Keep On Dancing, Right As the Curtain Is Closing

I wrote this listening to the new Felix Culpa record, available January 24th (also my birthday) from Youth Conspiracy Records. It's pretty long (out of the 66 minutes, they could have cut anywhere from seven to 10 minutes), but it's all an intense ride. I suggest you buy it.

The title comes from the Bane song End With An Ellipsis, a song about the vocalist seeing the end coming for his band, but not wanting to go sadly. Anyway, the meat of this is about S.W.O.R.D., an ongoing from Marvel that just this week made its way to the "buy me" pile, got cancelled. At least it's in good company, though, with Doctor Voodoo, Captain Britain and MI:13 and the Immortal Iron Fist.

S.W.O.R.D. got cancelled at issue #5 (cover left) due to poor sales, which everyone with a functioning brain saw coming. Everyone on the series saw that coming and it was even written as if it would end at issue #5, according to writer Kieron Gillen, (lover of obscure British pop) known also for Phonogram, a comic I enjoy quite a bit.

It's a shame, because it's a neat little spinoff comic focusing on different characters in the Marvel Universe with a tangential relation to established franchises (X-Men). I picked up issue #3 last week and while I found Beast a little bit too whip-smart and it took getting used seeing Beast look more like a horse, I warmed up to it quickly.

Gillen posits two explanations:

1. New ongoings in a shitty economy are extremely risky. (true)

2. The first two issues are ordered before anyone has read the first one so the new series might be on grounds to be cancelled before anyone has the opportunity to buy a single issue. A crazy systemic problem with comics. (true)

Quoted by CBR's Robot 6, Gillen said "It was already on unsteady ground before anyone had even read the thing."

And as soon as I read that, my mind goes to another recent launch: Batwoman. Both are spinoffs of established series (S.W.O.R.D. has X-Men and Batwoman has Batman) but their launches couldn't be more different.

Consider: Batwoman's stories have appeared in Detective Comics, 52 and Final Crisis (52 and Final Crisis being DC events) and the talk only now is coming to her own ongoing. S.W.O.R.D. (created by Joss Whedon during his Astonishing X-Men run in 2004) was thrown into its own ongoing with no lead up or introduction to the characters outside of Secret Invasion, an event from two years ago before the launch of S.W.O.R.D.

The artist on Batwoman is the stupid talented J.H. Williams III, narrowly losing to the guy drawing Blackest Night (46% to 54%) as the artist of the year in a Newsarama poll, but winning the cover of the year with his work on Detective 855 (see right). J.H. also did Promethea with Alan Moore, which also had amazing layouts. Also! Take a look at those colors. Dave Stewart (the colorist) deserves some serious kudos. Suffice to say the art team on S.W.O.R.D. doesn't have that pedigree.

I'm not sure Gillen is in the same league as Rucka, but I buy Gillen's books more frequently than I do Rucka's, so the kangaroo court of my mind has a sizable pro-Gillen bias.

The connection to the X-Men is Beast, which could have been reinforced a little bit more. What's Nightcrawler doing these days? He would fit note-perfect in an ongoing about aliens, earth and alienation. It's Beast, Abagail Brand and "everyone's favorite paper pusher" as the front and center players from the Marvel Universe.

The short version of all this is: based on this criteria, my guess is S.W.O.R.D. just didn't have the editorial backing that Batwoman did. If you want people to buy another new book, then you have to have Things Happen in the book, but also, you have to put your top-tier people on it. The new book needs to be a must-read. S.W.O.R.D. wasn't positioned as a book that's must-read. It's cool if it is read.

I want to come back to Gillen McKelvie's quote: "It was on unsteady ground before anyone had even read the thing." Marvel, I think, didn't take enough steps to compensate for the unsteadiness of the new ground and combine that with the viciousness of a market that's already hurting from an economic collapse and S.W.O.R.D.'s numbers were limited, in this case, from the start.

Of course, that's not to say S.W.O.R.D. was boring. Far from it. The first issue I picked up, ,#3, had a spectacular visual for a cover (see below), Beast being an incorrigible badass, a firebreathing dragon and xenophobia.

You've got a tiny dragon pointing guns with three barrels at you and not just that, but a shotgun and an assault rifle strapped to his back. Awwwww! S.W.O.R.D. will be missed for that reason, for its ability to blend being cute and intelligent. But hey. It's fun and it's got two issues left.

