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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 15, 2015 16:25:36 GMT -5
Just a coincidence. Long story short, I was in Dallas in 1978 attending a Radio and Records (magazine) convention helping a friend who was hawking a syndicated radio program. One of the offerings that virtually nobody attended was a talk by McLuhan. I have to confess that what I wrote about earlier is all that has stuck with me, but those thoughts have resonated over the years and I have applied them to so many other aspects of culture. Don't know if those remarks had sprung from something he'd written then or if they were later put into one of his books. I should look into that. Of course, I've always gotten a huge kick out of his appearance in Annie Hall, too! I LOVE the 1939 Hunchback (that sounds odd): O'Hara is fiery; Laughton, heart-wrenching. The set, the acting, love it all! Come to thnk of it, Edmond O'Brien's character sounds like Green Arrow in the GL series! McLuhan did an essay or two on comic book / strip characters in his collection THE MECHANICAL BRIDE. I read what he had to say; wasn't hugely impressed. Here's a writeup.Thanks for that link to McLuhan Galaxy. He's one of my heroes. I'll be going here a lot. It's not hard to read McLuhan and come across a few things that he said that make you wonder what he was smoking that day. I think he had a wide-ranging curiosity that led him to study everything, and sometimes he used his imagination where some data might have been better. But in general, he was brilliant. I think about Understanding Media several times a day, just thinking about how the physical limitations of specific forms of media shape the end product, and then how the material is transformed again when it gets translated into another media in another time in another country. But, yeah, you will occasionally roll your eyes when reading him. I would love to have met him. I laughed at that crack about Reader's Digest being Pollyanna Digest. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 16, 2015 8:08:14 GMT -5
McLuhan did an essay or two on comic book / strip characters in his collection THE MECHANICAL BRIDE. I read what he had to say; wasn't hugely impressed. Here's a writeup.Thanks for that link to McLuhan Galaxy. He's one of my heroes. I'll be going here a lot. It's not hard to read McLuhan and come across a few things that he said that make you wonder what he was smoking that day. I think he had a wide-ranging curiosity that led him to study everything, and sometimes he used his imagination where some data might have been better. But in general, he was brilliant. I think about Understanding Media several times a day, just thinking about how the physical limitations of specific forms of media shape the end product, and then how the material is transformed again when it gets translated into another media in another time in another country. But, yeah, you will occasionally roll your eyes when reading him. I would love to have met him. I laughed at that crack about Reader's Digest being Pollyanna Digest. And IIRC from that link, he wrote that in 1951. That was a little like saying,"Apple pie sucks." |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Nov 16, 2015 12:25:42 GMT -5
McLuhan did an essay or two on comic book / strip characters in his collection THE MECHANICAL BRIDE. I read what he had to say; wasn't hugely impressed. Here's a writeup.Thanks for that link to McLuhan Galaxy. He's one of my heroes. I'll be going here a lot. It's not hard to read McLuhan and come across a few things that he said that make you wonder what he was smoking that day. I think he had a wide-ranging curiosity that led him to study everything, and sometimes he used his imagination where some data might have been better. But in general, he was brilliant. I think about Understanding Media several times a day, just thinking about how the physical limitations of specific forms of media shape the end product, and then how the material is transformed again when it gets translated into another media in another time in another country. But, yeah, you will occasionally roll your eyes when reading him. I would love to have met him. I laughed at that crack about Reader's Digest being Pollyanna Digest. In my post graduate studies, history of communication theories was one of my majors, so McLuhan couldn't be escaped. Yet, however practical and effective his "points" were, I can't help but find him a little bit of a "master of the obvious". He mostly uses simple and practical words/expressions to describe abstract concepts, and kudos for that, but there's little thought provoking ideas. |
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Post by dupersuper on Nov 16, 2015 15:37:27 GMT -5
My controversial opinion is that pretty much every character, including those I don't generally care for, can be great under a great writer who gets them.
