more musings and hero worship

fanatics, fanboys, geeks.

whatever you want to call them, these are the people that hold art and culture dearest, and these are the people that it is dangerous to mess with.

get it right, and they will continue to sing your praises.

get it wrong, even just a minor mis-step, and some fanboys find it very hard to be forgiving.

this is certainly the case whether it is music geeks, film geeks, or, as proved recently by the 'Before Watchmen' debacle, comic geeks.


and i think the truth behind these issues is that as fans, we want our heroes and our icons to be infallible.


and when we start dealing with sequels, or prequels, or a follow up of some sort, you are running a risk.

you are increasing the chances of a work held in high esteem becoming tainted, or lessened somehow.

there is also the chance that an original premise could be improved upon, but when people have such an emotional investment in these works you are also gambling with people's memories.

we often have our personal reasons for such deep investment, some that go deeper than others, whether it is an album that saw your through a particularly rough patch in your life or reminds you of fond memories, or perhaps it is a film or a story that just connected with you, or opened your eyes to something you had not experienced before.

these are the types of feelings and emotions that people connect to art.

we could be talking about Greedo shooting first in the Star Wars special editions, the introduction of Jar Jar Binks and midichlorians in The Phantom Menace, we could be talking about the movie adaption of The Da Vinci Code or the long-threatened American remake of Akira, it could be Jay-Z's Blueprint 2 (and 3), it could any modern take on an old idea, whether it is the Wicker Man or Star Trek,  and it could be the increasing expectations for Christopher Nolan's final instalment in his Dark Knight trilogy.

and we are most definitely talking about Before Watchmen.

break the internet in half

it was in october of last year that i was starting getting edgy.

i had just heard some bad news.


the article was titled 'the phone call that confirmed Watchmen 2'

and i read it, with fear


a couple of previous posts had talked creative teams involved and it all felt more real.

but Bleeding Cool seemed to be the only place suggesting this, other blogs rubbished the idea as a shock tactic to generate traffic, apparently they had said something similar a couple of years ago and nothing materialised.

one particular quote resonated....

Darwyn Cook, when asked what he was currently working on, answered that he couldn't say, but that it "would break the internet in half"


fast forward

2012

Mayans apparently predict the end of the world

scarily, they may have got it right, as on February 1st, the internet broke in half

straining and cracking under the weight of all the angst and ire generated by geeks around the globe.

the day that DC comics announced their 'Before Watchmen' project.


6 mini-series focusing on the back-stories of individual characters and on the original Minutemen, followed by a one-shot would tie an overbearing story arc together, in addition, there would also be a back-up 'pirate' feature that runs across the issues.

and with a heavy heart, i must admit that this seemed inevitable, much like someone coming along to transfer a favourite comic or book onto the big screen (whoops, they already tried that with Watchmen, didn't they), we must recognise this for the money-making scheme that it is first and foremost.

DC comics, as part of Warner Brothers, is a business, a money hungry destructive business that only has it's sights set on one goal, making more money than it already has.

DC already survived a major shake-up last year when it announced plans to 're-set' a lot of its comic book history, wiping the slate clean for some characters (although not for all) and renumbering all of their issues from number 1 again, this got a lot of fans angry and up in arms about the whole move and the way fans were being treated, yet, when all was said and done, these new issues sold by the ton, reprints of all first issues were needed and the market share was captured.

and we can even look at this now as testing the water, to see how many fans truly did drop off, or how many simply moaned about the whole thing, yet bought regardless, possibly bought more out of curiosity.

if they could do this with DC's main players, the heavy hitters, the whole damn universe, then why would their next target not be Watchmen.

and the geeks have only brought it upon themselves.

there was never going to be a boycott of the new 52, not one that mattered anyway.

and similarly, sales of Before Watchmen will probably be through the roof.

i can't deny, they have brought some top talent on board to handle this rather sensitive subject, and no doubt, these creators will have the utmost respect for Alan Moore's vision, who in comics wouldn't? and when you get that call, asking you to be involved in a massive high-profile project that will no doubt earn you a fair few quid, i'm sure you would rather ride that thing than let the opportunity slip past you, into the hands of someone else that you may not trust with the comic book's rich legacy.  whether any or all of the creative teams involved can do the stories justice will have to wait to be seen.

i'm sure, out of the entire project, that we will see at least a couple of good yarns, heck, they may even pull this thing out the bag without dropping the ball at all.

but that doesn't mean that i'm happy about it.

