Infected Worldmind

mercurial/fond: Rob Liefeld/X-Force Love In Part III of III: Decoration

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:44:37 -0400

mercurial/fond: Rob Liefeld/X-Force Love In Part III of III: Decoration:

“I also think you can see another thing in my work—something that Klimt was approaching—that abstract art is everywhere, and we call it decoration.”
~Zach Smith, “One Thousand Choices per Minute: An Interview with Zak Smith Conducted by Shamim M . Momim” from his artbook Pictures of Girls

Really thought-provoking analysis of Rob Liefeld’s Marvel work from Sarah Horrocks. I think Liefeld’s best work was probably on New Mutants and X-Force in the early ‘90’s. I’ve enjoyed Sarah’s defense of Liefeld’s work. I don’t think it’s fair to attack Liefeld for his failure to adhere to rules of perspective or depict characters with realistic anatomy or his allergy to concise linework. Those are all legitimate choices that we should respect (assuming of course, that they are choices). The real problem with Liefeld is that he’s not very good at telling stories. His books (especially post-Marvel) tend to be unclear and confusing, both terrible qualities for action comics.

ramonvillalobos: sleeper hold Twelve year old Jamaal loves...

Wed, 22 May 2013 07:57:56 -0400

ramonvillalobos:

sleeper hold

Twelve year old Jamaal loves this image.

Fantasy novelist: Alright, time to create my fantasy world. Great thing about this genre is that I can make it anything I want. Could be based on any culture in any place from any time. Could be a mix of places and times, or something newly invented by me. Yup, there is literally nothing out of bounds here.

Wed, 22 May 2013 07:56:12 -0400

Fantasy novelist: Alright, time to create my fantasy world. Great thing about this genre is that I can make it anything I want. Could be based on any culture in any place from any time. Could be a mix of places and times, or something newly invented by me. Yup, there is literally nothing out of bounds here.
Fantasy novelist: I'm gonna go with medieval England.

This is something that runs through my mind when I watch any episode of Game of Thrones.

fantagraphics: Fantagraphics is proud to present the follow-up...

Tue, 21 May 2013 21:50:54 -0400

fantagraphics:

Fantagraphics is proud to present the follow-up to Jacques Tardi’s double Eisner Award-winning masterpiece It Was the War of the Trenches, which was hailed by critics as “harrowing and ruthlessly affecting” (NPR), “a masterful and visceral tone poem about war” (Library Journal), and “a cri de coeur that stands out even from Tardi’s impressive body of work” (Booklist).

Goddamn This War!
by Jacques Tardi & Jean-Pierre Verney

140-page full-color 8.25” x 10.75” hardcover • $24.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-582-2

Due to arrive in about 6-8 weeks. Click the thumbnails for larger versions; get more info, see more previews and pre-order your copy here:

http://www.fantagraphics.com/goddamnthiswar

I can’t wait for this.

charlesholbert: Monica Rambeau

Tue, 21 May 2013 21:19:48 -0400

charlesholbert:

Monica Rambeau

thefader: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BIGGIE READ NOZ ON BIG’S LEGACY:...

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:11:00 -0400

thefader:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BIGGIE

READ NOZ ON BIG’S LEGACY: “This generation digests Big as an icon, not a human. And to do so is to misunderstand him completely.”

“Big entered the game as a fully-formed great rapper, with seemingly no blemishes on his track record. For most of his peers—the greats—there exists a paper trail, however thin, of their evolution—an awkward guest appearance, a sloppy demo, an under-polished underground album—but there are very few Biggie verses on tape anywhere that are anything less than perfectly structured and delivered.”

Really great article. Noz falters a bit towards the end (I think Biggie’s influence was limited by the fact that his approach/style was so hard to replicate without simply mimicking him), but he does a great job of capturing what made Big one of the best rappers ever.

theconstantbuzz: Notorious B.I.G. © Eric Johnson

Tue, 21 May 2013 09:27:48 -0400

theconstantbuzz:

Notorious B.I.G. © Eric Johnson

The Retro Report examines the infamous crack baby myth of the...

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:00:33 -0400

The Retro Report examines the infamous crack baby myth of the 1980’s. via kottke.

mckelvie: We’ve all been there, Astrid. (Sequence from my 2008...

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:47:48 -0400

mckelvie:

We’ve all been there, Astrid.

(Sequence from my 2008 book Suburban Glamour, currently getting a second printing.)

My feelings exactly.

"I respect you. I wanted to be a rapper. I wanted to be a ball-player. Today, like most black men..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 21:08:05 -0400

“

I respect you. I wanted to be a rapper. I wanted to be a ball-player. Today, like most black men under 40, I am neither. You do the Dougie when convenient. You brush your shoulder off when convenient. You admonish black folks for not being you when convenient. We worry about your safety in spite of this. We wish you would talk to them about race and responsibility sometimes.

