Just reminding all that the preoders for Comedity volume 1 are still up. You can hit that nifty button over in the sidebar. While you’re there, you can check out the printed versions of Spwug, and a fabulous sketchbook by our very own Jamie Noguchi, too! Check it out!
Misunderstandings. Miscommunications. Missed appointments.
They lead to more strife than any other thing I can personally think of. A misunderstanding can cause friction between allies, hearts to break, and even occasional “border disputes”.
But in this case, we’re talking about the misunderstandings that cause the funny situations in fiction. The oft-used vehicle for creating (usually) non-violent conflict between characters.
Misconstrued messages. Hearing only part of a conversation. Confusing someone’s gender. These are all time-honored ways of getting things wrong. And all have been used to great effect in anime, comics, sitcoms and many other forms of entertainment.
A personal favorite of mine is “hearing most, but not all, of what someone has to say, then filling in the blank with something completely wrong”. This is often used for romantic mix-ups, but it can also be used to induce unnecessary fear in the person doing the misunderstanding.
Another often used convention is the “broken telephone” – one person tells another to convey a message, and it ends up being fragmented so much that by the time it gets to the person it’s intended for, it’s completely wrong – yet they believe it’s truth.
What are some of your favorite comic misunderstandings?
(I apologize for the kind of boring topic, but it’s been on my mind, and I’ve been busy as all get out at work.)
Well, after much conversation with the intelligent and insightful people that I work with, and many minutes of deep thought on the subject (setting aside the whole ‘suck it up and actually parent your kids, thing) here are my thoughts on how to combat the sheer volume of talk about how Video Games Are Destroying The Very Fabric Of Society:
Calm, rational, well expressed rebuttals that don’t mock those expressing concern. Also, live a good example.
Well, ok, mock them, but be smart about it. Be Jon Stewart on The Daily Show pointing out that parents have the power to forbid a game they feel is too violent. (ok, so I did mention the ‘parent your kid’ thing. So sue me.) Satire is an extremely effective way to point out the ridiculousness of a point of view, but that doesn’t give you permission go out and start harassing protesters outside a Game Stop. Satire is extremely difficult to do well, and Jon Stewart has a team of lawyers waiting in the wings, just in case.
So. Back to the calm, rational, well expressed rebuttals. There is no lack of forums in which to put forth a good point, the trick is how you express yourself. Remember back in high school when they taught how to write argument papers? No? Go back and look at your notes. Do not resort to name calling. It will not convince anyone of anything but the weakness of your argument.
Now that you have a good way to express your concern about the spurious arguments against your favorite pastime? Well, newspapers are often a good place to start. Letters to the editor regarding an article decrying violent video games will very likely be read by those you are trying to convince. Heck, you might even be able to write a whole article, if you can convince your newspaper to take it! Blogs are also a good place to express yourself- whether your own or in the comments of someone else’s. Chat rooms are good if you can think (and type) quick with your arguments. One of the best ways I’ve found to defend your point of view is actually the second thing I mentioned up there.
Live an example. What I mean by that is don’t be the stereotype that people point to when they decry the effects of video games and comics and such on Today’s Youth. We grew up with these things and we still enjoy them, so we ARE the results they are trying to vilify. We ARE the proof that these things don’t inevitably result in raging sociopaths out to bring our favorite game to life. We can distinguish real from imaginary just fine, thanks. We don’t try to fly or think that we can turn into elves or dragons or that we can find submachine guns in handy crates lying scattered about, and it is up to us to prove it.
Next week, if I remember it, I might talk about the ratings system on video games. Get into specifics and out of the blanket statements. Or maybe I’ll talk about fluffy kitties!!
Takashi Murakami is a Japanese pop artist who seeks to “flatten tradition, modernity, and other media including oneness” with his Superflat art movement. Even though I consider myself to be somewhat of an artist, I’m still trying to figure out just what the hell that means. So instead of me fumbling through a poor definition, let me instead show you what Superflat looks like. First up, an interview with the man responsible for Superflat, Takashi Murakami.
Next, we have an advertisement for Luis Vuitton.
Here are two of Murakami’s characters, KaiKai and KiKi. Beware the cutie attack!
This is a scene from Mindgame, my first encounter with Superflat. Our main character has just died (about ten minutes into the damn thing) and meets God.
Finally, here’s a bit from Tekkonkinkreet which just came out on DVD. I highly recommend you get out and rent this sucker right away!
