It's been a big year for Grant Morrison. Between starring in a My Chemical Romance music video, contributing to the documentary 'Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods,' scripting the Vertigo series 'Joe the Barbarian,' working on a psychedelic indie film called 'Sinatoro,' and continuing his Batman mega-arc through 'Batman and Robin,' and 'Return of Bruce Wayne,' the superstar Scottish writer has kept up a frenetic pace with a host of projects as omnivorous and ambitious as his comic books.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Grant Morrison Discusses 'Batman Inc,' Lord Death Man, and the Alan Moore Interview
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Necronomicon 2010 Schedule
This will be my panel schedule for Necronomicon 2010 (I know the ePublishing panel for 2pm is on there twice editing is not my friend, it seems):
Be sure to use your #Necro2010 hashtag, and if you want to reach me while at the con, try via Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/dorkland or my contact info (if you're lucky enough to have it). I'll be actively using Twitter and FB from my phone and laptop after hours. Be sure to stop in and say hi. The con is October 22-24, 2010.
| FRI | 3:00 PM | St. Pete 3 | Game Mastering 101: Get tips from industry pros on how to make your game the best it can be. |
| SAT | 2:00 PM | HTC 3 | E-Pub, POD, & Small Press Publishing: Traditional publishing is faltering and it may not be the right place to seek a venue for your work. Check out these alternatives. |
| SAT | 2:00 PM | HTC 3 | E-Pub, POD, & Small Press Publishing: Traditional publishing is faltering and it may not be the right place to seek a venue for your work. Check out these alternatives. |
| SAT | 4:00 PM | HTC 3 | Horror in Gaming : A discussion on how to create the right air in your games to invoke fear and terror! |
| SAT | 6:00 PM | HTC 3 | Is Self Publishing Right for You?: Learn from those who've made self pub work for themselves. |
| SUN | 1:00 PM | HTC 3 | Making the Most of Your Gaming Character |
Be sure to use your #Necro2010 hashtag, and if you want to reach me while at the con, try via Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/dorkland or my contact info (if you're lucky enough to have it). I'll be actively using Twitter and FB from my phone and laptop after hours. Be sure to stop in and say hi. The con is October 22-24, 2010.
"Thought Experiments"
Like many Asimov’s readers, my diet of literature consists of a great number of science fiction novels, short story anthologies, and magazines. It is not the only artistic pursuit I’m interested in, but it’s accurate to say that reading science fiction has had a profound influence on my own day-to-day life, my intellectual development as an adult, and the formation of my attitudes about our contemporary American culture and its place in the present and future world. The other great artistic love of my life is electronic music, a sonic genre as diverse, innovative, and without boundary as that of the best written science fiction. Though it may seem an oblique comparison, the wildly diverse sub-genres of electronic music have influenced and informed my intellectual development in as profound a manner as the classics of science fiction.I don't know that I agree with a lot of this author's suppositions about music. It seems to me, despite his saying otherwise, to be more than a bit stuck in a moment. I think that saying that musical styles couldn't have resurgences in future eras, or that icons can't have a certain memetic power to them is a bit hidebound, particular with his leanings towards electronic music (which I do love myself). I just think that becoming hidebound musically, or letting personal preferences overcome other considerations of appropriateness, isn't helpful musically, or from a genre perspective.
Of course I say this as I listen to Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works, Volume II because of this. Although, I think that the dissonance of the music might fit better with some of Ballard's works, or some of the 50s-60s output of Ray Bradbury than Moorcock's Cure For Cancer. These works are a bit too calm for Jerry Cornelius.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
The TARDIS crash lands in America for series six of Doctor Who
The BBC announced today that series six of Doctor Who will open with a spectacular two-parter set in the US and penned by 'Who supremo' Steven Moffat.
In the special two-parter co-produced with BBC America, key scenes will be filmed in Utah for a story set in the late Sixties in which the Doctor, Amy and Rory find themselves on a secret summons that takes them on an adventure from the desert in Utah right to the Oval Office itself.
