Articles by glenn-hauman
Mon Aug 24, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
To various ComicMix co-workers, I dedicate today's XKCD
No, I'm not going to mention names. Now stop bugging me so I can get back to getting books out the door.
And thank you very much, Randall Munroe.
Mon Aug 24, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
Interview: Chris Claremont on 'X-Men Forever', part 2
This is the second part of a very long interview with Chris Claremont that started on the topic of X-Men Forever and branched into a number of other areas. Part one of the interview is here, and we recommend reading it to get up to speed. Warning: plot points are discussed up to X-Men Forever #5 at least, do not read this interview if you want to be spoiled.
ComicMix: X-Men Forever-- this isn't just you taking your old X-Men script from 1991 and picking up where you left off.
Chris Claremont: No. The point is that I took my concepts from 1991 and sat down and looked at the team and rethought the whole thing. The difference is that the scripts in 1991 were a whole series of arcs that in more than a few cases had ended up being echoed, if not outright adapted, by subsequent writers.
CM: In the same vein, since your initial run on the X-Men, a lot of your work and your own style has been adapted in other places; for example, your creation of Kitty Pryde has been cited as an inspiration for Joss Whedon on Buffy. Let's not even get started on what people have been drawing on for Heroes and Lost. So now that people know your tropes and it's become mainstream, what's next? How do you go beyond that now that the rest of the world is catching up with you?
CC: Well, theoretically the rule we're running with is if I've done it before, I can't do it here. One of the rules that Mark and I are using is to try as much as possible not to take a story in directions that people anticipate. We'll see what happens. Part of it is the nature of the characters themselves. My original impulse was to excise Cyclops from the cast because I wanted to focus on someone else-- and he just wouldn't go! Every time I wrote him out, he'd write himself back in. Some part of my brain refused to accept that perception of the X-Men's reality; its vision was that Cyclops is a key and essential character. There comes a point, as a writer, when you have to listen to that part of your instinct, to ask "why is is saying this?" And once you find the answer, go with it. I am throwing everything up in the air. There are major changes to the eight characters in the series...
CM: Those being Storm, Rogue, Nightcrawler--
CC: Let me start at the top. Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Beast, Kitty, Gambit, Rogue, Nick Fury, and two others to be named later.
CM: Nick Fury's a mutant, or just showing up a lot?
CC: Nick Fury's a member of the cast. He's the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., but we don't have a S.H.I.E.L.D. book, so we can use him. His rationale for being there is the X-Men are a critical facet of the world community, just because of the power that mutants represent, and they need a minder. That, plus concerns he's about to have in terms of S.H.I.E.L.D. itself, make it more convenient/essential for him to stay on scene with the X-Men to figure out what's going on.
CM: Since you mention Nightcrawler and Kitty Pryde...
CC: They were in Excalibur, yes; they are coming back to the X-Men.
CM: A lot of people have been asking that very question.
CC: The opening circumstances of the book, as seen in the preview, are that this is taking place subsequent to the memorial service for Magneto, where all the X-Men have gathered. There's one panel on page four where you see the group shot of whole bunches of mutants out back. That explains what they're all doing there.
CM: So you'll have all of the X-Men there, you'll have X-Force there, you'll have Excalibur...
CC: Those who wish to honor Magneto. Some of them may decide they're not coming. Anyway, things start to happen from that point on. Essentially, for issue 1, Charlie temporarily closes the school and sends everybody home. He gathers a core team of X-characters to go out after Fabian Cortez, who killed Magneto, to bring him in, and to turn him over to S.H.I.E.L.D. and end this disaster before it gets any worse. Fury is there, saying this: You're living in a dream world. Magneto threatened the world, and some of you X-Men helped him--you were mind-controlled, but you helped him. The rest of you X-Men stopped him. What makes you think the world's going to stand back and accept the fact that you guys are unaffiliated, independent operatives and let you go on from there? You represent far too much power.
Continue reading Interview: Chris Claremont on 'X-Men Forever', part 2 ›
Sun Aug 23, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
'Spider-Man' ad is wrong on so many levels
The SpaValley Water Park and Spa in Korea used this as an advertisement. I don't even know where to start. (Via FAILBlog.)
Sat Aug 22, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
Happy 80th birthday, Marie Severin!
Rather than rehash all the excellent work Michael Pinto at Fanboy.com has done chronicling her amazing life, we're just going to point you to his article:
At the end of the silver age of comic books (which was sometime the early 70s) there was a well known cigarette ad campaign which would proudly proclaim to the ladies “You’ve come a long way, baby.” But sadly while the wider world of publishing started to open up to women, the comic book biz was — and still today largely a boys club. Now I can already hear the indignation from my fellow fanboys, but here’s the evidence:
Tomorrow is the 80th birthday of a living legend in the field of comics — yet sadly in my humble opinion not enough people today know the name Marie Severin. Yet like a Stan Lee or a Jack Kirby by all rights Severin should be one of a handful of names that every fanboy (and fangurl too) knows.