I’m not sure any of that helps in terms of definition, but at least now you know what it looks like. For the next few posts, I think I will seek out more information and examples of the Superflat movement.
If you’ve watched enough anime, you may get the feeling that every young man in Japan is required to grow up next to a girl of equal age and disproportionately high attractiveness. It’s like the Sprouting version of a chicken in every bucket. This is the wildly popular osananajimi (”childhood friend”) archetype at work, and this is my subject for today.
It’s not hard to figure out why the osananajimi character is so valued by Sprouting circles. She works on many of the same principles as the classic “girl next door” - someone the main character feels instantly comfortable around, someone who the main character can’t possibly imagine living without - and also the person he’s least likely to consider when Old Man Biology decides that it’s time for things to get all awkward in a boy’s life.
It’s easy to root for such a friendly and familiar character, and those of us who didn’t grow up next door to an attractive member of the opposite gender can easily buy into the uncomplicated fantasy of your best friend gradually becoming your girlfriend. As mentioned before, no story with more than one possible love interest can go without an osananajimi. From Shiori in Tokimeki Memorial (1994) to Yurika in Martian Successor Nadesico (1997) to Saki in Genshiken (2002) and other countless other characters over the years, osananajimi are a staple of the genre - some would even say they’re a necessity.
I don’t have a problem with that, myself - my problem is when “we grew up together” and “we played together when we were kids” become a crutch for lazy writers, and that’s cropping up more and more often these days (please note that these crutches also exist for the little sister/big sister archetypes, but a childhood friend involves less justification, because of that whole incest taboo thing).
Making an osananajimi involves very little effort in terms of writing character histories and motivations, so it’s a great fallback for the unmotivated author. Want to justify a stunning goddess falling in love with some random schmuck? It’s because he was nice to her a few times when they were kids and she never forgot. How does Shuffle! account for nubile demigods converging on the same random schmuck? Why, the girls played with the random schmuck once and never forgot him, of course. A wealthy heiress devotes her life to a man she hasn’t seen in years - and is, in fact, expressly forbidden to marry - because he was nice to her when she was young and (you know what’s coming, right?) she never forgot him.
The list of osananajimi connections that test the limits of suspension of disbelief goes on and on. It’s getting dangerously close to the “God, not again” status that amnesiac protagonists have earned in American cinema, in my opinion.
But hey, I’m just one guy, and the osananajimi juggernaut will continue with or without me, so all I can do is pick out stories where the characters’ childhoods actually make sense. If you’re like me and are a sucker for a well-written osananajimi, Myself;Yourself has a cast made up mostly of people who grew up together and act accordingly, or you can pick up Genshiken in its many excellent forms and see how it pokes fun at the genre archetypes.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a long-overdue appointment with my copy of Tokimeki Memorial 2, where pretty much everyone is an osananajimi who meets you maybe once or twice when they’re young and (c’mon, you know I had to say it at least once more) never forgets.
I left my house to go to ONI-CON last Thursday at 2pm. It would take me about an hour to get to the airport via public transportation, and after that it’d be an hour before my flight left at 4pm. I arrived at the airport, checked my luggage and waited at the gate with plenty of time to spare. I was going to be in Houston by 9pm Central Time.
That’s where everything went wrong.
Pulling out of the gate, the pilot announces that the airplane’s air-conditioning has broken and we need to pull back in to the gate so the technicians could manually fix it. This delays us substantially, since we also have to wait our turn again on the runway. We land in Detroit at around 7:30pm, which is an hour late, and fifteen minutes after my connecting flight to Houston has already left.
I go to the desk to get a ticket for the next available flight out to Houston. I’m told it’s at 9:30am the next morning. Fourteen hours from that moment. The lady at the desk gives me a phone number to call for a “distress rate” at a hotel and advises me to make sure that whatever hotel I choose has a shuttle so I don’t have to pay extra for a cab ride. With a hotel room not in my budget at all, I decide to stay in the airport all night.
After a long night of walking the airport halls, drinking at the overpriced airport bars and trying to sleep in the uncomfortable airport chairs, I get a phone call at 7:15am that next morning. I’d already been there for twelve hours. Only two more to go and then I’d be on my way to the convention… except that the phone call is an automated voice telling me that my 9:30am flight had been canceled due to “airplane maintenance” and the next flight out wasn’t until 12:15pm. I nearly put my fist through a window when I realized I would be waiting around for another five hours.
