Monday, 9 May 2011
Einstein was wrong
I'm the Speed of Light. And I've been neglecting this due to exams and revision and things so I'm sorry. Don't worry, and argument about Arkham Asylum will be up soon :-)
Thursday, 28 April 2011
Who watches the Watchmen?
Please note, the following blog post contains spoilers regarding Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
"The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and the politicians will look up and shout 'Save us!'... and I'll look down and whisper 'no.'"
When looking at the "Can comic books be literature?" argument Watchmen is the obvious place to start, if no other reason than its reputation. Watchmen is considered by many to be the greatest comic book of all time (also by some to be the most overrated of all time) and appeared on the Time magazine 100 greatest novels of all time. Not the graphic novel section, the novels. Watchmen is also helpful in disproving the myth that Comic books are for children. Look at the line at the top of the page; is a 'children's' medium really going to claim that as the pinnacle of it's aspirations? There are children's comics, just like there are children's books, tv shows, films and all other kinds of art; and there are comics suitable for children, just as there are books suitable for children, tv shows, films etc etc, but there are also more mature comic books and I don't mean in a vulgar, explicit way.
So, having got that out of the way we can turn to Watchmen in it's own right as a work of fiction somewhere between prose and drama. This is where comic books muddy the water; they are strictly speaking prose but written in drama form. They are not intended to be performed, the artwork is the performance in that sense, but the artwork is intrinsically part of the art form. What people assume is that because the artwork is there the writing can afford to be... of less merit than other written fiction. The only comics which subscribe to this view are bad ones, often discontinued ones. And there can be no claims that the writing in Watchmen takes second place to the artwork.
Watchmen deals with a dark mirror of our own world in 1985, a world where costumed adventurers began to fight crime in the 1930s and 40s, where the US won the war in Vietnam and where Richard Nixon manipulated law and popular will to be elected for a third term as President of the United States. Just as a concept that it's interesting; not the costumed heroes but the "What if America had won the Vietnam war?" scenario sets this book up as one which is going to ask a lot of questions. And the questions we ask ourselves as we read it are deep, dark and thought provoking. "What would I do" we ask ourselves "In this world that Alan Moore has created here?" For those of us of my generation, people who never lived through the cold war, Watchmen manages to bring home the cold realities of nuclear war and how close we came to the end of all life on Earth. The scene where Richard Nixon consults his advisors on the results of a nuclear strike on Russia after the USSR invades Afghanistan and seriously considers sacrificing the entire Eastern Seaboard is numbingly cold as you realise that is the kind of conversation that would have happened at that time. When Captain Metropolis begs his fellow heroes to stay, pleading that "Someone has to save the world" we realise that he is absolutely right, just as Veidt does.
To try to cover all the themes in Watchmen is impossible in a blog; if I ever write a proper essay or dissertation on the comic book, literature question I'll cover them then, but one which does stand out is the oldest story in the world, the struggle between good and evil. And as all the cliched stories in the world would have us believe the heroes we have been following throughout the book confront the mastermind behind the horrors they have faced at the moment of his grand victory, and what do they do? They give up. There's nothing they can do, in the face of what their enemy has achieved, except accept it, join him and help to build a better world. Only one of them is unwilling to give up "Not even in the face of armageddon. Never compromise" he tells us and we watch as he goes out to fight the good fight on his own. He is killed within 4 pages.
And so we come to the biggest question which the book raises. We have good, and we have evil; heroes and villains. On the one side we have Ozymandias. On the other Rorschach. And I'm damned if I can figure out which side is which.
Let's consider Ozymandias. Adrian Veidt, the smartest man in the world. This man became a hero because he felt he needed to. Everything he does is altruism. None of the other characters, the people who know him best in the world, believe he is capable of evil. All he wants to do is save the world. So what does he do? He murders one of his colleagues, systematically infects all the closest associates of another with terminal cancer to drive him off planet, has a third framed for murder, arrested and imprisoned, fakes an assassination attempt on himself and kills three and a half million people. Surely that is evil, and yet in doing so he ends the cold war, prevents the possibility of a nuclear holocaust and saves the world.
And then we have Rorschach. We have followed Rorschach since the beginning; his are the first words we read, the first voice we hear. He fights for what he believes is right, defends the innocent, refuses to compromise even in the face of the apocalypse, never gives in, never backs down, has risen from adversity to to be hero. But how does he go about all this. Through the book we see him torture and intimidate, murder and mutilate anyone who crosses him or the law. And when Rorschach refuses to compromise to make sure the world stays safe then it makes us as readers wonder whether we would stand by our principles even if it meant watching the world burn. When he walks away he walks alone, without his friends but also without the reader; we may not like what Veidt has done but we cannot find the strength of will to walk away from it, because he has saved the world.
