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growyourwingsSo I went totally off the deep-end this morning... sparked my my reading of the graphic novel Watchmen.
You know I'm really liking this book. Just finished Chapter One. When the book came yesterday I noted a few things...
The front and back cover noted:
Winner of the Hugo Award. One of Time Magazine's 100 Best Novels. From Time Magazine: "A work of ruthless psychological realism, it's a landmark in the graphic novel medium." Rolling Stone said "Watchmen is peerless" USA Today called it "A brilliant piece of fiction." Entertainment Weekly: "A masterwork of representing the apex of artistry." And Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof said, "The greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced."
Then there was the "Who watches the Watchmen" quote. Obviously I'd heard the phrase before--I looked it up on Wikipedia and it originated in the 1st & 2nd centuries -- started out as a Latin saying. The phrase is used all over the place:
# "Who watches the watchers?", the popular translation of "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?", was used by Alan Moore as the inspiration for the title of his acclaimed comic book series Watchmen, in which the phrase is translated "Who watches the watchmen?"
# "Who Watches the Watchers?" was the title of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which the Enterprise crew must undo the damage done to a primitive culture by a Federation anthropological observation team.
# In the episode "Mind War" of the television series Babylon 5, Susan Ivanova remarks of the Psi Cops "Yes, but who watches the watchmen?"
This is only my 2nd experience reading a graphic novel. Still not done with The Sandman. But both are very interesting experiences. I find it actually takes me a little longer to "read" a graphic novel then a "normal" novel. You would think it would go faster because--less words, But I spend more time studying the pictures. There are many layers of foreshadowing and clues in many of the panels. Plus the artist perspectives it places on the story is very interesting to me. I notice that shows such as Heroes and Supernatural are making use of many of the prespectives I see being used in these novels. I don't remember seeing that much previously in TV shows of a few years ago. Perhaps the generation of male "geeks" that grew up on comic books and sci-fi are now coming into their own in the media industry.
I'm reminded of something I heard on a podcast a little while ago. Years ago the country music genre was considered small and insignificant. The industry didn't think much of it and assumed that it didn't have much of an audience because the way in which music sales were assessed did not really accurately indicate what was really be bought and in what volumes. The podcast was talking about the evolution of the music industry and how the music industry needed to think a lot differently about how they measured what was selling and how to better market and make their products available.
Anyway...several years ago, the industry started looking differently at how record sales were analyzed. Someone realized that perhaps country music had a bigger audience then they had realized. So they started to tap into that. Now country music is considered the biggest market in the music industry. Turns out a good portion of America had always been into it (*shudders*) but TPTB didn't realize it. Which is way there are so many country music crossover type songs today.
I was thinking about this while thinking about ComicCon. ComicCon has been going on for 30 years. As have those many other sci-fi and/or geek-type conventions. It was this huge, unrecognized, under appreciated throng of fanatical people. With the grow and recognition of the Internet and the transformation of digitally-available medium--TPTB are beginning to recognize another, already existing mass of people that they can just "tap into." They don't have to build the marketing channel or build the hype. It's already there. Just light a match and watch it explode.
I'm still reading Henry Jenkin's blog about the intersection of media and culture and the transformation to both that is occurring. The conversations on the blog are also along these lines.
It's like the seeds of thought that were planted first around 1938 with the start of the comic book medium, then in the 50s with the cheesy sci-fi TV & movies and not-so-cheesy sci-fi books--are just reaching critical mass being fueled by the net. Although you could also go into the "which came first" argument. Is the technology of the net enabling this transformation? Or does the net (and other technologies) exist because of those comic-book and scifi geeks being inspired as kids and then growing up and "inventing" cell phones because they saw Star Trek communicators?
Okay, so I just way geeked-out and likely didn't make any sense whatsoever. Just rambling, stream-of-consciousness thoughts I'm just very intrigued and am "sparked" by this "sudden" (not) intersection of comic books, sci fi, tv/movies, technology/internet.
I think that in 100 years (or less? now?), the comic book and early cheesy sci-fi will likely be discussed in academic circles kinda like the way the "classics" are discussed and analyzed today. After all Shakespeare, in his time, was nothing more than a producer/writer of plays for the average man-on-the-street. He wrote popular fiction for his time.