Sat Aug 22, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
Request For Comments from the Groupmind: What blogs should we be following?
Due to, as near as we can tell, Martians deleting folders in my RSS reader, I've lost every single one of the links to various comics and pop culture blogs. And we're going to be spending the weekend rebuilding it, more or less from memory.
So I want to ask you. What news sources should be in our reading mix? What are we missing? Who should we be following? Stuff like that.
Please put your recommendations in the comments, and yes, feel free to hype your own blogs as well. Assume that if I don't see it here, I may not remember it in the midst of debris.
This RSS image, BTW, is by lifted straight from Matt Forsythe. You should read his comic, Ojingogo, here.
Fri Aug 21, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
Powerpoint advice from the Incredible Hulk
This is the week for angry business stuff here, isn't it? Yesterday, we had Evil Inc. and Fox Business News, and today we have advice on preparing your business presentations from the Incredible Hulk:
- Showcase hidden strengths
- Find something to care about
- Don't overdo it
- And for heaven's sake, stay calm:
Whether you are the unfortunate victim of a gamma radiation overdose or just a guy trying to pull off a great presentation, the rule is the same: Chill out! Things are going to go wrong. Outlets aren't going to work. You will forget your extra batteries on the day when your batteries finally die. Yes. Your fonts are beautiful – and unfathomably tiny. Here's an idea: live, learn and laugh. You can't prepare for every factor that will mess with your perfect presentation. That's why should always be preparing to present the imperfect one. Trust me, throwing the lectern through the wall will solve nothing.
Personally, I always use Jedi skills when giving business presentations. They always work well on the weak-minded.
Thu Aug 20, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
It was inevitable: 'Evil Inc.' on Fox Business Channel
Some days, the headlines just write themselves.
Brad Guigar's Evil Inc. comic strip was bound to be noticed by the people at Fox Business News sooner or later, it's their kind of company. So yesterday, Brad was interviewed by the standard Fox News panel of a blond guy, a brunette guy, and a blonde woman on their show Happy Hour yesterday. Since Fox won't let you embed video-- I guess they really need the traffic-- you can watch it on Brad's site.
Now if you want scary, I suspect there are more people reading Brad's strip daily than are watching Fox Business News...
Wed Aug 19, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
Happy 88th birthday, Gene Roddenberry!
On this day in 1921 the Great Bird Of The Galaxy, Eugene Wesley Roddenberry, was born in El Paso, Texas. Gene was known as a writer for Dragnet, Naked City, Have Gun, Will Travel, The Lieutenant, The Questor Tapes, Genesis II, Planet Earth, and Strange New World.
Oh, all right, Star Trek, Earth: Final Conflict, and Andromeda. And even a few comics series-- don't tell me you don't remember Gene Roddenberry's Lost Universe from Tekno Comics?
He died in 1991 and his ashes are in orbit now, so when we say the Great Bird Of The Galaxy watches over us, we aren't kidding. Thanks again for letting us all play in your world.
Wed Aug 19, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
'Theory of International Politics and Zombies' from ForeignPolicy.com
First, we had the worry about if the cops would tell us about a zombie outbreak.
Then it was the math paper prescribing what to do when zombies attack.
Now, we're getting foreign policy prescriptions about zombie nations written by professors at Tufts.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and he ponders what would different systemic international relations theories predict regarding the effects of a zombie outbreak:
Now, some would dispute whether neoconservatism is a systemic argument, but let's posit that it's a coherent IR theory. To its credit, the neoconservatives would recognize the zombie threat as an existential threat to the human way of life. Humans are from Earth, whereas zombies are from Hades -- clearly, neoconservatives would argue, zombies hate us for our freedom not to eat other humans' brains.
While the threat might be existential, accomodation or recognition are not options. Instead, neocons would quickly gear up an aggressive response to ensure human hegemony. However, the response would likely be to invade and occupy the central state in the zombie-affected area. After creating a human outpost in that place, humans in neighboring zombie-affected countries would be inspired to rise up and overthrow their own zombie overlords. Alas, while this could happen, a more likely outcone would be that, after the initial "Mission Accomplished" banner had been raised, a fresh wave of zombies would rise up, enmeshing the initial landing force -- which went in too light and was drawn down too quickly -- in a protracted, bloody stalemate.
I'm waiting for the feminist theory of zombies any day n-- whoops, never mind, Annalee Newitz has been there, done that, and eaten the brains. Maybe we can do something with Sarah Palin...
