic industry doesn't seem largely concerned with storytelling when it's more concerned with keeping names and franchises alive. (Understand that I'm talking about the industry, not the individual creators, and I'm saying it from a very limited view, ie: the consumer) We lament the ten titles of Big-Time Super Dude spread out on the shelf, and this seems like a good reason. It's continuity (sometimes) and events, but not a ton of story. Who couldn't live without an era (several years) of a given market flooded super-title? You could pick it up again, and not miss a beat. There are exceptions, but they don't come along often enough.

Are we so hung up on 'new' and 'innovative' that we are forgetting to appreciate 'good?' How long do we linger on good writing and good art, good storytelling and good concept. TNN looked great, but it doesn't drive me back to it. Not like Goodbye, Chunky Rice, BOP, Scott Pilgram, and on and on. They aren't putting something high concept physically in my hands, but they are simply great comics, with good storytelling. I'm not saying innovation and trying new things are bad, but moving the craft forward is going to be done in the stories. At least, that's what I go for. Not cheap plastic rings and meaningless events.

The book of the month for the city of Philadelphia is The Complete Persepolis, not Blackest Night. There's a reason for that.

Notes From Warren 19apr10

2010-04-20T09:36:31-07:00

We haven't seen a lot of idealogical conflicts in comics. We see differing viewpoints and goals, but not much of the philosophies driving them. A lot of SF I've read lately has dealt with conflicts between those who adhere to the sanctity of tradition and the ones who are driven to strike new territory, whether it be technology or way-of-life.
That's an idea: the worship of retro and nostalgia is the plague holding back the advance of culture. Could be a secular "religion" restraining society, or a meme-phage destroying new constructs in a sim.