Buzz, bleet, peechew!

Okay, another column another intro. Get the techno/trance cranked up (the only music I seem to be able to write Supersized to), and hit the rhythm on the keyboard. The down side of not doing interviews is actually having to come up with concrete ideas for the column and not having a general one and letting the interviewee write it for me. (Randy Lander actually cut off half of the questions I had waiting to ask him by his massive answers, but at some point I think I may do a retrospective look at all four interviews to date and analyze a few aspects of them, but I may want to do a few other interviews first.) So what are we up to this week? Well read on and find out.

SUPER GAMES

Last time I mentioned that I’m currently stepping back from comics for a bit and focusing on writing a trio of short stories, two of which may end up being vaguely connected. Way back I mentioned that I had a good sized Universe rumbling around in my head. I’m currently putting it together through a series of short stories ala Asimov’s I, Robot, the difference is that these stories are separated through massive gaps of time, at some points centuries pass between stories. And it’s not only short stories that are being put together here either, one of the central parts of the whole thing is a video game. Now the reason there is a video game and not a novel or short story or even a comic is because it seems like the most engaging way to tell that part of the story, either a short story or a novel would adequately tell what happens at that point in the story, but it would be rather run of the mill stuff with a good chunk of rehashing old concepts with some cool bits of technology but that’s about all. As a comic it would be okay, but nothing really spectacular or ground breaking. But as a video game it actually opens up a whole set of new and interesting problems to solve as a story teller and it helps delve into certain parts of the universe’s history that would seem too much like over detailing other wise. And on the other hand there is the fact that I’ve always wanted to make a video game as well. Quite often story is one of the last things that is thought of when making a video game, and in actuality it is one of the things that always keeps me interested in a game. Tom Clancy now has a whole line of video games that started off his novel Rainbow Six and now includes multiple Rainbow Six games Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, and the ever amazing (and mentioned last time) Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell series. Now Tom Clancy doesn’t actually write these games himself, But warren Ellis has helped with story and cinematic writing in a couple of PS 2 games and Science Fiction legend in his own time and author of the magnificent Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card, has written a video game, Advent Rising, which is the first of a trilogy and due out this coming fall.

Now video games, like comics, are a medium that has a very difficult time being respected as an art form, and in many cases it is quite deserving. Admittedly quite often a video game is designed solely around a single idea or concept, and forcing the story around that. But then there are the games where the designers seem to think through every single aspect of the games design and game play and work them around the story instead of forcing the story to conform to the level and area concepts. Bungie’s Xbox (and now PC) game Halo is an excellent example of setting up the concepts and environments within the window of the story itself, each level heightens the tension and adds depth to the story, with game cinematics interspersed which move the story along smoothly, always following a logical progression. The success of the story along with the graphics, cinematics and gameplay can be seen by the game still stand head and shoulders above any other First person Shooter game out there. There is a definite art to making games like this and it is an interesting one that I would love the chance to explore.

SUPER SCIENCE

Okay, science fiction. One of my Profs in University pointed out something in a conversation we had one day about my writing saying something to the effect that “the modernists had Mysteries as their adopted genre, where the Post-Modernists had Science-Fiction.” This may actually be someone else’s observation, but I caught it from him. Which makes a general kind of sense since it often seems like the Modernists were searching for something in much of their work, but didn’t know what (like a good mystery). The Post-modernists had finally discovered what the modernists were looking for, the Atomic bomb, and with it the forthcoming end of the world. Samuel Becket, one of the first and key players within the Post-Modernist “movement” (I have a hard time thinking of it as a movement, it always seemed to me to be more of a natural evolution or a “happening” than a “movement”) was actually a science-fiction writer. Few of his works take place in a reality as we know it, his second major work, Endgame, actually wakes place in a post apocalyptic world. Yet science fiction is often equated with film franchises and fiction for teenaged boys.

One of the possible reasons for this is because it often over looks emotional levels and deals mostly with the philosophy or technology behind the story instead of just letting the story live on its own. William Faulkner mad a nice point in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1950: “The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.” This is a point that Philip K. Dick made about science fiction as well (he included his own work in the criticism) that Science fiction lacked a romantic heart. Paul Pope (the good little Dick acolyte that he is) has done a great job of trying to remedy the situation in works like The Ballad of Dr. Richardson and 100%.

The other fun thing that science fiction can do though that no other form can is ask questions about what it means to be human and what the nature of reality is. Easy examples of this can be seen in movies like Gattaca, Bicentennial Man and The Matrix. It allows us the opportunity to look at ourselves from a distance.

SUPER LIT

I’ve been following the recent livejournal entries of Jennifer de Guzman (the EiC of Slave Labor Graphics) as she has been debating with herself and others on the subject of literary fiction and why more people don’t read it. I actually just clued in to something tonight and I figured I’d drop it here. Neither Shakespeare, Dickens or even Wilde were considered great literary marvels in their time, they were popular writers who played to their audience rather than their critics. Shakespeare was even known for playing more to the pit than to the seats where the more intelligent and insightful were known to sit. In a hundred years it’s not going to be James Joyce, Samuel Beckett or Salmon Rushdie, who will be remembered, but Stephen King, and John Grisham.

Sorry Jennifer (and all the other lit students out there), but that’s the way the cookie has always seemed to crumble. Of course it has also been pointed out that literary artistry of this kind has been a recent development in the past 150 years or so, before then you had to be considered great for at least 200 years before you were considered any good. Now you just have to make sure that the people with lit degrees are the only ones who can penetrate you books to be considered a great. (That came from a guy with a BA in English lit by the way.)

If the first rule of story telling is that one must tell a story in a clear and understandable manner than James Joyce (and myself as well) is a complete failure. Of course if the first rule of artistry is to push yourself to create something new and different than Joyce was an incredible success. Of course Joyce merely focused on the artistry, instead of trying to fall within both realms. There were two books that basically topped the lists of “Best books of the Twentieth Century” Ulysses was one of them, the other was Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

(I would like to add here that I’m merely playing devil’s advocate against the literary mindset, partially because I think it forgets these ideas from time to time, and partially because I like a fun ride in a story sometimes over a challenge or intricate wordsmithing and artistry, but that shouldn’t really discount the importance of the wordsmiths either.)

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Alright, that’s it for now and remember:

Go See: THE BED TRICK written and directed by Joel Fishbane (A Guy who would be a great catch for the comic industry by the way) featuring: Shawn Baichoo, Ian Young, Freya Ravensburgen, and Judith Baribeau. Playing at The Geordie Theatre Space, 4001 Berri (@ Duluth) May 13 - 15 , 19 - 22 @ 8 PM ! May 15, 22 @ 2:30 PM Adults: $15 ! Students / Seniors / Lawyers: $12 ! Matinees: PWYC Info / Reservations: (514) 931 5449 ! mrpumpkin@sympatico.ca

‘Till next time

-Jay