(1) CHINESE NEBULA AWARDS. Regina Kanyu Wang, linking to the Chinese-language announcement, informed Facebook readers about three people who will be guests at the Chinese Nebula Awards this year: Worldcon 75 co-chair Crystal Huff, SFWA President Cat Rambo and Japanese sf writer Taiyo Fuji.
Crystal Huff responded:
I am so very honored and pleased to reveal what I’ve been quietly psyched about for a while now:… I am thrilled to go to China for my first ever visit, and meet new friends in Beijing and Shanghai! So thrilled!
Cat Rambo told File 770 she’s more than excited about the trip:
I am super!! stoked!! about it and have been spending the last month and half trying to pick up a little conversational Mandarin. Post Beijing, another Chinese SF organization is taking me to Chengdu for a similar ceremony involving SFF film awards. This trip is – next to being able to tell Carolyn Cherryh she was a SFWA grandmaster — one of the biggest thrills of being SFWA president I’ve experienced so far, and I’m looking forward to getting to know the Chinese publishing scene a bit better in a way that benefits SFWA and its members.
(2) ANIME EXPO HARASSMENT POLICY. Sean O’Hara reported in a comment, “Anime Expo just went hardcore with a new Youth Protection program that requires all employees, volunteers, vendors and panelists to submit to a criminal background check and take an online courses.”
Read the policy here [PDF file].
SPJA Youth Protection Policy
- Purpose and Goals
The Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA) recognizes the importance of protecting youth participants in SPJA events and activities, including online activities. SPJA has adopted a zero tolerance policy with regard to actions or behaviors that threaten the safety of young people, including violence, bullying, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and other inappropriate or potentially harmful actions or behaviors. SPJA views the safety and security of all participants—especially young people— as a top priority.
All participants at SPJA events and activities (including online activities) are encouraged to report any unsafe or inappropriate behaviors, conditions, or circumstances, including any violation of this Youth Protection Policy or violation of any other policy or rule intended to promote a safe environment….
(3) LIVING HISTORY. Ted White, the Hugo-winning fanwriter, pro, and former editor of Amazing, was interviewed for his local paper, the Falls Church News-Press, on May 6 – “F.C.’s Ted White Reflects on Comics, Sci-Fi and the Little City”. The reporter asked about his interests in sf, jazz, writing, and comics.
N-P: How were you introduced to comic books?
White: They were there. I found them. I mean, I can’t remember what the first comic book I ever saw was but it was probably one that one of the neighborhood kids had and it very likely didn’t even have a cover….We’re talking the war years, the ‘40s, early on [and] comic books just sort of passed from hand-to-hand. It was a long time before I bought my first comic book.
There’s an interesting story involved in all of this….One day, I think it was between the first and second grade, the summer, and…Madison had a swimming program for the summer.
And I would walk over to the school, which was a mile away but it didn’t matter because I used to walk everywhere, at a certain time in the morning and join up with a motley crew of other kids and be taken into Washington, D.C. to 14th and K Streets where there was the Statler Hotel….At the end of that we were brought back to Madison and it was time for me to walk home.
But I didn’t walk directly home. For some strange reason I followed N. Washington Street north…I’m not sure where I was headed to but north of Columbia Street there is a bank that used to be a Safeway, a tiny Safeway…and I’m walking in that direction and I’m almost opposite that Safeway when I meet a friend of mine who is pushing his bicycle up the sidewalk…and in the basket of his bicycle he has several comic books.
And we stopped and we talked and he showed me the comic books and I don’t know how I did it, but I talked him out of them and he gave them to me and one of them was an issue of Wonder Woman.
Now I had never seen Wonder Woman before – this was a brand new comic book to me. And it was strange. The art was strange…it was almost Rococo and the writing was even stranger….I started reading this comic book as I was coming along Columbia Street to Tuckahoe and I’m just sort of very slowly walking, reading intensely. It would be the equivalent of someone obliviously reading their cell phone while walking down a sidewalk….I was about halfway home when I look up and I see my mother rapidly approaching and she does not have a happy look on her face.
