Jim Starlin is on Facebook. My general feeling on the topic is OMIGOD
OMIGOD OMIGOD. Should I send him a message, post on his wall? What would I say?
“I love your work, I’m your biggest fan?” Yeah, he’s never heard that before. And it just
doesn’t express the extent of the sentiment. After all, this is Jim Starlin, one of the last of
the Giants. The Giants of comic books. But mostly the Giants of my childhood heroes.
Fred Hembeck proposed in a Comic Book Artists commentary that Jim Starlin is
our generation’s Kirby. He was referring to the more cosmic of Jack Kirby’s 1960s work,
like the galaxy spanning adventures of the Fantastic Four and Thor, which he took to
even higher levels of cosmic audacity in the 1970s with The New Gods and the creation
of Darkseid (probably DC’s most profitable villain after the Joker). Starlin’s first work
appeared at Marvel soon after Kirby’s New Gods was cancelled, and everybody has
commented on the resemblance between Kirby’s Darkseid and Starlin’s first Marvel
creation Thanos. So, Yes, Starlin seemed to pick up where Kirby left off.
But I don’t see Starlin as our generation’s Kirby mostly because at the same time
that Starlin was creating his most beloved work, Captain Marvel and Warlock, Kirby was
doing Omac and The Eternals among others, including his version of 2001: A Space
Odyssey, which probably the most far-out comic in the “cosmic” category ever published.
Our generation’s Kirby was Jack Kirby. Jim Starlin was our Jim Starlin.
Starlin’s “cosmic” was a different flavor than Kirby’s. Kirby’s was bombastic and
external, it was about the technology and adventure. Starlin’s was more internal and
spiritual. His characters went to the outer reaches of the universe, but also visited their
own minds and souls to battle their inner demons. And Starlin miraculously kept it
interesting to ten-year-old readers.
Starlin’s internal conflicts required him to create his own visual language to
communicate such abstract concepts as insanity and death. He created design oriented
pages that eschewed typical narrative.
Starlin is a solid draftsman to this day. His characters have mass and weight, exist
in space and cast shadows. Modern day “photo realistic” comic book artists can learn a
lot from studying his work. His figures are pure fantasy, no real human can move the way
his superheroes do, but his solid rendering makes them “real” to the reader. Not
everything needs to look like a photograph, real talent can make fantasies believable.
Jim Starlin was a giant of my childhood. To some people of my age, Star Wars
was a generation defining event. To those of us who read Starlin’s planet hopping space
opera Warlock, Star Wars seemed old hat. The splash page of the Warlock story “Death
Ship” makes one wonder how much the makers of Star Wars studied Starlin’s work,
seeing how much it resembles Star Wars’ famous opening scene and logo. I think they
cribbed some of Starlin’s aliens too.
Most of the comic books I drew for myself in the 70s followed a Jim Starlin
model, usually involving a cosmic war and being resolved with a psychic battle rather
than a typical superhero slugfest. By the 1980s cosmic freak-outs and psychedelic
storylines went out of fashion and were replaced by “grim and gritty” Rambo types,
macho kill-crazy anti-heroes. There seemed no more room for spiritual quests in the
superhero genre, and I gave them up by the time I graduated high school.
But seeing Jim Starlin on Facebook brings back the good old days, when there
was no limit to what one creator could do with $20 dollars worth of art supplies and a lot
of imagination.
Jim Starlin September 7, 2009
Land of the Lost July 20, 2009
I got to see the Land of the Lost movie. Don’t worry, it only cost my time. The reviews I’ve seen for this movie are all bad so I went into it with lowered
expectations. It was still worse than I was expecting.
The bad reviews I’ve read all commented on Will Farrel’s performance. When they mention the source material, the 1970s Saturday morning kid’s program, it’s in terms of “half-remembered kid-vid” or to mock its “cheesy” low-budget production values.
There are some of us to whom Land of the Lost was a well remembered and much loved part of our youth. The low-budget video green screen effects were not state of the art it’s true, and the acting was summer stock. But the writing and the concepts were as sophisticated as any other science fiction series on TV at the time, certainly the equal of Star Trek, Twilight Zone and Outer Limits. I was nine when it debuted. I was young enough (still am!) to be fascinated with the dinosaurs and sleestaks and old enough to know that the pylons and crystals and other internal mythologies made Land of the Lost head and shoulders above everything else the adult world was trying to “entertain” me with. It didn’t talk down to its audience. The cheesiness of it’s production was stagecraft, and good storytelling rises above its medium, and is told in the imagination of the viewer. The 1970s Land of the Lost was a quality product in a modest package.