I decided I was going to fetch my checked bag and take my business somewhere else. I searched for anyone to speak to, which took me another twenty minutes. When I found the proper employees, they directed me to the customer service gate where someone would be there to help me. What I found were two empty desks, some ticket scanners and cell phones that one would use to call the customer service help-line. I told the person on the other line, very calmly and patiently for a man who’d been up all night in an airport, that I wanted to get my luggage and book a flight on another airline. She said she would connect me to the “customer service baggage claim help-line.” I got a busy signal and the phone hung itself up.
At this point I’m starting to get delirious from the combination of exhaustion and anger.
I tried to book a flight on another airline and have my bag sent to me via the later flight, but thanks to my fatigue I ran the wrong way to the connecting terminal and ended up going past security and out the doors. The woman at the new airline gate told me “too bad, you won’t make it” and sent me on my way back through security.
At last I found someone at the customer service gate that was not a ticket scanner nor a cell phone. I told her of my ordeal and she apologized on behalf of the airline. For my patience and good nature I received two “inconvenience vouchers.” One had a coupon worth ten dollars at an airport food vendor. The other had a coupon to sign me up for that airline’s frequent-flyer program. Ha.
I did, however, get to ride first class on that 12:15pm flight. I was exhausted and stressed. I was going to miss half a day of the convention and I was sick to death of traveling. The conversation that ensued with the stewardess was a nice ending to this travel nightmare.
“Hello, sir. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Oh god, yes. How much for a glass of scotch?”
“Alcohol is free in first class, sir.”
“…..”
“Sir? Why are you smiling like that?”
“No reason. Just bring me a scotch and keep ‘em coming.”
As many people know, I am a fan of the “meganekko” (眼鏡っ子), or “girl in glasses”. If you asked me why, the answer would be that I’ve always felt glasses equal intelligence, and I’ve always found intelligence to be attractive in a woman.
But what IS a meganekko? I will try to illustrate what I feel a meganekko is here. (please note that when I say “girl”, it also refers to boys – but writing “people in glasses” or “boys/girls in glasses” would get annoying really fast. And the guys are sometimes called “meganekkun”.)
“There is a deep and large gap between a “girl who wears glasses” and a “girl in glasses”! – Kuriko Kazetsubaki, Maburaho, Episode Five
I whole-heartedly believe that statement.
A “girl who wears glasses” is one that one that only wears their glasses when they have to. They usually either go for contacts, or suffer through their bad eyesight because they’re ashamed or something of wearing glasses.
A “girl in glasses” is one that wears their glasses most, if not all, of the time. They often times wear them due to their own actions – too much reading or studying, for example. These girls tend to be smart, or at the very least studious. There ARE non-intelligent meganekko, but they’re rare in media.
There are many examples of meganekko, in anime and in other forms of media. Yomiko Readman from the Read or Die series, is a prime example. For more generic examples, you’ve got the “cute scientist”, the “sexy librarian”, and the “hot teacher”.
Unfortunately, many people see meganekko and think, “Meh, a nerd.” And they pass them by for more “exciting” characters. I think the negative stereotype towards meganekko is sad – who says that smart girls can’t be sexy, or fun, or outgoing, or anything else? They can and often times are, especially with writers/artists designing them to be that way.
So get out there and support the meganekko, real and fictional! Show the world that they’re just as wonderful as everyone else!
Meganekko uber alles!
In January 1920, America solved the problems that had been plaguing the country. Prohibition went into effect and all alcohol was made illegal, thus removing the clear cause of moral degeneracy and immoral behavior, and proving that an act of Congress can indeed be a beacon of light for the uneducated masses clearly in need of guidance.
Prohibition was encouraged by men such as Representative Richmond Hobson, who in 1914 encouraged Congress to pass a law“…to destroy the agency that debauches the youth of the land and thereby perpetuates its hold upon the Nation.” Except, of course, that it all went terribly wrong, and the 1920’s in America are remembered as the Roaring Twenties- the decade of flappers, hot jazz, bathtub gin, and the most widespread and flagrant disregard for the law ever seen in the US. The restriction on alcohol made it seem incredibly sexy. It also had the opposite effect than the one that the Women’s Christian Temperance Union had had in mind. Widespread flouting of the law, the flappers’ open sexuality, the deaths from bad booze, and the rise of mobsters getting rich off smuggling the hooch resulted. Oops.