I am hours late because I’ve been spending all my time dawdling, reading comic books. And my mother took the comic books out of my hand and took the ratty dozen or so that I already had, most of them coverless, and took them out to our incinerator and burned them all.
This profoundly upset me but it also changed me. I was six or seven then, and I decided two things which I was happy to share with my mother. One of them was that she was never ever going to destroy anything of mine again and she never did….and the other thing it did was make me into a collector…from that point on I became a comic book collector…and by time I was in high school…I was written up in a newspaper called the Washington News as the boy with 10,000 comic books.
(4) SF DRAMEDY. Seth MacFarlane will do an sf comedy/drama series reports Collider.
Between Family Guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland Show, prolific writer/producer/voice actor Seth MacFarlane has voiced a lot of characters on television and created even more, but now he’s heading into the live-action realm for his next TV series.
Fox announced today that MacFarlane is developing a new, though still untitled comedic drama for the network for which he’ll executive produce and star based off a script he wrote. Here’s what we know: the series will consist of 13 hourlong episodes and takes place 300 years in the future where the crew of the Orville, “a not-so-top-of-the-line exploratory ship in Earth’s interstellar Fleet,” deal with cosmic challenges on their adventures.
(5) MARKET OPENS. Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-speculation edited by Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Wieland, which was funded by a Kickstarter appeal, now is open for submissions.
Submissions for fiction and poetry are open until June 4th. Submissions for line art and coloring pages are open until June 30th.
We want this anthology to reach outside Western and Anglophone traditions of speculative fiction, showcasing the way environment and environmental issues are talked about and perceived in all parts of the world. We encourage and welcome submissions from diverse voices and under-represented populations, including, but not limited to, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, those with disabilities, and the elderly. Authors of all walks of life should feel encouraged to send us stories and poems celebrating these diverse characters and settings all around us.
(6) NO SH!T. Here’s some more good news — the No Sh!t, There I Was – An Anthology of Improbable Tales Kickstarter has funded, reaching its $8,500 goal. The anthology is edited by Rachael Acks.
(7) TODAY IN HISTORY
- May 8, 1985 – Theodore Sturgeon passed away.
(8) SELECTIVE QUOTE. A responsible blogger would have chosen a tweet about the writer’s Amazon sales, his con appearances, or his charitable causes. But noooo…!
The tragedy of my life is that I am burdened with the constant knowledge that sooner or later, I will have to put on pants.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) May 7, 2016
(8) YOUR BARTENDER. Marko Kloos shares his recipe for “frontlines: the cocktail”.
Just in time for the upcoming Manticon (where I will be Guest of Honor), I present to you the first Frontlines-themed cocktail: the Shockfrost.
Those of you who have read ANGLES OF ATTACK will know that the Shockfrost is featured in the novel as the specialty of the bars on the ice moon New Svalbard, and that it’s supposed to pack quite a punch. Andrew mentions the look (blue) and the flavors of the drink when he tries one for the first time (notes of licorice, mint, and God-knows-what-else). So I made a trip to the liquor store for ingredients and experimented with the flavors a bit to create a real-world replica….
(9) A SMASHING TIME. The Traveler at Galactic Journey reviews a monster movie: “[May 8, 1961] Imitation is… (Gorgo)”.
…Is it art for the ages? Absolutely not. Though there is some morality tacked on, mostly of the “humanity mustn’t think itself the master of nature” sort of thing, it’s an afterthought. Characterization is similarly abandoned around the halfway mark. This is no Godzilla — it is knocking over of toy cities for the fun of it.
At that, it succeeds quite well. Gorgo makes liberal and reasonably facile use of stock footage (though the planes all inexplicably bear United States markings!) The cinematography is well composed, the color bright, the screen wide. The acting is serviceable, and for anyone who wants to see what London looks like in this modern year of 1961, there are lots of great shots, both pre and post-destruction…
(10) INTERPRETING AN ICON. In “Captain America and Progressive Infantilization” Jeb Kinnison replies to Amanda Marcotte’s widely-read post about Cap.