I can only image what the person who green-lighted spending millions to make this new movie version was thinking. He obviously didn’t read the script. Maybe there wasn’t a script, just “Will Farrell in Land of the Lost” scribbled on a report of Farrell’s movies’ profits. No one involved respected the source material; that much is certain.
There was no parody of the original. It’s merely a modern frat-boy comedy in the thinnest skin of the original series. For it’s plot, they appropriated the most visible elements from the series: the sleestaks, the dinosaurs, the pylons. But there was no understanding of the borrowed items. The movie’s plot was stock, a standard Hollywood fill-in-the-blanks formula that had none of the imagination and intelligence of the “kid-vid” series. It insults the viewer’s intelligence in ways the original never did.
Before seeing it, I though the idea of making the Rick Marshall character a typical Farrell asshole was not a completely bad idea. The original character was too perfect and had little charisma. But the moviemakers made the entire cast, including the lovable Cha-Ka, into disgusting unlikable frat boys. They made the intriguingly amoral character Enik into a typical Hollywood villain. Of course, they made Holly into an adult “romantic interest” instead of the eleven year old daughter to avoid a family film label, and thank God they did. Children shouldn’t watch this.
Basically, the brilliant Hollywood producers took a children’s property and had to dumb it down to moronic levels to sell it to “adults”. That’s insulting all around. This movie has no reason to exist. And worst, it will probably prevent a serious well-budgeted treatment of the material from ever being made.
Maybe it’s for the best. It’s becoming apparent that screenwriter’s are becoming stupider every year.
Photorealism in Comics June 2, 2009
Another comicbook related entry. Let’s see if I can present my thoughts in a civilized way and not rant like last time.
Another trend in comics that MUST BE STOPPED is Photorealistic art in superhero comics. I do not like it. At first it was just background that were ridiculously over rendered, but seems to have tainted the figures now. It seemed to begin with Joe Quesada’s rise to power a Editor in Chief of Marvel, and it seems to me to be his personal taste. I can’t prove that of course, it’s a theory. Another theory, related to the slick production values discussed last time, is self-loathing among editors and creators and fans. They love comic books, but they want to prove they are mature adults, so they’ve conspired to “adultify” comics, to make and buy mature comics. Fine, I agree that adults can enjoy comics with mature content. But I disagree that “superheroes” and “comics” are synonyms. I believe that superheroes are a child’s genre like fairy tales. I don’t see a problem with an adult enjoying a superhero story on the level of Harry Potter. (I read Harry Potter after turning 40). The problem is when “Mature” is code for “Sleaze“. The problem is trying to fit the child’s genre of superheroes into a mature adult mold. Watchmen was interesting as a stand alone experiment. But making all superheroes into the Watchmen afterwards is like making all funny animal cartoons X-Rated after Fritz the Cat. Disaster.
After that tangent, I have to say, the point was that Photorealism is an attempt by self-loathing artists and/or the editor’s who choose the artists to make superheroes seem like a ligitimate grown-up’s interest. FAIL!
I can’t name the offending artists, because when I pick up a comic book and it looks like every panel is a traced photograph, I just say “yuck” and put it back down. It’s stiff stuff, no sense of movement, no personality, NO FUN. And that’s what’s really missing: fun. Superheroes should be a fun genre, not dark and depressing.
Of course, exceptions prove the rule. I liked Alex Maleev on Daredevil, he obviously used models. But he made it work as comics. Dave McKean had a reference photo for every panel of “Cages” and he made it work. And I’m not refering to “realistic” illustrators like Neal Adams and his army of clones, though I’m not a fan of Adams, and I believe he started us down this road to overdrawn, overwritten “realistic” funless airless superheroes.
In comics, anyway. Still got Ben 10 and Teen Titans on TV. Teen Titans GO!
$4.00 Comics May 29, 2009
Comic books cost $3.99 now. I’m done. That’s too much. I can’t do it anymore.