Like Conan, S.W.O.R.D. got screwed, but at least there's a trade in the future. That said, there's a fun feeling to buying the remaining issues of a cult-classic series that's walking dead. You were in before people realized it was so cool, so even if it's gonna end, pick up the issues.

Like many of Mr. Gillen's favorite artists, his work was under-appreciated the first time around and would gain significance only after the band's finished. For his first unique Marvel ongoing, it seems appropriate S.W.O.R.D. ends the same way.

Theme Week: Responsibility and Pokemones (UPDATES)

Teenagers in Chile calling themselves Pokemones are having oral-sex orgies in public parks.

I'll wait for the "Herpes, I Choose You!" jokes to die down.

...

Whenever you're ready.

Okay?

Good to hear. Since this is responsibility week, it would be fairly simple to say that "the kids ought to know better", and they should. But that's not the entire story. They're experimenting teens who are just starting to have monetary freedom in a world where the Cat-hol-ic (as Tom would put it) Church is an omnipresent force in their lives, a very conservative omnipresent force, I hasten to add.

Let's not forget that this has certain parallels to American History, both socially and economically.

And so, it does not take a psychic to tell you that the Church is going to use this as an opportunity to say "look, I told you so, and the kids are craaaaaaazy these days". If the Church is going to present itself as the upright moral members of society, which I will bet they will, they ought to direct the kids to a STD center where they can get tested and learn about what, precisely they may have and how to deal with it later on in their lives.

Being the moral center of the country means that the Church will sometimes have to lead the sheep, calm them down and tell their charges it's okay. I don't see the (Holy Mother, as my mother might say) Church doing that. I don't think they will*. If they do, it will be against a comfortable precedent. I hope the Church gets uncomfortable.

I hope, far more fervently, that not too many STDs and horrible consequences befall the teenagers. We all were once like that, and I just want them to learn and be given a pass, but I know, to my great Dismay, that it just won't happen.

*This is of course, not to say that the Catholic Church is evil. I see a precedent. I see young, impressionable, and soon to be scared kids. This is not ideal. I hope for many good things for these teenagers, whom, in another life, I suspect, I would be fairly close to. I write this listening to Lagwagon's Automatic, a song about the habits we fall into in a life, off of a disc that was spawned and written from when a good friend of the band committed suicide. It's an interesting juxtaposition.

**There is at least one person on Kotaku who says that Newsweek is full of crap, and has terrible sources, so in keeping with the current era of the internet, I point you to that link to continue your education on the sensual expressions of Chilean teenagers. 

I'd say I'll keep you updated on the matter, but frankly, I don't want it to become a theme.

Anonymous versus Scientology - Pittsburgh Edition

An interesting thing happened in Pittsburgh yesterday: thirty or forty nerds (of both genders) stood up from their computers and walked, drove or used public transportation to get to the local office of the Church of Scientology. There, in below freezing temperatures, they stood in masks, hats, sunglasses and coats, and peacefully protested the tactics employed by the Church of Scientology in suppressing information about its beliefs and practices.

However, these were no ordinary nerds, and this was no isolated, easily ignored protest. The protesters were members of internet strike force Anonymous, a group that sprung up out of some of the least censored places of information exchange on the internet: the *chan family of boards. The boards, which include the notorious 4chan, serve as a home to one of the internet's most vibrant, rapid-paced, bewildering, brutal and intellectually incestuous cultures. Serving as houses of exchange for images as well as ideas, they are the secret forges in which lolcats were forged and the breeding grounds in which memes exponentiate.

Anonymous emerged as a kind of group identity in these troubled waters, a sort of lurking presence that would have you believe they are always behind you, watching what you do, always there to mock anyone who displays overweening pride, a collective voice moving through the shadows. You see, anyone can post anonymously on one of these boards, but you never know which anonymous comments are Anonymous.

This shadowy group of forum dwellers and IRC aficionados was incensed when, on January 18th, the Church of Scientology attempted to have a certain infamous Tom Cruise video (check the tag) removed from Youtube as a copyright violation. Considering this act an act of internet censorship, Anonymous launched Project Chanology on January 21st with a video in which a synthesized voice read out the following message over intensely menacing music and time-lapsed footage of clouds:

"Hello, Scientology. We are Anonymous.

Over the years, we have been watching you. Your campaigns of misinformation; suppression of dissent; your litigious nature, all of these things have caught our eye. With the leakage of your latest propaganda video into mainstream circulation, the extent of your malign influence over those who trust you, who call you leader, has been made clear to us. Anonymous has therefore decided that your organization should be destroyed."