…In her piece, “Captain America’s a douchey libertarian now: Why did Marvel have to ruin Steve Rogers?”, Marcotte is upset because the Cap didn’t knuckle under to “reasonable, common-sense” restrictions on his freedom to act for good. It’s not worth a detailed fisking — generating clickbait articles for a living doesn’t allow much time for careful writing — but she does reveal the mindset of those who believe every decision should be made by a committee of the select. The “unregulated” and “uncontrolled” are too dangerous to tolerate. Some key bits:
Steve Rogers is an icon of liberal patriotism, and his newest movie turns him into an Ayn Rand acolyte…
Most corporate blockbuster movies would cave into the temptation to make the character some kind of generic, apolitical “patriot,” abandoning the comic tradition that has painted him as a New Deal Democrat standing up consistently for liberal values. Instead, in both the first movie and in “Captain America: Winter Soldier,” we get Steve the liberal: Anti-racist, anti-sexist, valuing transparency in government and his belief that we the people should hold power instead of some unaccountable tyrants who believe might makes right.
Steve is All-American, so he is classically liberal: believing in the rule of law, equality of opportunity, and freedom to do anything that doesn’t step on someone else’s rights and freedoms. Amanda does not believe in individual freedom — she believes in “freedom,” approved by committee, with individual achievement subordinated to identity politics aiming at equality of outcome. No one should be free to judge the morality of a situation and act without lobbying others to achieve a majority and gaining approval of people like her….
(11) AN ORIGINAL MAD MAN. Ben Yakas, an interviewer for Gothamist, spent some time “Hanging With Al Jaffee, MAD Magazine’s 95-Year-Old Journeyman Cartoonist”.
His career took off in earnest in the early 1940s, initially while he was still in the Army. He taught wounded airmen how to do figure drawing at a hospital in Coral Gables, Florida, then was recruited by the Pentagon to create posters, illustrated pamphlets, and exercise pieces for soldiers in hospitals around the country. Once he was discharged, he worked at Timely Comics and Atlas Comics (precursors of Marvel Comics) with his first boss, Stan Lee. “He had been discharged from the military and took over from a substitute editor,” Jaffee said. “He said, ‘Oh, come ahead.’ He even wrote a letter to tell them that I had a job to go to so they favored my release. That’s how my career really got going.”
Jaffee explained his unusual working relationship with Lee, whom he first met when he was just 20 years old: “Usually in the comic book business, someone writes a script, an artist is called in, the artist shows pencils, and if the pencils are approved, the artist is told to finish with ink,” he said. “Each step is edited by the editor who approves of each stage. I didn’t have that with Stan Lee. He and I apparently hit it off so well that he just told me, ‘Go ahead and write it, pencil it, and ink it and bring it in.’ It was never rejected. I was very fortunate because it was so smooth working and we enjoyed each other’s company and he was a very, very bubbling with ideas kind of guy.”
That loose set-up turned out to be the norm for Jaffee throughout his career, even as he left Lee and ventured out into the uncertain world of freelancing: “We were responsible for our own income and upkeep. What you do is you wake up every Monday morning and you say, ‘What am I going to produce now to make a buck?'”
(12) AUDIO TINGLES. Starburst’s The BookWorm Podcast hosted by Ed Fortune enters the Hugos debate. Mostly by laughing: “Enter the Voxman”.
Ed reviews Star Wars Bloodline by Claudia Gray and Ninfa returns to review Victoria Avayard’s The Glass Sword. Extended chatter about the awards season and the usual silliness.