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 17, 2015 5:59:39 GMT -5
My controversial opinion is that pretty much every character, including those I don't generally care for, can be great under a great writer who gets them. I always thought of that statement, but when writers take over a character, often times they make them into something totally new. Is it really the same character? |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Nov 17, 2015 8:52:02 GMT -5
My controversial opinion is that pretty much every character, including those I don't generally care for, can be great under a great writer who gets them. I always thought of that statement, but when writers take over a character, often times they make them into something totally new. Is it really the same character? Who cares? If I character I don't enjoy such as Prophet falls into the hands of Brandon Graham and makes it good, I'm still gonna say I enjoy Prophet under the pen of Graham, Prophet, te rob Liefeld creation. In that case, he still wears similarities to the character though. I never ever cared for Hulk until certain writers made him work for me. So yes,it's always up to the writers to make a character interesting when they are corporatly owned. Sandman by Gaiman is new from Kirby's but is it? as storywise, Gaian managed to tackle that as well. But I guess a fan of Kirby's would struggle to initially see the connexion. With Swamp Thing, the connexion is easy to see, yet, Alan Moore actually made him into something totally new, and no one complains about that. |
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Post by JKCarrier on Nov 17, 2015 10:57:31 GMT -5
That said, I was never ecstatic about the NEW TEEN TITANS, even the definitive Wolfman-Perez stuff. I never warmed up to the series either. It seemed like such a blatant attempt to do a DC version of X-Men: Cyborg/Colossus, Starfire/Storm, Changeling/Nightcrawler, Raven/Phoenix. Robin even started acting like Cyclops, all grumpy and depressed. Bleh. Nice art, though. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 17, 2015 11:24:29 GMT -5
My controversial opinion is that pretty much every character, including those I don't generally care for, can be great under a great writer who gets them. I always thought of that statement, but when writers take over a character, often times they make them into something totally new. Is it really the same character? Are Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm in Strange Tales #124 to #134 different characters from Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm in Fantastic Four #44 to #64 just because one run is not very good and the other is among the best comics run of all time? There's a lot more to creating different characters than just better writing. To me, a really good example of a series that injected some life into a bunch of weak characters was 2012's Villains for Hire. There's a bunch of second- and third-string villains in that series - Avalanche, Shocker, Tiger Shark, Bushmaster, Speed Demon - and a lot of them, maybe most of them, are a lot more interesting here than they ever were in their previous appearance. (I hesitated about including Tiger Shark in the list above because he's been around for a very long time and he's almost a first-tier Sub-Mariner villain. But when I think of Tiger Shark, I think of the great John Buscema art and his great character design. I'm having trouble remembering what happened in his appearances with Subby.) The standout in Villains for Hire was Headhunter. She was an awful awful awful John Byrne character. Visually interesting, but terrible. I liked her a lot in Villains for Hire. She was totally revitalized. But I don't see anything contradictory in Villains for Hire when stacked up against previous appearances of these characters. (Except for the time-frame. But that's comics! If Peter Parker can spend thirty years in grad school, then Headhunter can appear twenty years after her first appearance and look the same.) Which is not to say that much of the time, you do get a completely new character, especially in the era or perennial reboots. The New 52 O.M.A.C was clearly not Kirby's O.M.A.C. But it doesn't necessarily follow that a new writer means a new character. |
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Post by The Captain on Nov 17, 2015 12:22:29 GMT -5
My controversial opinion is that pretty much every character, including those I don't generally care for, can be great under a great writer who gets them. I always thought of that statement, but when writers take over a character, often times they make them into something totally new. Is it really the same character? I think it depends on how they go about making that character into something "totally new". If a new writer came onto Captain America, for sake of argument, and turned Steve Rogers into a Punisher-style character in the first issue, someone who found an A.I.M. outpost and indiscriminately slaughtered everyone inside, it would be a "totally new" character because while the name was the same, the change was for shock value, done to drive up interest and tweak sales. However, if that same writer came onto the title and showed a gradual loosening of Steve's "no kill" policy due to attacks from A.I.M. on not only him but also his friends and allies, with maybe the death of Sharon or Sam being thrown into the mix, bringing Steve to reach the conclusion that unless he eliminated the enemy permanently, no one he ever knew would be safe, that would part of an evolution. It would still be the same character, just at a different phase in life due to circumstances. I don't do the same things or have the same interests that I did when I was 25. That change did not happen overnight, where I woke up and was completely new, but rather it involved getting married, getting a professional job, having two kids, buying a house, etc. |
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Post by dupersuper on Nov 17, 2015 19:41:04 GMT -5
My controversial opinion is that pretty much every character, including those I don't generally care for, can be great under a great writer who gets them. I always thought of that statement, but when writers take over a character, often times they make them into something totally new. Is it really the same character? Thus my "who gets them" caveat. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2015 19:47:10 GMT -5
Wolverine is over-exposed. Shut your hairy piehole bub.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 17, 2015 19:50:33 GMT -5
Cheryl Blossom is my favorite Archie-verse character. I'm not sure why.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Nov 18, 2015 2:13:35 GMT -5
When a super-hero team attacks a single villain, I'm rooting for the villain. It just seems to me a case of bullies ganging up on an individual, no matter how powerful that individual is. The individual comes off as being braver as well. And when its an army of supers like The Avengers, The Legion etc., they come off like a pack of coyotes swarming around a noble lion
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Post by batlaw on Nov 18, 2015 5:50:34 GMT -5
Popular or beloved characters I just don't care for or get the people's love for:
Fantastic four
Moon knight
Thor
namor
I'm sure there's more but these are the most popular examples I can think of.
Only comic book adjacent but I personally hate (yes hate) dr. Who and professional wrestling.
I hate a lot of other stuff too but these just came to me and kinda fit the topic. Plus I'm in a bad mood lol.
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 18, 2015 7:30:06 GMT -5
Popular or beloved characters I just don't care for or get the people's love for: Fantastic four Moon knight Thor namor I'm sure there's more but these are the most popular examples I can think of. Only comic book adjacent but I personally hate (yes hate) dr. Who and professional wrestling. I hate a lot of other stuff too but these just came to me and kinda fit the topic. Plus I'm in a bad mood lol. The Fantastic Four is beloved because they started the entire MU and were , creatively , the most innovative. Nowadays that all gets lost because their book was canceled. |
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