The message continues, in brilliant propagandistic form, and was merely the opening move in a strategy which yesterday saw actual human beings taking to the actual streets in actual anonymity, except for the brave few who left their faces uncovered, and those who were picketing in areas where masks were prohibited. Some of those made do with hats, scarves and sunglasses. The nearest protest,as far as I'm concerned, was the one in Pittsburgh.



A friend of mine, who we're going to call Jordan Edwards*, was able to make it to the scene. He took the pictures you're seeing, and had this to say: "Besides the fact that it was a protest, everything seemed pretty cordial. No one was shouting anything, they were just waving signs and talking politely to the people who stopped or honked their horns."


*The illegitimate son of John Edwards. Yes, this is a pseudonym. Somewhat.

The rest of the pictures depict similarly peaceful scenes, which seem to have been a general theme for the day, with protesters apparently enjoying themselves. There was an incident in Hollywood where a Scientologist woman apparently approached, heckled, and then assaulted protesters before being dragged back into the Scientology compound and subsequently arrested. I find it infinitely amusing that, as she approaches and attempts to provoke hostility, Anonymous begin to chant, "Don't feed the troll!"

I think this is the first time we've seen an internet subculture become actively involved in protesting organizations or events in the real-world that do not directly threaten them. Certainly, it's the first time an internet subculture has organized global protests of an organization in under three weeks.

Pundits and traditional journalists have frequently disparaged the internet generation for writing about things on their blog, but not taking action in the real world. Events like this, which remind me of flash mobs (or, more accurately, smart mobs) on a global scale, make me wonder if we're just still figuring out how to best arrange such displays.

It's something to keep an eye on.

The Internet is SerioSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP

My father introduced me to a new vocabulary term today - the Spruce Horrors. It's a phrase that woodsmen (googling it brings up an essay on prison rape!) used to describe the sense of disorientation and overwhelming fear that comes to one after working in the woods for too long, and then suddenly looking up and realizing that Holy Fuck You Are Lost. The trees all look the same, there are no obvious tracks back to where you are. It is the sense of abandonment that comes from forgetting to think about where you are, as you instead focusing entirely upon what you are doing. And then you look up and remember that you have to haul a twenty pound brush cutter untold miles back to your truck, it's getting dark, and oh no! Coyotes!

In my most ravingly self-congratulatory moments, I like to think that Elevennames tries to bring about a bit of the Spruce Horrors to it's readers.

Then I remember that I alone account for at least ten of our page hits a day (which is roughly 1/3rd of our total daily traffic) and then I get really depressed. Still, having a successful website that pays my beer tab is like having THE AUDACITY TO HOPE, so Ror.

ANYway, I bring up the issue of disorientation and growing horror (and coyotes!) in regards to Our Tubular Internets after reading this article from Wired magazine discussing griefers on Second Life. The article itself is something of a paean to Something Awful and its forums, so I am naturally incredulous of it's journalistic integrity. Also, it is written about one group of people in an imaginary world attacking another group of people in an imaginary world, and there are much better pieces out there for your perusal.

Who is the audience for that piece? If you give people anonymity, autonomy, and free reign to do whatever the hell they please, is anyone honestly amazed that suddenly, the sky will start to rain dancing penises? Are you new to the internet? Is this 1995? Hey, have you seen this cool new image called goatse yet? Anyone who isn't aware that sometimes people online are very impolite is probably an old person, and for serious, the baby boomers should all just be turned into soylent green already anyway.

The whole idea of Second Life is (to me) black-heartedly disgusting, the worst manifestation of the Spruce Horrors that I can currently think of in an online context. You are given the privilege to pay for your imagination, and in such a way that you can actually flaunt it in front of other people (which consist at least partially of sex-starved singles, sex-starved furries, and other sex-starved potpourri). Way to profit off of a childlike sense of exploration and interaction (and sex-starvation).

You douchebags.

The entire issue is at once a metaphor of colonialization and one of fucking playground politics. People have found out that on one hand, there's some money to be made off of this Internet thing, and seek to export it's heady spices back to their Real World, where their bank accounts may grow fat without much work (insert self aware pause). On the other hand, a group of people are given a playground in which to work their imaginations, and some people are being mean, and making fun of others. To say that civilization is at work with either would be to demean the very idea of civilization - administrators will either take action against the mean kids, or else the colonialists and the natives will be left to duke it out before the watching eyes of some bemused onlookers. Given that money is involved, the cynic in me thinks that it's more likely that steps will be taken to ensure a Safe Business Environment, but then I remember that, hey! It's the internet, and there are much more important things out there.