You publishers! You have made a mistake. I long for a return to a cruder product. Print those things on cheap pulp! They are not precious collectable works of art. They are comic books! They are enjoyed in stacks, you can’t buy just one a month! You are going to have to increase the quality to make them worth four bucks! These things don’t take 10 minutes to read any more.
Seriously. Publishers need to rethink the biz. Crude production never put me off a comic. The slick package appeals to the ever shrinking (30 year old) fan-base, but to survive they’ll need to hook the new readers. Reverting to pulp, utilizing computer programs’ ability to optimize two-tone and black and white printing. The the thing a publisher should be asking, what would it take to publish a comic for a buck again? Answer: Cruder production, higher quality content and a larger audience. Maybe it will never achieve the dollar goal, but having it as the goal would only help.
Worried no one will buy a B&W comic? Manga is B&W. Manga is outselling comics. Do the math. Print comics that appeal to intellegent kids! Don’t continue to nickle and dime the middle-aged continuity-obcessed Legion of Asperger’s fanboygeeks. Their parents will eventually die and they will need their money for rent. Then who will buy your inbred, obcessive fanfic?
Cruder production will piss off the hardcore fan boys. They will bitch and moan. But they won’t stop buying comic books. They can’t. If they could stop buying comic books, Infinite Crisis would have already put DC out of business. If shitty content won’t make them stop, I doubt cruder production will.
As it stands now, it’s a rich kids hobby. Except for the lucky ones who know where to get cheap back issues.
Update: Regarding the “Legion of Asperger’s” comment. I had in mind people who say “I think I have Asperger’s” (I’m guilty myself, it’s a fad) and not people actually diagnosed with said syndrome when I typed that. I doubt any of the 3 people who read it were offended…
Brain Damages May 24, 2009
I used to have a point of view. Now I just have a worn down nub of view.
*****
The worst thing about watching 1980s movies & TV is the cringe-worthy cars. Prime example: Robo-Cop driving around in a Ford Tempo.
****
Dick Cheney, not a peep out of him in eight years a vice president, now he won’t shut up. Everytime I turn in the TV or log onto the web, there’s his face and he’s running his mouth. He says there’s no middle ground on the war on terrorism.
“No middle ground.” Isn’t the belief that there is no third option a diagnostic criteria for insanity? The belief that there is no third option makes people mean and stupid.
I don’t know if Obama is a good president or not. But he’s not insane and that’s a major improvement from previous administrations. You know it.
Final Reflections May 8, 2009
1.
Correct & Incorrect Methodology (Dos and Don’ts) of planing and designing a website.
Do make titles and headlines accurately describe the material on a page. Organize content in a logical order. Be brief.
Make the intended use of buttons obvious. Don’t use long button titles.
Do keep design simple. Do not use ultra-complicated features or too many pull down menus on the home page. Use a simple Search feature. Keep navigation obvious. Do let the user know where he is in the site in regard to other pages. Krug, Don’t Make me Think.
Design according to usability guidelines (Ease of Learning, Efficiency of Use, Memorability, Error Frequency, User Satisfaction etc). From www.usibility.gov .
2.
Techniques an Components that are effective and ineffective in the success of a website.
Frustration with a site will drive the user away, so always design w/ the user’s satisfaction in mind. A user won’t stick w/ an unattractive or annoying site. Krug. Make use of ambient signifiers and action verbs in navigation to guide the user and make them feel they are accomplishing a task. Hoekman.
3.
Google Analytics ( http://www.google.com/analytics/features.html )
has many features for tracking activity and gathering information. I can’t pretend to understand Most of them. The Internet Site Search makes the most sense. It can tell the sites owner how people are finding their site, which search words they use the most, what they look for when they get there where they end up. This info could help the site direct traffic to where it would do the most good. Geo marketing shows you where in the world you traffic is coming from. This can allow the site to better cater to it’s target audience. For instance, you get a lot of hits from China, you can research that the Chinese like Red and Gold (Prosperity) but White and Navy Blue remind them of Funerals, so you get rid of the Navy Blue font on the pages they hit most.
4.