Good and Evil are blurred into so many shades of grey that no reader can know what they would do in the place of the characters. But the greatest moment of Watchmen comes at the climax of what was the penultimate issue. Nite Owl and Rorschach confront Ozymandias and anyone who knows anything of the way stories should work can see what should come next: Ozymandias will reveal his plan and then the heroes will stop him just in the nick of time. It's a cliche not just of comics but of all science fiction, action and thrillers. And true to form Moore has Ozymandias reveal his plan to Nite Owl and Rorschach, and we see how ingrained thoughout the plot it is. Every moment is revisited, every plot twist unravelled, every flashback justified and as we begin to comprehend the scale of what Veidt has been planning, Nite Owl and Rorschach tell him that it's over, that they're going to stop him. And then, in just seven words, Alan Moore defies convention, destroys the cliche and delivers the greatest plot twist in the history of comic books.
"I did it thirty-five minutes ago"
And that's it. No way to stop him. He's won. Watchmen is a book which defies convention, asks questions about morality, humanity and justice which we don't want to ask ourselves. It's a book which gives us so much to think about that we can't help but return to it, hoping that maybe this time we'll see who's good, who's evil; who's right and who's wrong, but we never will and that's the beauty of it. It keeps us asking questions until we realise that the only way to answer them is to try to save the world ourselves and see what's right. It's a book which changes the way we think. If that isn't Literature, nothing is.
"The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and the politicians will look up and shout 'Save us!'... and I'll look down and whisper 'no.'"
When looking at the "Can comic books be literature?" argument Watchmen is the obvious place to start, if no other reason than its reputation. Watchmen is considered by many to be the greatest comic book of all time (also by some to be the most overrated of all time) and appeared on the Time magazine 100 greatest novels of all time. Not the graphic novel section, the novels. Watchmen is also helpful in disproving the myth that Comic books are for children. Look at the line at the top of the page; is a 'children's' medium really going to claim that as the pinnacle of it's aspirations? There are children's comics, just like there are children's books, tv shows, films and all other kinds of art; and there are comics suitable for children, just as there are books suitable for children, tv shows, films etc etc, but there are also more mature comic books and I don't mean in a vulgar, explicit way.
So, having got that out of the way we can turn to Watchmen in it's own right as a work of fiction somewhere between prose and drama. This is where comic books muddy the water; they are strictly speaking prose but written in drama form. They are not intended to be performed, the artwork is the performance in that sense, but the artwork is intrinsically part of the art form. What people assume is that because the artwork is there the writing can afford to be... of less merit than other written fiction. The only comics which subscribe to this view are bad ones, often discontinued ones. And there can be no claims that the writing in Watchmen takes second place to the artwork.
Watchmen deals with a dark mirror of our own world in 1985, a world where costumed adventurers began to fight crime in the 1930s and 40s, where the US won the war in Vietnam and where Richard Nixon manipulated law and popular will to be elected for a third term as President of the United States. Just as a concept that it's interesting; not the costumed heroes but the "What if America had won the Vietnam war?" scenario sets this book up as one which is going to ask a lot of questions. And the questions we ask ourselves as we read it are deep, dark and thought provoking. "What would I do" we ask ourselves "In this world that Alan Moore has created here?" For those of us of my generation, people who never lived through the cold war, Watchmen manages to bring home the cold realities of nuclear war and how close we came to the end of all life on Earth. The scene where Richard Nixon consults his advisors on the results of a nuclear strike on Russia after the USSR invades Afghanistan and seriously considers sacrificing the entire Eastern Seaboard is numbingly cold as you realise that is the kind of conversation that would have happened at that time. When Captain Metropolis begs his fellow heroes to stay, pleading that "Someone has to save the world" we realise that he is absolutely right, just as Veidt does.
To try to cover all the themes in Watchmen is impossible in a blog; if I ever write a proper essay or dissertation on the comic book, literature question I'll cover them then, but one which does stand out is the oldest story in the world, the struggle between good and evil. And as all the cliched stories in the world would have us believe the heroes we have been following throughout the book confront the mastermind behind the horrors they have faced at the moment of his grand victory, and what do they do? They give up. There's nothing they can do, in the face of what their enemy has achieved, except accept it, join him and help to build a better world. Only one of them is unwilling to give up "Not even in the face of armageddon. Never compromise" he tells us and we watch as he goes out to fight the good fight on his own. He is killed within 4 pages.