The Spruce Horrors, as you can see, are very easy to suffer from.

Blogging at Home for the Painfully Alone

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have a life full of dignity and self respect. Wouldn't it get dull after a while? When would you talk to yourself under your breath, telling yourself how stupid or ugly you are? That you shouldn't do something because you'll only fail spectacularly at it (hello College, Social Life, and Elevennames!), like you've failed at everything else?

This would, in an ideal situation, be the point where I say "But then you go ahead and do it anyway and then you feel great about it because you aren't trying to prove anything to anyone." But I am not going to say this. Because it is a filthy bastard lie. I have done plenty of things that I knew I should not have done, and I did not feel good about doing them. That voice in your head that tells you about your limitations is there for a damn good reason. I don't doubt that sometimes it must be ignored, the times when you have to talk to the girl or write the paper or do something bold and brave and hooray inducing. Other times, individuals must be aware that no amount of blatant denial will hide their obvious, tragic failings. Which is part of what makes the internet such a miracle; we are forever observing people who participate in this culture of blatant denial. Sometimes we even reward them! The great yawning chasm of despair that mortal men call YouTube is seeded on a minutely basis with people who want the whole world to see their failings and arrogance. This is not to imply I'm naval-gazing over some kind of recent phenomenon, either; observe Danny Tanner and America's Funniest Home Videos, or even that Funt guy and his show. There is precedent here - I mean, what did people do at gladiatorial games, if not laugh at the funny looking or unlucky contestants? I mean, there wasn't a lot of replay value when they were eaten by tigers or whatever.

So instead of (can I begin a sentence not on a preposition, just once?) musing about the gradual erosion of dignity and the whole notion of Blogging Like An Adult (I just googled that!), I just figure that the whole thing is a social construct anyway, and I've got enough of those already, kthnx. I grew up with dungeons and dragons - I don't need another set of codified instructions about imaginary entities interfering with my daily life. Suffice it to say, the old crank in me hates everything, while the kid in me likes the two scoops of raisins. Or whatever. Effing Family Guy has ruined my entire generation. Or has it?

Anyway. My point (the irony is that I got distracted by the adult ADD website) is that, uh, the internets are an evolution of natural human patterns, and, uh (ha ha, check out that list of 151 strengths of adults with ADD! "The Positive's (sic) of ADD") that there's really nothing fancy or newfangled about it, that it's just more voices to contend with - that if they weren't supplied from the outside, they'd probably come from within. Human personalities seem to be consciously self regulating in a way that I (in my intense and scientific studies) have not noticed in animals. Which is to say, a trained dog will not look down it's nose (okay, so it will, hey, why don't you shut up?) at a dog which doesn't have any sort of normal socialization. And that hey, maybe that's the point of humanity's progress! Perhaps every social and scientific advancement has just been one great escalation of snobbery, a great sociological pyramid of gentrification, constantly seeking that one universal, Fonzy-like cool that will end the search. It certainly sounds bleak enough to be a cosmic truth, and fits nicely into the myths of lost civilizations.

Yeah, Atlantis? It was real cool until all these effing hipsters moved in, and the developers built all those new hotels and then the Gods killed the fuck out of everyone there.

But we, as mankind (perhaps man unkind? Oh ho!) will continue to build these giant enormous misguided attempts at setting ourselves apart from the crowd; our Williamsburgs or our Towers of Babel, and in the end, we're going to be left with a thousand languages and a million Brooklyn Vegans, leaving behind only disunity in their wake. We, as a species, will always look back to the studio 54's of our past, proclaiming that before us came a golden time, and that it is what we strive for, and that only disease and death await us in the future. Which is true!

In summation, we can have our metaverses and second lives and other kinds of annoyingly populist dreams about the future of technology, but we also have to acknowledge that, ultimately, they're going to jump the shark. As Yeats wrote, the center cannot hold. Or, as the alternapress can point out, Vice is going to be bought out by MTV. And that, in the end, is the mad rush and joy of being human - fast paced, tossing your all behind a hope or an ideal (we're all scenesters - don't deny it!), and then praying that we don't be too embarrassed by them in later on. Or that if we are, then at least we can be proud that we ignored that little voice inside our heads long enough to actually go for something, to risk being put in a compromising position so that we can know, for just a few moments, that for a short while we were the mad pulse of humanity, driving it onwards to it's next heartbeat.