I remember reading an interview with East Bay Ray just a few years ago where he commented that more time had passed between the original formation of Dead Kennedys and the day he was giving that interview than had passed between the debut of Elvis Presley and the original formation of Dead Kennedys. The reason that’s worthy of commentary is because there had been entire epochs of music rise and fall in just a short twenty years between the birth of rock and roll and American punk. Now, it seems, entire decades can go by without anything that feels as revolutionary as what The Beatles or The Clash or Miles Davis did on an annual basis.
Comics journalist Tom Spurgeon recently said this about DC Comics canceling the long-running Vertigo title Hellblazer:
“John Constantine is one of the few later-period characters they have — which means he’s still 27 years old, but still.
“Here’s something I noticed when I got that 27-year-old number. That means that more time has passed between John Constantine being created and now than between the creations of Hal Jordan and John Constantine. That is… I don’t know if that’s depressing or astonishing or what. These characters aren’t young. An era of comics that many of us think of as still ongoing is really receding in the rear view mirror.”
I mention Spurgeon’s comments about contrasting the 1950’s era Green Lantern with the Vertigo-era John Constantine right next to East Bay Ray’s similar comment about Elvis and the Dead Kennedys to illustrate that this is largely pervasive in most forms of culture and the arts. Think about movies: Imagine the staggering amount of innovation that went on between the Frank Capra era and Kubrick’s 2001 versus the lack of innovation that’s occurred since the latter (with the exception of rendering animation through digital means rather than ink on paper). We think of the “old” school as being absolutely ancient and the “new” school as being totally current and still relevant but the truth is that the advent of the new school was now longer ago than the advent of the old school was to them when they were tearing it down and building up something fresh. So what have we been doing in the interim?
It makes the younger generation seem lazy or stupid or lacking an impetus for creation but none of those things are true. My theory: We’re compiling and our generation’s creative output will be based on that compilation. This change is brought about, predictably, by technological innovations and, specifically, their archival capabilities.
In the past, the creative output of previous generations was either not available to you or just a brief consideration. You could watch movies in the theaters but there was no home media. Television programs aired then disappeared. Comics and pulps were periodical, word meant literally. Books were the only things with staying power because books had libraries but then, only academically valid material was kept in a library. Now, everything is available to everyone all the time so my generation’s tendency to look backward and be obsessed with the past is a function of the way we absorb the art and media made available to us. Now, for the first time ever, everything anybody created in the past is available to you instantly as quickly and easily as you can think of it. Where previous generations had a burning desire to move forward and innovate due to their tremendous boredom (they had no internet!) we are more comfortable soaking up the past, dwelling in it and studying it. This is the first time we as a global society have had a chance to do so this thoroughly.
So bands sound like their parents bands. We use digital media to create music that sounds like shit from the 60’s because we care more about it and have more exposure to it than young people did in the 70’s, where you had to burn down the remnants of the previous decade every decade. We use digital media to read old books, to look at old photos, to experience culture vicariously and that obsession with the past is reflected back out again when it’s time for us to create. This actually got started before everyone was online, it got started in the 90’s. Tarantino is this generation’s grandfather, he was an internet geek before the internet, the massive library of pop culture ephemera contained in his mind, cultivated via trips to the VHS video store instead of Tumblr, has been the basis of his entire body of work, where every shot is an ode to some obscure movie from 30 or 40 years ago. Everything backwards-looking and romantic, everything an homage, everything a tribute to beautiful trash because that’s much more important than capital-A Art. Now, it’s the 10’s and we are all little Tarantinos, shoring up huge collections of nuggets of pop culture aesthetic and then turning them into reflexive art that serves only to hold a mirror up and remember what came before, across a wide variety of media.
We don’t feel like a revolutionary generation because we aren’t. Instead, we are curatorial, we are the curators of previous generations and our creations reflect that librarian mentality. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, it seems a bit sluggish because we are comparing ourselves to the late 20th century. Late 20th century America is entirely unique in history in that society’s idle middle class had enough money to be comfortable and therefore just spent time making up cool shit in their imaginations. Now, we are quieter, we are using this opportunity to study what came before.
Thank you Dorian for writing a special, insightful reflection on modern pop culture.
You motherfucker.