And so we come to the biggest question which the book raises. We have good, and we have evil; heroes and villains. On the one side we have Ozymandias. On the other Rorschach. And I'm damned if I can figure out which side is which.
Let's consider Ozymandias. Adrian Veidt, the smartest man in the world. This man became a hero because he felt he needed to. Everything he does is altruism. None of the other characters, the people who know him best in the world, believe he is capable of evil. All he wants to do is save the world. So what does he do? He murders one of his colleagues, systematically infects all the closest associates of another with terminal cancer to drive him off planet, has a third framed for murder, arrested and imprisoned, fakes an assassination attempt on himself and kills three and a half million people. Surely that is evil, and yet in doing so he ends the cold war, prevents the possibility of a nuclear holocaust and saves the world.
And then we have Rorschach. We have followed Rorschach since the beginning; his are the first words we read, the first voice we hear. He fights for what he believes is right, defends the innocent, refuses to compromise even in the face of the apocalypse, never gives in, never backs down, has risen from adversity to to be hero. But how does he go about all this. Through the book we see him torture and intimidate, murder and mutilate anyone who crosses him or the law. And when Rorschach refuses to compromise to make sure the world stays safe then it makes us as readers wonder whether we would stand by our principles even if it meant watching the world burn. When he walks away he walks alone, without his friends but also without the reader; we may not like what Veidt has done but we cannot find the strength of will to walk away from it, because he has saved the world.
Good and Evil are blurred into so many shades of grey that no reader can know what they would do in the place of the characters. But the greatest moment of Watchmen comes at the climax of what was the penultimate issue. Nite Owl and Rorschach confront Ozymandias and anyone who knows anything of the way stories should work can see what should come next: Ozymandias will reveal his plan and then the heroes will stop him just in the nick of time. It's a cliche not just of comics but of all science fiction, action and thrillers. And true to form Moore has Ozymandias reveal his plan to Nite Owl and Rorschach, and we see how ingrained thoughout the plot it is. Every moment is revisited, every plot twist unravelled, every flashback justified and as we begin to comprehend the scale of what Veidt has been planning, Nite Owl and Rorschach tell him that it's over, that they're going to stop him. And then, in just seven words, Alan Moore defies convention, destroys the cliche and delivers the greatest plot twist in the history of comic books.
"I did it thirty-five minutes ago"
And that's it. No way to stop him. He's won. Watchmen is a book which defies convention, asks questions about morality, humanity and justice which we don't want to ask ourselves. It's a book which gives us so much to think about that we can't help but return to it, hoping that maybe this time we'll see who's good, who's evil; who's right and who's wrong, but we never will and that's the beauty of it. It keeps us asking questions until we realise that the only way to answer them is to try to save the world ourselves and see what's right. It's a book which changes the way we think. If that isn't Literature, nothing is.
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Art and Literature
Can comic books be literature? It's a question that's been around for a while and, to be honest, I don't think anyone has ever come up with a proper answer. This is because, for the most part, people have been concentrating on the question "Are comic books literature?" rather than "Can they BE literature?". And the answer is that most comics, like most books, aren't literature. They can be good, but that doesn't make them literature. So what I'm going to do, over my next couple of blogs, is take some specific examples, some comic books and graphic novels, and argue that in individual cases comic books can be literature. I'll be arguing that books like "The Killing Joke", "Arkham Asylum, a Serious House on Serious Earth", "Watchmen" and "Batman, the Long Halloween" can be seen as literature if we stop looking at the issue as a polarising one where all comics either are or aren't literature. (I'm aware that what I've listed are DC publications, but as I write I find it harder to find Marvel comics that stand alone and which I am familiar enough with to argue, although I do not doubt that there are ones. Similarly I'm not familiar enough with 2000AD publications, Neil Gaiman's Sandman series or any other works which may be of literary calibre)
On the subject of whether they can be art, the answer is "Of course they can be", but the art world is more accepting of Comics as a part of their sphere of influence. Think about it, original comic artwork can be worth a lot of money, when was the last time an original comic script was considered of real value, or that comics were appreciated as art for the depth of the writing? That's the balance I want to redress here; to demonstrate that the writing of a comic book can be far greater than that of many books and can stand up as well as the artwork
On the subject of whether they can be art, the answer is "Of course they can be", but the art world is more accepting of Comics as a part of their sphere of influence. Think about it, original comic artwork can be worth a lot of money, when was the last time an original comic script was considered of real value, or that comics were appreciated as art for the depth of the writing? That's the balance I want to redress here; to demonstrate that the writing of a comic book can be far greater than that of many books and can stand up as well as the artwork
Saturday, 23 April 2011
The Reason I Don't Vlog
There is a simple reason I don't vlog. I have a lisp. Now normally that wouldn't stop me, I'd just say what the hell and go for it, but it's more complicated than that.