(but that doesn't mean i'm not curious too)

monday monday

ok, so i'm running out of monday, but i've got the girlfriends laptop to myself since she's gone to bed so i thought i'd whack up some videos and keep thisblog moving, before featuring the director's cut of my latest Enfield Advertiser article tomorrow




now, i don't know if anyone tuned into Wall:E yesterday, i only caught a glimpse of it while i was busy with other stuff, but it did remind me of this astounding mash-up of the Wall:E trailer with that of the Watchmen film, which seemed so promising at the time

and as much as i'd happily watch the hope-raising, Bob Dylan sountracked intro again, i just can't bring myself to freely admit that Zak Snyder's disapointing vision of Alan Moore's masterpiece even exists

but the faux trailer above is testament to the power of music, and how it can alter emotions, toying with our pre-set senses and the practically cliched musical arrangements that films feel they must conform to

for another example, check out this recently surfaced Ghostbusters/Inception mash-up, and witness how the soundtrack of the Nolan-helmed trailer drastically toys with all the fun and action that we know and love from the ghostbusting franchise

You Are Here

So perhaps it's time for a little update of where i am and what i'm doin, and for the most part everything is generally the same, filling up my time with photography, reading and trying to make music.

to break it down a little more tho:

i think the stray sofas project has been coming along nicely and have recently found a few new additions, including possibly the daddy of all stray sofas on my way to The Northwestern gig on tuesday, all of which will be making their way onto the blog in good time.

i also seem to have been gorging myself on Alan Moore graphic novels in the past couple of weeks, ploughing through The Killing Joke, Swamp Thing and two volumes of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen... I'm ready to move on tho, perhaps a Grant Morrison binge next...

and musically? its mostly been SoundArt taking up my time. a re-edited SoundArt5 will be making an appearance once i've completed re-jigging it, SoundArt6 shouldn't be too far from the horizon, although i do need to spend some time beefing the track up so i'm entirely happy with it. I'm also gonna be juggling the production of SoundArt7, since its predecessor is nearly complete and i'm trying to play catch up.

unfortunately, all this hasn't left much time for my remixes and my own album tracks, which have fallen by the way-side a little while i try and balance all of the above and everything else in my life, but the SoundArt project is helping me to experiment and develop a sound which should ultimately be a benefit to everything else i do.

tell me moore, tell me moore...

living legend, great british eccentric, slightly scary guy and all round genius, Alan Moore is at work on another ambitious project.

a semi-autobiographical work will be presented in a multi-media format, a two-hour audio-book has already been completed by Moore and the finished version will be accompanied visually by a 'photographic novel' and a score to soundtrack the project, including contributions from a number of artists spanning metal, rap and spoken word, all released on the well respected UK indie label, Lex in early 2010.

graphic content

how long has it been since i last gushed about comics on this blog? long enough i think!

and while i've been trying to keep my nose out of books recently so that i perhaps spend a lil longer working on music instead of constantly findin time for an extra chapter or racing head-on towards the ending of another book i have instead been sticking my nose back into graphic novels, or books about comics, and indeed not spending enough time on music...

anyways, various reasons for me mentioning this

first; you remember back in march when i mentioned my little brothers sci-fi short stories? he has been influenced to tackle his fantasy world in a slightly different medium, with a single page comic that once again delves into his distopeian scrapbook

(click on the image for a larger view)



secondly; ok, i was only joking about writing a story about some vampire dogs, but i'm actualy quite into the idea of scripting a superhero story as i mentioned last week and have aready begun drafting afew ideas that cover the over-all direction of the story and handful of key plot points along the way

it's all very rough right now but hopefully i'll stick with this one and continue fleshing out my ideas until it becomes a fully formed mini-series worthy of publishing and bring me a little closer to following into a legacy of writers i admire, such as Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison

tire tread on burst stomach

my girlfriend showed concern (actually she didn't, she complained) that my blog seemed to be filling up with geeky stuff, too many posts on comic books and comic book movies.