Production on episodes one and two of the new series starts in Cardiff this month and Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill will then travel to America in mid-November to shoot pivotal scenes. They will also be joined by Alex Kingston who reprises her role as River Song.
Showrunner and lead writer, Steven Moffat, said: 'The Doctor has visited every weird and wonderful planet you can imagine, so he was bound get round to America eventually! And of course every Doctor Who fan will be jumping up and down and saying he's been in America before. But not for real, not on location – and not with a story like this one! Oh, you wait!'
Piers Wenger, Head of Drama BBC Wales and Executive Producer, added: 'Steven's scripts generally inspire us to go that extra mile – this time we're going that extra four thousand. Thanks to our friends at BBC America and to the continuing ambition of our lead writer and production team, the first two episodes of Matt Smith's second series as the Doctor are going global and look set to become Doctor Who's most action-packed and ambitious season opener yet.'
Dieselpunk: Manifestos, Dogmas and Labels
I've been thinking about dieselpunk for a bit now, previously without realizing that was what I was thinking about and recently for a couple of projects that I have been working on (gaming and otherwise). Wikipedia, which is rarely helpful, was even less so on this topic:
Having read Children of the Sun, I have to first say that I have never seen anything that less fits what has become its definition, unless of course you thought Velvet Goldmine featured those from the Lost Generation. Using Google to nose around the corners of the internet, I have to say I find the more dogmatic elements of some online communities to be a bit saddening, and puzzling when talking about music.
This is a first post on this topic, because I feel that I need give this some headspace while I develop Crimebusters, my period role-playing game. I think that a part of my problem is that dieselpunk is such an ugly term, and frankly I don't think that the -punk suffix has been properly applied to anything since the Splatterpunk horror writers. There are a number of those in the geek communities who think adding that -punk suffix makes edgier than their outdated black outfits and mish-mash of occult principles makes them in real life. So, while I like the idea of dieselpunk, I think the name leaves much to be desired, outside of a quick short-hand for a group of stereotypes that are popping up in memetic fashion around the label. I guess that my other problem is that the -punk suffix has been done to death (literally in the case of the old gothic-punk worlds of the Vampire games of the 90s) and I would like to see/use a name that doesn't primarily sound like an offshoot of other genres/labels/movements like steampunk, cypberunk or the above mentioned splatterpunk. With steampunk more and more entering the public consciousness (movies like Sherlock Holmes or even this week's episode of the television show Castle), I think that these ideas need its own name. That's why I'm using mythic jazz age to describe what I like from this "genre" and what I plan to do with it.
Do I care if websites change their name from dieselpunk to mythic jazz age once this post is published and goes wild onto the internet? No. Frankly, as I have been for many, many years now, I am a movement of one. If people want to use terms or ideas that I come up with...I am happy. If people want to keep on keeping on...that makes me happy too. In a way, it comes down to the one part of the -punk suffix that I do subscribe to: do-it-yourself.
Dieselpunk is based on the aesthetics of the interbellum period through World War II (c. 1920-1945). The genre combines pop surrealist art with postmodern technology and sensibilities. First coined in 2001 as a marketing term by game designer Lewis Pollak to describe his role-playing game Children of the Sun, dieselpunk has grown to describe a distinct style of visual art, music, motion pictures, fiction, and engineering.
Having read Children of the Sun, I have to first say that I have never seen anything that less fits what has become its definition, unless of course you thought Velvet Goldmine featured those from the Lost Generation. Using Google to nose around the corners of the internet, I have to say I find the more dogmatic elements of some online communities to be a bit saddening, and puzzling when talking about music.
Do I care if websites change their name from dieselpunk to mythic jazz age once this post is published and goes wild onto the internet? No. Frankly, as I have been for many, many years now, I am a movement of one. If people want to use terms or ideas that I come up with...I am happy. If people want to keep on keeping on...that makes me happy too. In a way, it comes down to the one part of the -punk suffix that I do subscribe to: do-it-yourself.