Please complicate your analysis.

Today, I teach and write. And rap to myself. I am an above average writer and teacher. I am working on being better at being human. I am not a father, nor husband. The most mediocre white man at my bougie job has 16x the wealth I have. My grandmother has the beginnings of dementia, and she is still way smarter than me. She was only allowed to work the line at a chicken plant. She has no wealth, but lots of love for both of you. She prays for your safety. Please complicate your analysis.

Working class white security guards have entered my office 3x times asking to see my ID. Every time, I tell them, “Fuck you. Show me yours.” I desperately cling to intellectual superiority over them. They powerfully claim whiteness and relative wealth over me. This has nothing, and everything, to do with my wanting to be a rapper and baller. I respect you. We respect you. Please complicate your analysis. Imani Perry writes books you should read.

Please tell the truth.

”

- —Kiese Laymon is the author of Long Division and How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America.

Dear First Lady and President, | Cold Drank

Basically.
(via geedee215)
The President and the First Lady need to do better.

npr: Unlike many celebrity chefs, who treat cooking like some...

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:15:12 -0400

npr:

Unlike many celebrity chefs, who treat cooking like some mystical and convoluted ritual, Ina Garten (The Barefoot Countessa) approaches each dish with the nonchalance of someone who could be doing something else. That’s because she could be. Between 1974 and 1978, Garten worked in the Office of Management and Budget at the White House; starting in 1976, she was responsible for the budget of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and for part of the Department of Energy’s. How Garten went from analyzing nuclear policy to overseeing her own cooking empire is one of the unlikelier stories of American reinvention.

— How Ina Garten went from nuclear policy analyst to beloved chef. Mark Joseph Stern - Second Acts - Slate Hive

Photo: Therealbs2002/Wikipedia

My brain just exploded.

funnybookbabylon: The trailer for Lee Daniels’ Butler, coming...

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:51:35 -0400

funnybookbabylon:

The trailer for Lee Daniels’ Butler, coming in the Fall of 2013. The film features a star-studded cast and is already getting awards buzz. I hated this trailer and am deeply ambivalent about the movie. I share some thoughts over at FBB. Come by, revel in my hate.

Jamaal vs the trailer for Lee Daniels’ the Butler for your amusement!

-Stephen Colbert’s great 2011 commencement speech at...

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:37:44 -0400

-Stephen Colbert’s great 2011 commencement speech at Northwestern University. via David Sahl, who focuses on Colbert’s comments on service and love (excerpted below):

“[T]here are very few rules about improvisation, but one of the things I was taught early on is that you are not the most important person in the scene. Everybody else is. And if they are the most important people in the scene, you will naturally pay attention to them and serve them. But the good news is you’re in the scene too. So hopefully to them you’re the most important person, and they will serve you. No one is leading, you’re all following the follower, serving the servant. You cannot win improv. And life is an improvisation. You have no idea what’s going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along. And like improv, you cannot win your life. Even when it might look like you’re winning… In my experience, you will truly serve only what you love, because, as the prophet says, service is love made visible. If you love friends, you will serve your friends. If you love community, you will serve your community. If you love money, you will serve money. And if you love only yourself, you will serve only yourself, and you will have only yourself.”

I think there’s a lot of truth in this.

"Anyway, why does Olivia deserve better than Fitz? Because we all deserve better than Fitz. Did you..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:31:21 -0400

“

Anyway, why does Olivia deserve better than Fitz? Because we all deserve better than Fitz. Did you hear me, O Women Of The World? If you are reading these words, you deserve better than Fitz. Unless, that is, you are Mellie, Fitz’s wife, who exactly deserves Fitz, which is part of what makes the show’s central romantic mythology kind of hard to give a hoot about. If Olivia had a lick of sense, she would make the “that’s that” motion with her hands like she’s smacking the dust off, say “ptooey,” and go have sex with someone more worthwhile. Meaning: anyone.

And Fitz and Mellie would go off and have a whole bunch of evil babies and tour the world like the Von Trapp Family Singers, only they would be a troupe of lying, well-dressed hypocrites who would cry and complain instead of singing “So Long, Farewell.”

Because honestly, Fitz is the worst. He is the absolute worst. In case you don’t believe me, I am prepared to present my list of reasons.

”

- Notes On A ‘Scandal’: Fitz Is The Most Dumpable Man On Television : Monkey See

There are spoilers on the other side of this link. — tanya b.
(via npr)
Fun post. One problem. The reason that the love triangle (rectangle if you count Cyrus, and I do) at the center of the show is so compelling is that Olivia’s just as terrible and morally bankrupt as Fitz. Mellie may be a manipulative woman, but her moral/ethical/actual crimes pale in comparison to those of her husband and his mistress (who have left a trail of broken bodies, lives and dreams over the last two seasons). On another show, she’d be the sympathetic, long-suffering wife. Rhimes does a brilliant job of using screen time and perspective to manipulate the sympathies of the audience. She has us siding with an illegitimate President and the power broker who helped put him in office over a betrayed wife.