but i didn't wanna go out quietly, so here comes a bumper Watchmen post!!!!

so the film has been and gone and hasn't caused too much of a stir in the real world, Watchmen is possibly THE most important superhero story ever, but the film only seems to be treading on The Dark Knight's toes. most of the reviews and opinions i've read since posting my own seem to have picked up on the same issues i did, some with more vehemence than others, some with mild irritation, some with amusement.

one thing that didn't quite fit for me was Rorschach's voice, Jackie Earle Haley's growl seemed to be aping Bale's recent Batman more than it matched the monotone muffled grumble i portrayed in my head.

and the reason i'm mentioning this? cos before the film came out i came across this video of creator/writer Alan Moore voicing Rorschach, and i'm thankful this isn't the voice i hear in my head.

if this was the voice i heard in my head i don't think i could sleep at night, honestly, this disturbs me....




and so i don't clog up this post with a load of youtube videos and run the risk of turning this page into the kinda display that Adrian Veidt would sit and contemplate from his Antarctic retreat, the rest shall come in the form of linkage, that i highly recommend you click and follow if you get kicks outta this kinda thing.

first up is the latest of the 'I'm a Marvel, I'm a DC' videos, parodying the Mac/PC adverts and the movie outputs of both companies, Wolverine features in both, one alongside Rorschach, and then again alongside Doctor Manhattan. the third video you should check out is Watchmen movie star, Malin Ackerman playing along in a short sketch that shows her flatmate taking advantage of Malin's new found geek credentials.

and the final one is the source of some highly exagerated rumours of a mysterious long-lost Watchmen cartoon, it seems that everybody knew about this before I did, but if this is news to you, or you just wanna watch all over again, click here to view the lovingly crafted Watchmen cartoon title sequence.

i'm glad i ordered the four legged chicken

Watchmen.

so what did i think?

well.... hmmmmmmmmmmm...

not particularly impressed, but i didn't feel as if i'd had my heart ripped out ad callously discarded, and i'm not gonna be spilling a ton of bile upon Zack Snyder...

in fact i kinda felt sorry for him as i sat watching the film, the opportunity to tackle Watchmen and do it justice was something he clearly relished from the start but now that the project has come to fruition it has become rather obvious that it must have been an extremely hard task to fully translate into another medium a graphic novel that so many people hold such reverence for.


the main downfall of the film seems to hinge on afew key elements, primarily the pacing, the panel layout of the comic makes for a great device that keeps the book moving almost like clockwork but most scenes presented in the film felt rushed with little thought for the impact they hold, every detail from the comic that holds ramifications seemed to have been dispensed with at great speed for the sake of running time.

the fact that this is a movie and that you can't just flick back afew pages or chapters or just re-read the whole thing from start to finish means that onscreen it all becomes a little muddled and unclear, especially in the story's most self-referencing moments

this issue with the pacing also presented more problems for itself, it had a deep impact on the way the character's were presented, giving little time to each character's personal situations and circumstances meant that you either didn't particularly care or didn't actualy know what they have gone through and also the swiftness of the story meant any sense of subtlety was thrown out the window so that some sub-plots became almost lost entirely while others were given a rather heavy-handed treatment.



perhaps as a mini-series all elements would have been given time and room to breath properly, or perhaps we are likely to see a Lord of the Rings-esque 4 disc DVD set that incorporates every scene cut from the film and fleshes out over details that give the story its identity, the first generation of costumed heroes and each of their fates were barely present and the brief screen time they were given gave little context to the next generation, the technological advances capable in a world inhabited by Doctor Manhattan were poorly and sloppily addressed and the imposing threat of nuclear war or any other impending apocalypse hardly seem to matter when we have seen none of the 'real' people that reside in New York, the seemingly bit-part players that are integral to the story.

the fact that some character's were not as i had in my mind was only to be expected, even when all reading from the same source material, differing views are bound to occur as everyone interprets it in their own way

as i left the IMAX i wasn't angry at the handling of Watchmen, if anything it actualy done more to re-inforce just how important it is to the medium of comics, it seems to exist in a world of it's own creating that is exclusively relevant and also revolutionary to comic book writing, the fact that it does not translate well purely enforces comics' firm place as an important and individual artform with it's own strengths that cannot be easily mimicked.