Tue Aug 18, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
Chicago Comic-Con costumes, Day 3
Finishing off the roll, here are the last of our photos from this year's Chicago Comic-Con:
Mon Aug 17, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
Chicago Comic-Con costumes, Day 2
Finally, the (almost) last of our photos from this year's Chicago Comic-Con:
Mon Aug 17, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
Google Books opening to Creative Commons licensed properties
Via Cynopsis Digital: Google is now enabling authors
and publishers who sign off under various
Creative Commons licenses to
distribute their works for free using the Google Books platform. The highest profile comic-book that would be immediately eligible for inclusion would be Cory Doctorow’s Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now comic miniseries from IDW Publishing.
The Creative Commons organization has been busy this year launching programs like the Attribution-ShareAlike agreement with Wikipedia that enables interoperability between Wikipedia licenses. This new alliance allows independent writers, artists and publishers, both existing Google Partners and non-partners, to distribute, commercialize and protect the reuse of their works. It's a flexible license built for the digital age, with settings that authorize creative remixes and mash-ups that give credit where credit is due.
Books that have been made available under a CC license have been marked with a matching logo on the book's left hand navigation bar, allowing users to download the books and share them freely. "If the rightsholder has chosen to allow people to modify their work, readers can even create a mashup - say, translating the book into Esperanto, donning a black beret, and performing the whole thing to music on YouTube," writes Xian Ke, Associate Product manager, Google Books in a blog post.
Google says representatives of the Book Rights Registry intend to allow rightsholders to distribute CC-licensed works for free, pending court approval of a settlement. In the meantime, Creative Commons proponents such as Lawrence Lessig have make their works available on Google Books using the CC licenses.
Sat Aug 15, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
'When Zombies Are The Subject Of Mathematics Papers!'
The title is a killer: When zombies attack!: Mathematical
modelling of an outbreak of zombie infection (Infectious Disease
Modelling Research Progress 2009, in: J.M. Tchuenche and C. Chiyaka,
eds, pp133-150).
Abstract:
Zombies are a popular figure in pop culture/entertainment and they are usually portrayed as being brought about through an outbreak or epidemic. Consequently, we model a zombie attack, using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies. We introduce a basic model for zombie infection, determine equilibria and their stability, and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions. We then refine the model to introduce a latent period of zombification, whereby humans are infected, but not infectious, before becoming undead. We then modify the model to include the effects of possible quarantine or a cure. Finally, we examine the impact of regular, impulsive reductions in the number of zombies and derive conditions under which eradication can occur. We show that only quick, aggressive attacks can stave off the doomsday scenario: the collapse of society as zombies overtake us all.
Kudos to Philip Munz, Ioan Hudea, Joe Imad, and Robert J. Smith? (yes, his last name is Smith? with the question mark) for doing the hard work. So when the zombies come and the cops don't warn us, we know we'll have to act quickly. Don't listen if they say they're not unreasonable.
Fri Aug 14, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
If you didn't have someone getting you freebies at San Diego Comic-Con...
...the nice folks at Random House & Suvudu have set aside a few things for you:
• Mark of the Demon signed by author Diana Rowland
• Child of Fire signed by author Harry Connolly
• Luck in the Shadows signed by author Lynn Flewelling
• Black and White signed by authors Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge
• G.I. Joe vs. Cobra signed by author Pablo Hidalgo
• Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi/Death Troopers Double-sided Promotional Posters signed by authors Aaron Allston, Christie Golden and Troy Denning
• Star Wars-The Essential Atlas signed by authors Daniel Wallace and Jason Fry
• G.I. Joe Above and Beyond signed by author Max Allan Collins
• The Comic-Con Exclusive: Talisman Issue #0 signed by colorist Nei Ruffino
• Mirrored Heavens signed by author David J. Williams
All you have to do is submit your name, email address, mailing address and which prize you would like to win to info@suvudu.com between 12:00 AM on August 10, 2009 and 12:00 AM on August 21, 2009.
Fri Aug 14, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
Not so great views of the future: UPDATED
Or, if you want a really scary vision, here's science fiction writer John C. Wright's view of a horrible future of moral decay because of homosexuality actually being tolerated by people.
Remember, kids: even if it's your name, you're not always (W)right.
UPDATE 4:30 PM: Mike Weber notes below that the original link above no longer works. It seems that a lot of people took him to task, but what apparently shamed him into changing was someone pointing out what his recently adopted Catholic Church has to say on the matter:
"It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law."
- "On The Pastoral Care Of Homosexual Persons", by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Accordingly, Wright has taken down the original post, and I feel no further need to shame him about it, preferring to believe that he's going to try and reconcile the matter in his heart and with his God.