Inside #HallH for Django Unchained #SDCC panel! (Taken with Instagram at San Diego Convention Center: Hall H)
Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush is an absolute miracle on celluloid
(Source: criterioncollection)
He’s not the Messiah he’s a very naughty boy!
The Alphabet Song, from the 1982 film Forbidden Zone —in color!
Oh, great. You killed the invisible swordsman!
Steve Martin from The Three Amigos illustrated by Darren Johnson :: via ghost-town.net
You son of a motherless goat!
The Avengers opens in theaters in the US on May 4th, and it’s going to do blockbuster business. The individual films featuring these characters have already grossed more than $2.2 billion dollars - that’s greater than the Gross National Product of almost half the countries on Earth - and it’s not unlikely that The Avengers will earn a hundred million dollars on its opening day alone.
This represents a pretty big payday to a lot of people - the actors, obviously, will take home pretty big paychecks. The director and the writers are well-compensated, and certainly the executives who greenlighted this project get to sit back and rake in large bonuses and healthy salaries.
Well, you know where this is going; shamefully, the people who aren’t making a big profit from these movies are the people (and the families of the people) who did the essential work of creating them in the first place. It’s not just Jack Kirby, either, or (Black Widow and Hawkeye co-creator) Don Heck, but also Steve Engelhart, Peter David, Herb Trimpe, Jim Steranko, Roy Thomas and dozens more - the artists and writers who refined and defined the characters appearing in this movie, who fleshed out the original creations and molded them into the figures we cheer for when we see them on the screen.
Some very sensible people are calling for a boycott of this film on those grounds, but I think it’s fairly obvious that a boycott of idealistic comic fans isn’t going to accomplish much - it’s not only comic book fans who’ll be dropping a collective billion dollars over the next eight weeks to see this movie, it’s going to be a lot of movie-goers who haven’t read a comic since they were kids, much less know anything of the controversy.
Plus, of course, you - the collective “you”, representing comic book fans all over the world - want to see this movie. And you’re going to, most likely, right? Even though you know of the morally shady practices of Marvel towards its creators, they’ve got you hooked. Don’t be ashamed, they’ve had you hooked for years. It’s what they do.
So how about this: You’re probably going to go see The Avengers and, judging by the early reviews, you’ll probably enjoy it. How about - as a thank you to the creators who brought you these characters in the first place, who gave you something to enjoy so much - you match your ticket price as a donation to The Hero Initiative?
THI is a charity which provides essential financial assistance to comic book professionals who have fallen on hard times; for decades, the comic industry provided no financial safety net to its employees, most of whom it regarded only as freelancers and journeymen, meaning they were offered no health insurance, no unemployment insurance, no retirement plans - none of the financial support most of us enjoy from our jobs and careers. A small donation will help this agency provide a valuable safety net in times of need to these beloved entertainers.
I don’t plan on seeing The Avengers, but I’ve donated $15 - the price of a 3-D ticket - to Hero. If every concerned comic fan - every superhero aficionado who learned to live by the lessons of altruism and sacrifice taught by these comics - donated the price of their ticket, well, it may not hit a billion dollars but it’ll bring in a lot of money for a good and relevant cause.
One last note: Remember what Spider-Man always says? “With great power comes great responsibility”. The lesson in that is that everyone has great power. Spider-Man’s great power is being able to lift a bus. Your great power is the ability to help good causes do good work for good reasons - so why not go be a superhero instead of just watching them on the screen…
(PS: “Liking” this post is nice, thank you, but reblogging/retweeting it helps get the message out and would be even more appreciated)
The actioner, designed as a standalone pic, is the first of three straight-to-homevideo titles that WWE Studios will produce with Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment through a deal brokered in February.
Both will start promoting the pic during WWE fan event “WrestleMania Axxess” this weekend at Sun Life Stadium, in Miami, before “WrestleMania” takes place April 1, which will be headlined by Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson versus John Cena. Fox will enable fans to read for a walk on part in the movie.
Orton, one of WWE’s biggest names, will portray a Marine who is forced to put his skills to the test when a radical militia group kidnaps his rebellious daughter. The unrelenting soldier does whatever is necessary to save his daughter and to stop a terrorist attack masterminded by the militia leader.
Production starts June 11 in Vancouver.