Commentary on DC Comics' New Pricing Initiative
The big news of New York Comic Con didn't involve the reinvention of a long-forgotten character or the next major event mini series by the top talents in comics. What dominated discussions at panels and on the floor was the ongoing question of the price of comics and how all the publishers in the business would compete for reader dollars in the next year, led by DC Comics announcement that it would drop all of its monthly titles to a $2.99 price point this January while dropping the average story length to 20 pages an issue.I am still of the opinion that this (along with Marvel's similar announcement of a price drop) is one of the most significant pieces of comic "news" to come out of the NY ComicCon. Let's face it, all of the "announcements" that come out of these shows are PR/marketing pieces, the initial piece of the drive that will grind away at all of us as comic fans until the books finally come out.
This announcement is, to me, different. Yes, obviously it is PR in that "we listen to you and we care about you" kind of way, but it goes a bit deeper than that. A lot of the concerns that have come out of comic fans with all the BIG MEDIA announcements of the big two over the last year (i.e. Marvel being purchased by Disney and DC suffering from a corporate reshuffling so that their IP can be better leveraged by the rest of Warner) have boiled down to the thoughts that both companies are going to be reduced to nothing more than IP farms, causing us to lose the monthly comics we all know and love.
Honestly, in this day that should be a worry. Look at the announcements that have been coming out of the NY ComicCon, even smaller publishers talk about those media adaptations. However, with the attention that Hollywood is paying to comic properties and old beloved toy franchises the message is clear that it is Hollywood that drives these franchises, and not the fan bases. Most of that is because the geekier pursuits (comics and I'll lump RPGs into this as well since they belong) are becoming more and more marginalized and fringe. Ten thousand fans are small potatoes to the numbers that are wanted for movies, or a television series. Yes, they can court the geek audience (because they are often good for buzz) but unless that audience can be built upon from the "mainstream," then adaptations of properties are going to go no where.
There is also the one thing that everyone needs to keep in the back of their minds during all of this. Entertainment goes in cycles. Sooner or later something will happen with this trend of comic adaptations in movies and television, all it takes is a couple of bad movies or shows, and people will move on to the next thing. I think this is already happening with the trend of YA novel adaptations in the movie theaters, when even a classic like Narnia cannot hold up a franchise.
Hopefully those who are driving the comic publishing companies are keeping the fact that without these comics being published there wouldn't have been any of this IP that they are all so excited to option out for movies and television, because at the end of the day (once this fad has passed by comics again) all that any of us are going to be left with are the comics themselves. Kind of like where we all started.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Gangsters and Gun Molls
Table Top RPGs and Second Life
This post is a bit rough, it's more about some ideas that are floating around in my head than anything else. After almost four years at it, I spend a lot of time in Second Life. I have friends there from all over the world -- geeks, gamers and in-between. There is a lot of gaming that goes on in Second Life, not a lot of it is what those of us who play and design table top RPGs might recognize (some might not even accept it as being what we do), but for me it is the same thing. Some use Second Life as a virtual table top, while others use Second Life for a more immersive, narrative style of play that is more about consensual choices than hard and fast rules.
As a game designer, it's the former that has more bearing on me than the later. One thing that I've thought about for a while is a way to sell to these people, people who are looking for in world tools to enhance their virtual table top. Setting up an in world store with scripted items that could handle things like dice rolling, and similar game tasks like that, is easy enough. My question has always been: How do we get them the rules? And in what format? Second Life doesn't support, unfortunately, epublishing formats that are used by game publishers. That means you end up with a split of in world for the gaming, out of world for the rules. At that point you might as well just use any of the virtual table top tools that are out there. I don't know. I think this is something that can be done. I think this is a market that can be reached, with people who are already involved with role-playing in some format or another but who haven't made that leap to table top gaming.