The front and back cover noted:
Winner of the Hugo Award. One of Time Magazine's 100 Best Novels. From Time Magazine: "A work of ruthless psychological realism, it's a landmark in the graphic novel medium." Rolling Stone said "Watchmen is peerless" USA Today called it "A brilliant piece of fiction." Entertainment Weekly: "A masterwork of representing the apex of artistry." And Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof said, "The greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced."
Then there was the "Who watches the Watchmen" quote. Obviously I'd heard the phrase before--I looked it up on Wikipedia and it originated in the 1st & 2nd centuries -- started out as a Latin saying. The phrase is used all over the place:
# "Who watches the watchers?", the popular translation of "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?", was used by Alan Moore as the inspiration for the title of his acclaimed comic book series Watchmen, in which the phrase is translated "Who watches the watchmen?"
# "Who Watches the Watchers?" was the title of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which the Enterprise crew must undo the damage done to a primitive culture by a Federation anthropological observation team.
# In the episode "Mind War" of the television series Babylon 5, Susan Ivanova remarks of the Psi Cops "Yes, but who watches the watchmen?"
This is only my 2nd experience reading a graphic novel. Still not done with The Sandman. But both are very interesting experiences. I find it actually takes me a little longer to "read" a graphic novel then a "normal" novel. You would think it would go faster because--less words, But I spend more time studying the pictures. There are many layers of foreshadowing and clues in many of the panels. Plus the artist perspectives it places on the story is very interesting to me. I notice that shows such as Heroes and Supernatural are making use of many of the prespectives I see being used in these novels. I don't remember seeing that much previously in TV shows of a few years ago. Perhaps the generation of male "geeks" that grew up on comic books and sci-fi are now coming into their own in the media industry.
I'm reminded of something I heard on a podcast a little while ago. Years ago the country music genre was considered small and insignificant. The industry didn't think much of it and assumed that it didn't have much of an audience because the way in which music sales were assessed did not really accurately indicate what was really be bought and in what volumes. The podcast was talking about the evolution of the music industry and how the music industry needed to think a lot differently about how they measured what was selling and how to better market and make their products available.
Anyway...several years ago, the industry started looking differently at how record sales were analyzed. Someone realized that perhaps country music had a bigger audience then they had realized. So they started to tap into that. Now country music is considered the biggest market in the music industry. Turns out a good portion of America had always been into it (*shudders*) but TPTB didn't realize it. Which is way there are so many country music crossover type songs today.
I was thinking about this while thinking about ComicCon. ComicCon has been going on for 30 years. As have those many other sci-fi and/or geek-type conventions. It was this huge, unrecognized, under appreciated throng of fanatical people. With the grow and recognition of the Internet and the transformation of digitally-available medium--TPTB are beginning to recognize another, already existing mass of people that they can just "tap into." They don't have to build the marketing channel or build the hype. It's already there. Just light a match and watch it explode.
I'm still reading Henry Jenkin's blog about the intersection of media and culture and the transformation to both that is occurring. The conversations on the blog are also along these lines.
It's like the seeds of thought that were planted first around 1938 with the start of the comic book medium, then in the 50s with the cheesy sci-fi TV & movies and not-so-cheesy sci-fi books--are just reaching critical mass being fueled by the net. Although you could also go into the "which came first" argument. Is the technology of the net enabling this transformation? Or does the net (and other technologies) exist because of those comic-book and scifi geeks being inspired as kids and then growing up and "inventing" cell phones because they saw Star Trek communicators?
Okay, so I just way geeked-out and likely didn't make any sense whatsoever. Just rambling, stream-of-consciousness thoughts I'm just very intrigued and am "sparked" by this "sudden" (not) intersection of comic books, sci fi, tv/movies, technology/internet.
I think that in 100 years (or less? now?), the comic book and early cheesy sci-fi will likely be discussed in academic circles kinda like the way the "classics" are discussed and analyzed today. After all Shakespeare, in his time, was nothing more than a producer/writer of plays for the average man-on-the-street. He wrote popular fiction for his time.