"Perhaps there is some corner of the world where white kids desire to be Timothy Geithner instead of..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:21:14 -0400

“Perhaps there is some corner of the world where white kids desire to be Timothy Geithner instead of Tom Brady. But I doubt it. What is specific to black kids is that their dreams often don’t extend past entertainment and athletics. That is a direct result of the kind of limited cultural exposure you find in impoverished, segregated neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods are the direct result of American policy.”

- Ta-Nehisi Coates, on how the Obama administration talks to black America. (via theatlantic)

officialcomedy: gildasradner: “Lorne Michaels would get a lot...

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:13:01 -0400

officialcomedy:

gildasradner:

“Lorne Michaels would get a lot of wear out of his black suits over the years. Indeed, too much. He saw many former cast members meet heartbreakingly premature ends. No one broke more hearts, however, than the former SNL star and member of the founding family of 1975 who died on May 20, 1989, at the age of forty-two. Anyone given half a chance, it seemed, had fallen in love with her, whether literally or vicariously. In the history of the show, there were no brighter lights. Gilda Radner. ”

Rest in peace, Gilda Radner | June 28, 1946 - May 20, 1989

Happy Birthday Gilda.

"I think mainstream American Superhero comics lag a little behind other expressions of teenage life..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:35:31 -0400

“

I think mainstream American Superhero comics lag a little behind other expressions of teenage life in culture, and if you do that, you’re risking writing comics that appeal to the parents of teenagers rather than the teenagers themselves.

In terms of blocks, I suspect a good chunk of it comes out of comics being a visual medium. Text is a great obfuscator of content. You can read a book, and your parents will never know that it contains matter they’d have trouble with, because they’re never actually going to read it. But comics, being visual, are transparent. At a glance, they can judge it — and so often judge it at a glance, without actually reading it.

So you walk a line. I started “Young Avengers” with the scene for a number of reasons, but one of them was certainly seeing if Marvel would let me do it. If I weren’t able to write that, I’d have had to bow out of the gig, because there would be no way of doing anything I thought worth doing.

Marvel didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

I think the biggest blockade to the creation of the content is creators not choosing to create the content.

”

- From my new interview about Young Avengers over at CBR, which finds me in a pugnacious somewhat wanky mode. (via kierongillen)
Hmm.

The DIY Couturier: FUCK YOU, GAWKER.

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:48:17 -0400

The DIY Couturier: FUCK YOU, GAWKER.:

rosalindrobertson:

Gawker is crowdsourcing TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS to pay off the drug dealers who have a video that allegedly shows the mayor of my city smoking crack.

And I think everyone in this city should ask - How DARE you?

Let me talk to you a second about drugs, criminality, poverty, gangs and guns….

digital-femme: Brandon Graham is one of my favorite people in...

Sun, 19 May 2013 11:31:56 -0400

digital-femme:

Brandon Graham is one of my favorite people in existence.

He is horrible.

"At our second meal, at the little cafe attached to the upscale grocery store, I asked Jackson —..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 11:12:11 -0400

“At our second meal, at the little cafe attached to the upscale grocery store, I asked Jackson — innocently enough, I thought — how the N.B.A. has evolved since he first joined it as a player 46 years ago. He started unfolding his napkin to draw another diagram — whereupon I stopped him, went out to my car and brought back a stack of fresh paper. I expected him to sketch maybe three or four representative schemes: the motion offense of his 1970s Knicks, the running game of the 1980s Showtime Lakers, his 1990s Bulls’ signature triangle offense, the screen-roll plays popular today. Instead, Jackson spent more than an hour and a half drawing, in great and sometimes bewildering detail, what turned out to be more than 20 sketches — a mess of circles and arrows and hash marks that represented, no doubt, an infinitesimal fraction of his total basketball knowledge. He worked, the whole time, with the joyful absorption of someone solving a particularly excellent crossword puzzle. The drawings included the offensive sets of some of his biggest rivals — Jerry Sloan’s Jazz, Rick Adelman’s Kings, Mike D’Antoni’s Suns — as well as such novelties as the Horst Pinholster Pinwheel Offense, an elegant but obscure remnant of the 1950s in which everyone without the ball is sucked into a continuous vortex of motion. Jackson taught me how to get Shaquille O’Neal open in the post when the defense wants to double-team him. He drew Michael Jordan’s final two plays against the Jazz in 1998, including the iconic jump shot that won the Bulls their sixth trophy. In response to a sloppy playoff game he saw on TV the night before, Jackson showed me how to eliminate the possibility of a turnover on an inbounds pass.”

- Sam Anderson profiles Phil Jackson for the NY Times.