(13) SHORT SF VIDEO. Hampus Eckerman says, “This nice little gem became available on Youtube just a few days ago:”
The Nostalgist A Sci-fi Short Based on a Story From the Author of Robopocalypse
In the futuristic city of Vanille, with properly tuned ImmerSyst Eyes & Ears the world can look and sound like a paradise. But the life of a father and his young son threatens to disintegrate when the father’s device begins to fail. Desperate to avoid facing his traumatic reality, the man must venture outside to find a replacement, into a city where violence and danger lurk beneath a beautiful but fragile veneer…
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Sean O’Hara, Paul Weimer, Michael J. Walsh, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Doctor Science.]
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Aaron:
While the existence of that organisation may be of interest, it is worth doing a close reading of the article, rather than just conclude that the organisation exists “and have chapters across the globe”.
The Wikipedia article lists chapters in two European countries, UK and Italy. For UK, it is noted that they have had to change their behaviour a little compared to USA:
The section on Italy does not list specific legal obstacles, but notes that “The Italian Guardian Angels share the common trait of the organization in serving their communities, but a great deal of their work is focussed on helping the homeless and elders in need, in providing first aid to people in distress.” – i.e nothing about the kind of “safety patrol” that might run into restrictions on vigilantism.
The information on Wikipedia about international chapters is mostly 5-10 years out of date, but for several countries the activities seem to have been short-lived. Based on a bit of googling it is unclear to me if there are currently any active chapters outside USA.
@Johan P
Reading that quote reminded me that I had heard of the Guardian Angels in the UK, but not for a couple of decades. Turns out there’s still a small chapter in London.
The information on Wikipedia about international chapters is mostly 5-10 years out of date, but for several countries the activities seem to have been short-lived.
Sure. To be honest, when I looked them up I was kind of surprised they still existed at all. Not because of legal issues, but because keeping such a volunteer organization going is extremely difficult. The point was not to endorse any particular thing that the Guardian Angels have done, or claim they were doing anything right now, but to point out that such organizations do exist in the real world, and operate without government sanction or supervision.
Truth be told, if super-heroes were “real”, I figure apathy would be a greater issue than anything else. Fighting super-villains seems to be pretty tough, and a way to get injured frequently. I figure a lot of super-heroes would give it up relatively quickly after the initial excitement wore off and the daily grind became apparent.
What always irritated me with comic books is that more or less all superbeings seem involved in fighting. So few in building and creating things and those who do keep everything to themselves.
Would love a comic about superhero construction workers and more.
Yes, because the writers set the rules. Just like in the Dirty Harry universe, Harry Callahan is always right and the pesky liberal do-gooders whining about the criminal’s rights are always. The normalization of such worldviews through romanticized portrayals is still disturbing, especially when they become popular and people defend the underlying assumptions.
@Aaron:
The best known of those would be Jessica Jones.
It’s no accident that most super-heroes are one of two types: obsessives or people who simply can’t function in the mundane world for a variety of reasons. Many of the MCU stable are the obsessives: Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man. Mostly, the latter would be the mutants, which don’t exist in the MCU, but I would include Scarlet Witch, Vision, Hulk, and Black Widow in that group.
The people who have a choice drop out.
After finding a collection of the first five issues of the space-opera comic Fusion, it turns out there are another two collections currently available, Spring Rolls and The Devastator Affair, published last November:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_3?ie=UTF8&text=Steve+Gallacci&search-alias=books-uk&field-author=Steve+Gallacci&sort=relevancerank
William Messenger-Loebs had a splendid run on Doctor Fate in which the regular Doctor’s wife wore the mask and spent as much time rebuilding affordable housing as she did fighting monsters.
She also turned every embezzling member of congress into a lizard.
European superheroes? Well, we don’t seem to do too well when they appear. Take Grant Morrison’s Zenith: superheroes are the larval form of Lovecraftian Elder Gods. Or Moore’s Miracleman: he is god and we’d better get used to it.
Perhaps we’d all be better off with swashbuckling heroes like Masquerouge.
It’s been fascinating reading this thread and trying to tell, without looking closely enough at some of the posts to spoil Civil War for myself, which posts are about that and which posts are about convention security issues.
