'Nuff Said: American Graphic Media

A nice essay from PopMatters . Digital Comics and the Return of Disposability

Superheroes made real? #WetheGeeks Google Hangout from the White House.

So, I saw the Green Hornet at an advanced preview screening and and it was good. I can honestly say see it. You won't have that, "I can never get this time back" or "I can't believe I paid 10 bucks" feeling from this movie. You might recall that I have been thinking about the neo-pulp moment. To me the return of classic pulp characters to the small screen ( The Cape ) and big screen extends and progresses a message of masculinity, identity, and agency linked to the American experience. The Green Hornet is a reboot movie and works in part because the character's placement in U.S. popular culture is distinct, but limited. This movie was funny, had lots of action, and interesting visuals. There is something more to be said here. The visual engagement in the Green Hornet has little to nothing to do with 3D, that was pointless. The greatest impact of the 3D, in my opinion, is the end credits sequence. The visual artistry comes from Michel Gondry'...

Ok, I saw Tron Legacy. It is not a bad movie, nor especially great movie, so it is similar to a lot of mass entertainment. Still, thinking about its release for a few weeks and seeing the pop culture landscape react to it, I gotta take a stab of contextualizing it. Tron Legacy is the perfect example of major corporate entity (Disney) trying to exploit a legacy property they know (or have been told) is cool, but they don't quite understand why it is cool. The original 1982 TRON was a financial disaster for Disney, but the movie became a cult classic because it foreshadowed our modern cyber culture. The idea of world inside the computer (the GIRD), the struggle to bring "freedom" to the digital world and the fate of the "user" all resonate with an emerging computer culture shifting from industrial computing to desktop/personal computing affecting everyone. TRON spoke to the implication of living in a world shaped by the computer--good and bad. For kid...

Does popular media shape your belief or does belief shape media? It is a good question, and of course, comic books are one way to consider the problem. Think about it, comic books have for many decades, offered their readers a self-contained world with detailed character histories and evolving circumstances. If you read Superman in the 1940s his dress, ideas, language, and surrounding reflect that time. Today, they reflect contemporary life incorporating radically different social, political, and economic circumstances. The writers update the characters and their world so that readers feel a connection to the story. Thus, we can make the argument strongly that comics reflect culture incorporate new ideas as they come. On the other hand, when comics introduce readers to concepts such as challenging political corruption in the 1930s, attacking the fascism in the 1940s, or challenging racism in the 1960s they do so ahead of mainstream opinion. Therefore, those comics help to shape the ...