One of the other hurdles to overcome, would be the accessibility of rule sets. In a table top group it isn't unusual for one or two of the people to be the only ones possessing copies of the rules, while the rest of the group shares. That is a long stand and accepted practice for gaming groups. You can't really do that in the virtual world without promoting piracy, or using quick starts. Neither of which are really useful to game publishers. I know that Troll Lord Games released their StarSIEGE game with a set of core rules, and also a handful of player's books that could be used at the table. This is the sort of thing that would be needed for virtual table tops as well: a virtual boxed set that allows the GM to purchase the rules and then has a sub-license (perhaps) that allows the GM to share copies of player's guides with the people in his virtual gaming group. I imagine this would work something like a site license for software does.
Obviously, this is a high trust option for publishers. There's really nothing that would keep GMs from giving out the player's guides to anyone that they wanted, since PDF technology doesn't really allow for a "cap" on the number of copies you can make of something. It also wouldn't stop players from passing along their PDFs either.
These player's guides wouldn't be complete games. They would be minimal, at best, explaining the basics of how the games mechanics works and allowing the options for character creation. Of course, that is a lot of an RPG. It would be up to the publisher to include as much extra value into these "virtual boxed sets" as possible: rich, well-developed worlds, lots of advice and help for GMs in running virtual games, and etc. It would take some doing, but I can see this as something that has the potential to fly. It has a lot of potential risks too, obviously.
Something to thing about today.
As a game designer, it's the former that has more bearing on me than the later. One thing that I've thought about for a while is a way to sell to these people, people who are looking for in world tools to enhance their virtual table top. Setting up an in world store with scripted items that could handle things like dice rolling, and similar game tasks like that, is easy enough. My question has always been: How do we get them the rules? And in what format? Second Life doesn't support, unfortunately, epublishing formats that are used by game publishers. That means you end up with a split of in world for the gaming, out of world for the rules. At that point you might as well just use any of the virtual table top tools that are out there. I don't know. I think this is something that can be done. I think this is a market that can be reached, with people who are already involved with role-playing in some format or another but who haven't made that leap to table top gaming.
One of the other hurdles to overcome, would be the accessibility of rule sets. In a table top group it isn't unusual for one or two of the people to be the only ones possessing copies of the rules, while the rest of the group shares. That is a long stand and accepted practice for gaming groups. You can't really do that in the virtual world without promoting piracy, or using quick starts. Neither of which are really useful to game publishers. I know that Troll Lord Games released their StarSIEGE game with a set of core rules, and also a handful of player's books that could be used at the table. This is the sort of thing that would be needed for virtual table tops as well: a virtual boxed set that allows the GM to purchase the rules and then has a sub-license (perhaps) that allows the GM to share copies of player's guides with the people in his virtual gaming group. I imagine this would work something like a site license for software does.
Obviously, this is a high trust option for publishers. There's really nothing that would keep GMs from giving out the player's guides to anyone that they wanted, since PDF technology doesn't really allow for a "cap" on the number of copies you can make of something. It also wouldn't stop players from passing along their PDFs either.
These player's guides wouldn't be complete games. They would be minimal, at best, explaining the basics of how the games mechanics works and allowing the options for character creation. Of course, that is a lot of an RPG. It would be up to the publisher to include as much extra value into these "virtual boxed sets" as possible: rich, well-developed worlds, lots of advice and help for GMs in running virtual games, and etc. It would take some doing, but I can see this as something that has the potential to fly. It has a lot of potential risks too, obviously.
Something to thing about today.
Friday, October 08, 2010
NYCC: Godzilla Finds New Stomping Grounds at IDW - Comic Book Resources
The biggest star in motion pictures prepares to wreak havoc once again! IDW Publishing is thrilled to announce a partnership with Toho Co., Ltd. to create all-new GODZILLA comics. Starting in 2011, Godzilla will smash his way back onto the scene with a cast of characters from his films never before seen in comics.