I have some reflex control over my lisp, in so far as I can make it less pronounced, but I can't do it consciously. When I'm on stage, or otherwise performing in front of an audience, that's when it's least pronounced, my subconscious sort of goes "Shit; he's not meant to be Julian at the moment, lose the lisp" and so, to an extent, I do. Then, when I'm just talking to people normally, it's fairly tame; it will pop up from time to time but mostly it's just an odd way of pronouncing the letter "s" rather than a full blown saying "th" or "sh" instead of "s". But when I'm on my ownm because I can't actually hear the lisp in my voice, there's no reason for me to try not to lisp. And since Vlogging to me is just talking to myself... also, I can hear my lisp really strongly in my voice when I hear it recorded. And it... sickens me
I have some reflex control over my lisp, in so far as I can make it less pronounced, but I can't do it consciously. When I'm on stage, or otherwise performing in front of an audience, that's when it's least pronounced, my subconscious sort of goes "Shit; he's not meant to be Julian at the moment, lose the lisp" and so, to an extent, I do. Then, when I'm just talking to people normally, it's fairly tame; it will pop up from time to time but mostly it's just an odd way of pronouncing the letter "s" rather than a full blown saying "th" or "sh" instead of "s". But when I'm on my ownm because I can't actually hear the lisp in my voice, there's no reason for me to try not to lisp. And since Vlogging to me is just talking to myself... also, I can hear my lisp really strongly in my voice when I hear it recorded. And it... sickens me
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
DORSET
So yeah, I'm back now from sunny Dorset (There is no way we would ever have had such good weather in August, it was incredible. Had to break out the factor 40 and everything). Did a lot of walking, saw a lot of awesome views, as you can see above this.
Lots of things I thought about while away; so blogs to look forward to, but today I want to rant about. This is (drum roll please)
The Prevalence of the Lemon in Modern Culinary Practice.
Why? Just Why?
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
FREEEEEDOM!!!!!
It's the Holidays! I Am Free! So blogging will become sporadic from now on
Those of you who are free, enjoy your freedom :)
Those of you who are free, enjoy your freedom :)
Monday, 11 April 2011
Lost in the Darkness
So, no blog on Saturday (sorry about that) because I have been rather a busy bee. Anyway, I was in Birmingham, seeing "Jekyll and Hyde" at the Hippodrome, and so that's what I'm going to talk about.
You see, there are three different types of good show that I see, and "Jekyll and Hyde" was most certainly the third type. The first type is the best kind of all, the kind of show where I just go "Wow!". David Tennant's Hamlet at the RSC springs to mind. Shows that just completely blow you away and leave you unable to think anything but "Wow!". Then there's type two. With type two I see a show and think "That was awesome, I'd love to play that part". A show becomes type two if I can actually think of how I would play a certain part. This is the most common type of show; it was Toby Stephens as Hamlet (Bloody good type two show years ago) that first got me into drama properly. Then there's type three, which is what "Jekyll and Hyde" was. Type three shows I watch and I think "This is a pretty good show. But I'd do it differently. That doesn't quite work, I'd try this instead". The thing is, if I see a show that I want to put on my own production of as soon as I've seen someone else's version of it then clearly, for me at least, their production was missing something.
I'd like to make it clear that Jekyll and Hyde was spectacular, no doubt about that. But I'd do it differently
You see, there are three different types of good show that I see, and "Jekyll and Hyde" was most certainly the third type. The first type is the best kind of all, the kind of show where I just go "Wow!". David Tennant's Hamlet at the RSC springs to mind. Shows that just completely blow you away and leave you unable to think anything but "Wow!". Then there's type two. With type two I see a show and think "That was awesome, I'd love to play that part". A show becomes type two if I can actually think of how I would play a certain part. This is the most common type of show; it was Toby Stephens as Hamlet (Bloody good type two show years ago) that first got me into drama properly. Then there's type three, which is what "Jekyll and Hyde" was. Type three shows I watch and I think "This is a pretty good show. But I'd do it differently. That doesn't quite work, I'd try this instead". The thing is, if I see a show that I want to put on my own production of as soon as I've seen someone else's version of it then clearly, for me at least, their production was missing something.
I'd like to make it clear that Jekyll and Hyde was spectacular, no doubt about that. But I'd do it differently
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