In my opinion, yes there is a background color I don’t like. I don’t like that white is the default background color on 99% of websites. (Statistic made up). White is all colors of the spectrum combined, this means that the cathode ray tube is zapping your retinas at full intensity. LCD screens may not be so bad, and it might be a matter of how long you have to stare at the screen. When I worked a Perry’s, that was 8 hours a day. The Program I used most was Smart Draw. Eventually I wised up and learned to change the background color while I work and switch it back to white for printing. I experimented with many colors. I found an orange/tan color to be easiest on the eyes. I’ve read that green is the color that the human eye never gets tired of looking at, but that didn’t work on a 19″ cathode ray monitor. Dumb monitors I used way back when at CrossCreek were black with green letters. Genius! Black is the absence of rays on your retinas. Let bring it back!
What I do like about a site is when I actually find the information that I’m looking for. That is such a rare thing.
Goodbye Web210 May 1, 2009
Let’s see. Five months ago I couldn’t blog. I learned that. I made a google site. I didn’t know how to do that five months ago. I finished my Dreamweaver site and FTPed it online. Eventually it actually worked. I don’t know if I’d be able to it without adult supervision…
I know what html and CSS are. Sorta. The application of which is still a mystery.
I’m still along way from being able to do anything useful. My Dreamweaver site is a steaming pile and I know it. I spent all my time trying to make it functional and I didn’t really care what it looked like, ie how it was designed. There are other web classes next year. Web Multimedia and Web Development tools. Web Development! I hope it lives up to it’s name.
Trunk Test March 27, 2009
This is part three of the “Don’t Make Me Think” via “Elements of Effective Webpage Design” Trilogy.
Krug described the Trunk Test.
The name “Trunk Test” came from the comparison of being blindfolded and locked into the trunk of a car, dropped off, and stuck to find you way home. The same idea is applied to a web site. The idea is to find a web site and go to a page deep into the navigation of the site, not the home page. Once you found a page quickly try and answer these questions.
What site is this? (Site ID)
What page am I on? (Page Name)
What are the major sections of this site? (Sections)
What are my options at this level? (Local Navigation)
Where am I in the scheme of things? (“You are here” indicators)
How can I search?
The Test Trunk test demonstrates:
Site ID
Every page of a site should have a graphic or text identifier that tells what site the page belongs. Usually a small graphic that also acts as a link to the homepage. The graphics should contain some element of site identity.
Page Name
Every page of a site should have a header that describes the content of the page.
Sections and Subsections
To assist users with navigation, place links to other sections and subsections of the site. This helps users if they get lost.
Local Navigation
There are usually subsections Within sections of a site or a list of other pages. There should be navigation to those pages on main section pages to allow users to find those pages.
“You Are Here” Indicators
There are many types of you are here indicators. Some designers use reverse text when menu bars are present, some use tabs. Others use a combination of features and also use Section and Subsection navigation w/ arrows. The arrows point to the section being viewed.
Search
Every page should have a search feature so users can find what they are looking for.
The Facts of Life March 22, 2009
This is a continuation from the previous post. More about “Elements of Effective Webpage Design”.
Now we are at Krug’s “Facts of Life”-
- Users Don’t Really Read Pages
Users are in a hurry with no time for analysis. Faced with a lot of words, users scan pages to find what they need. This is nothing new, readers have been using the same strategy with magazines, books, and newspapers. - Users Don’t Make Optimal Choices
Users are in a hurry, there’s usually no loss for guessing wrong, so users simply click around. If they end up on an undesired page, they hit the back button. “Many users find this strategy of trial and error to be exciting”. - Users Muddle Through
Users do not read instructions. They click on buttons until they find what they want or get frustrated enough to leave. Once again, this indicates the necessity to keep things simple and obvious so as not to lose users.
Innovation: the 8th word you can’t say on TV March 21, 2009
I found a web site called “Elements of Effective Webpage Design” that is pretty much a summary of Steven Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think”. Yeah, this blog is swiping a web site that was cribbed from a textbook. One thing I’ve learned about Web Design & Usability is that originality isn’t necessarily a virtue.
For instance the first section is called (drum roll) “Don’t make me think”. (If something works, keep using it!) Items under this section:
General Layout
Make titles and headlines accurately describe the material on a page. Organize content in a logical order. Be brief.
Buttons
Make their intended use obvious. Don’t use long button titles.
Search Features
User are confused by too many pull-down menus or features that are ultra-complex. A simple input box and a “Search” button is best. A more complicated search feature on the search results page may be suitable for users who want more detailed results.
When users feel this frustrated on a site, they will exit and find another site that is less frustrating. If the goal is to instruct users, they will not be able to digest the information and make any progress.