It became clear pretty quickly that prohibition wasn’t the panacea that had been hoped for. What was next to blame? Immediately at hand was Jazz! Anne Shaw Faulkner wrote a piece in 1921, “Jazz originally was the accompaniment of the voodoo dancer, stimulating the half-crazed barbarian to the vilest deeds.” She dug up supposedly scientific evidence to prove her point that jazz was clearly going to destroy brain function, thus leaving it’s listeners unable to tell wright from wrong, good from evil. Women were wearing short skirts, and rouging their knees, and cutting their hair, and dancing to this so called music! The people must be informed of the danger they’re in! Parents must be warned! Something Must Be Done!
Is any of this starting to sound familiar? Well, let’s bring it closer to home, then. In 1954 a sub committee of the U.S. Senate looked into the effects of comic books on youth. With assistance (and testimony) from the now infamous to fans everywhere Dr. Frederic Wertham, the sub committee listened to testimony from publishers of comics, lawyers, social workers and others, and issued questionnaires regarding delinquency and violent crime, and how it related to crime comic books.
Ultimately, the Senate subcommittee decided to take no action as there was no evidence of such an evil influence on the youth of America. Wertham, of course, is still remembered for his crusade against comics. He believed, “the most subtle and pervading effect of crime comics on children can be summarized in a single phrase: moral disarmament.” Insisting in his book, The Seduction of the Innocent that comics were responsible for not only glorifying villains and criminals, but promoting promoting homosexuality (Batman and Robin being “a wish dream of two homosexuals living together” criticizing Wonder Woman as being the “lesbian counterpart of Batman”) and of teaching kids dangerous lessons (that they can fly because Superman was.)
The reason that Wertham’s views were so well publicized was that they appealed to the public as an explanation for the violence they saw in the world around them. Here was a highly respected psychiatrist, an esteemed researcher of children and childhood traumas, and an expert witness whose writings had been used as evidence before the Supreme Court. Naturally he only had the best interests of the populace in mind. And he was very convincing, playing on people’s fears.
And giving them a reason why it was not their fault. Every dark and frightening and upsetting thing that could happen to them, their kids, be done BY their kids was clearly someone else’s fault. The devil made them do it. I’m sorry, I meant the alcohol. I mean, the jazz. The comic books. It’s not MY fault, you see. I’m a good person, a good parent, child, sister, friend.
Any of this starting to sound familiar? Perhaps like what’s currently being said about video games? While I don’t want to say that comics and games and such are never used to spread offensive or hazardous ideas, but there is just as good a chance of those ideas being found in a newspaper or a poster or a website.
My point, of course, is that people are always going to be looking for something to shift the blame onto. The trick, of course, is what do you do about that? How do you defend comic books and video games and manga and all that stuff without sounding as crazy as they do? Good questions. I’m sure I’ll think of somethng by next week.
Nothing huge here, folks. Just an appearance by the Great and Mighty Hawk himself! He kindly said I could toss this up here for all to see. Link, as usual, will be in the sidebar till I remember to change them. 
Clearly my efforts of becoming a relationship blogger are futile. So let’s just move on.
Energy independence would go a long way to make our homeland safe. Less dependence on foreign sources of energy would allow us to pull out of some of the more volatile regions of the world and stop pissing them off. I’ve heard President Bush talk about energy innovation and independence in his State of the Union addresses, but until there’s money set aside for specific programs, it’s all smoke and mirrors. As long as this war continues, funding for renewable energy sources from our federal government will be scarce at best.
I bring all this up because it has recently come to my attention that as early as 1975, we’ve had the technology to harvest and endless supply of energy. Imagine sending a satellite into low-earth orbit that was essentially a solar power collector and then beaming that energy safely to the surface. Sounds a bit far fetched, but as this video demonstrates, it is indeed possible to beam energy from point to point.
1975! Thirty-two years of siting on this technology and not implementing it. What a tragedy. Well, hope is not lost. It seems a little strange to say this, but this war may actually result in the development of space based solar power.
The Department of Defense may be now interested in developing this technology for practical applications. Last week on October 10, the National Security Space published a report entitled Space-Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security. That’s a mouthful. The report makes four recommendations:
And look, there’s even a nifty CG demonstration of a prototype:
The fact that this is coming from the Department of Defense is somewhat alarming. This technology should be used for the benefit of us all, not for some nefarious plan for strategic dominance. But if it starts the money flowing and there’s actual funding for this technology, the benefits are tremendous.
Imagine. Clean, infinite, renewable energy is just waiting for us on the other side of our atmosphere. And we could have been harvesting it for years.