'This new series will be monsters and mayhem, but most importantly, it’s going to be a lot of fun,' said Yukio Kotaki of Toho. 'Godzilla has been gone from comics for too long and we feel that IDW is the perfect company to welcome him back in 2011.'
In addition to the King of the Monsters himself, the new comics from IDW Publishing and Toho Co., Ltd. will feature many of Godzilla’s friends and foes, including MOTHRA™, KING GHIDORAH™, RODAN™ and more that have never before been featured in an American comic book series alongside Godzilla. With an impressive cast of monsters both old and new, IDW’s series will treat fans to both familiar themes and original takes on the pop culture legends that have stomped, smashed, and fought their way across movie screens for over five decades.
'Not only is Godzilla known worldwide, he’s loved worldwide, too. Having a film career with more than 25 movies and going on a 56-year span pretty much solidifies you as a legend, and IDW is really looking forward to contributing to that legacy,' said Chris Ryall, Chief Creative Officer and Editor-in Chief for IDW Publishing. 'We wanted Godzilla to return to comics, but this time we wanted him to have some company. I think fans will be pleased with the monster guest appearances, which will really offer something for every fan of these films. There are the classic characters, but there are also a few surprises, too.'
Debuting in February 2011, fans can expect to see a number of unique storylines from some of the industry’s top creators.
Visit IDWPublishing.com to learn more about the company and its top-selling books.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
DC and Marvel Cut Prices on $3.99 Books to $2,99
DC Cuts $3.99 Ongoing Series to $2.99
Marvel Drops $3.99 Price on New Titles
I wonder how much of this is due to economic trickle down factors? Yes, there is the usual counter argument that comics are a luxury item...but do the people making the books seem to think that? I would think that a luxury item would increase in price due to economic factors rather than decrease.
I wonder what impact, if any, this will have on table top gaming? I know that a lot of people say the same about gaming, that they are luxury items and already underpriced as it is. But comics have always been remarkable inflation (or bad economy) proof. Historically comics did best during times of economic downturn. I know that a lot of geeks tend to have fairly bad credit due to too many impluse purchases outside of their means. Could all of this be catching up to the geek industries?
and then, an hour later:
Beginning January 2011, DC Comics will implement a line-wide pricing adjustment, lowering the prices of all standard length 32-page ongoing comic book titles currently priced at $3.99 to $2.99, it was announced today by DC Comics Co-Publishers Jim Lee and Dan DiDio.
'Today’s announcement re-affirms DC Comics’ commitment to both our core fans and to comic book store retailers,' said Jim Lee, DC Comics Co-Publisher. 'For the long term health of the industry, we are willing to take a financial risk so that readers who love our medium do not abandon the art form.'
Marvel Drops $3.99 Price on New Titles
Less than an hour after their primary competitor announced an across the board drop to a $2.99 price point, Marvel Comics today also announced at least a partial move away from the often criticized $3.99 price for new serialized superhero comics.
During the ICv2 Conference On Comics & Digital – a Thursday afternoon industry pre-event to New York Comic Con – Marvel Senior Vice President of Sales & Circulation David Gabriel confirmed that new books launching in January 2011 will not debut at $3.99. 'A lot of talk I've heard [today is] about the pricing increases overall...because of the digital comics sales, prices will decrease,' he said as part of a panel whose focus was Print Vs. Digital.
I wonder how much of this is due to economic trickle down factors? Yes, there is the usual counter argument that comics are a luxury item...but do the people making the books seem to think that? I would think that a luxury item would increase in price due to economic factors rather than decrease.
I wonder what impact, if any, this will have on table top gaming? I know that a lot of people say the same about gaming, that they are luxury items and already underpriced as it is. But comics have always been remarkable inflation (or bad economy) proof. Historically comics did best during times of economic downturn. I know that a lot of geeks tend to have fairly bad credit due to too many impluse purchases outside of their means. Could all of this be catching up to the geek industries?
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