In last year’s Laundry novel (The Annihilation Score), Stross offers one version of an outbreak of superpowers in the population at large. Some are benign (the ability to change TV channels without benefit of remote), but others are way more trouble than they’re worth. My own self, I find the prospect of our college-student neighbors in possession of anything more potent than the ability to stay up real late drinking more than alarming.
In science fiction related news, William Schallert (who appeared in the Star Trek episode Trouble with Tribbles) reportedly died today.
@ Danny Sichel
re: wierd MACII notice
I received the same notice and I’ve seen one other person report getting one. Have no idea what’s going on.
I got one, too. I can only assume the Hugo admins have decided on a do-over in their desperate attempt to keep Chuck Tingle off the ballot.
You’d have to look at the headers to work out what was going on with these emails from the past. Most likely they’ve been stuck in a mail spool somewhere, but smtp was designed to be persistent and keep trying until either it delivers or gets a fatal error.
@ IanP
From 4+ months ago?!?! I’ve never had that kind of delay before.
@Aaron: I suppose (Haven’t seen CW yet) “team” training.
Individual skill is all right, but team work is an entirely different matter. “Gelling” simply takes time working together, if nothing else.
Then, consider the specialties and various “powers”. They add a whole new dimension. Like – Whose job will it be to piss Dr. Banner off, and how to do it quickly when the team needs the Hulk? Or, Can Cap’s shield deflect Ironman’s energy blasts? If so, they probably ought to practice bank shots….
Me? I worry about all the stuff the comic books generally ignore, like how much does an Avenger’s insurance cost? Or, why don’t we have a Moon base already? How come none of them does endorsements? Why don;’t they just say screw it and make their own south pacific island paradise?
I suppose (Haven’t seen CW yet) “team” training.
We saw at least the suggestion that they were doing that at the end of Age of Ultron. There is also quite a bit of team interaction in some of the sequences in Civil War.
Individual skill is all right, but team work is an entirely different matter. “Gelling” simply takes time working together, if nothing else.
That would seem to be a large part of the reason for the Avengers compound.
Then, consider the specialties and various “powers”. They add a whole new dimension. Like – Whose job will it be to piss Dr. Banner off, and how to do it quickly when the team needs the Hulk? Or, Can Cap’s shield deflect Ironman’s energy blasts? If so, they probably ought to practice bank shots….
We’ve known that Cap’s shield can deflect Iron Man’s bolts since at least the first Avengers movie, because they do that in the big fight sequence in New York. Also, from the first Avengers movie, apparently Banner can enrage himself because he’s “always angry”.
Me? I worry about all the stuff the comic books generally ignore, like how much does an Avenger’s insurance cost? Or, why don’t we have a Moon base already? How come none of them does endorsements? Why don;’t they just say screw it and make their own south pacific island paradise?
Those are all good questions.
note to self: explore possibilities of using super heroes as replacement for NASA….
Regarding superheroes and vigilante laws (and as a Canadian, sort of halfway between the U.S. and Europe on a number of such issues):
Legal issues are definitely up there. When I took first aid training, the legal issues were very much up front. There are ‘Good Samaritan’ laws in many places to shelter people from being charged too much if they were just trying to help, but those laws have limits. Don’t go giving someone the Heimlich manoeuver unless they consent.
One PBEM superhero campaign I was in actually took that seriously: the characters got some legal training on proper use of ‘Citizen’s Arrest’: from what I recall, pretty much you have to witness the crime in progress, and the most you can do is detain the person with a minimum of force until legal authorities arrive. (Heck, the Champions sourcebook for Canada, Champions of the North, included a section on that.)
There are actually a few ‘superhero’ groups around that patrol in costume. From what I’ve heard, the ones that last for any length of time have taken first aid training and have brushed up on the legal side of things. Because they pretty much have to if they don’t want to be arrested themselves.
Also, re: superheroes building, Damage Control (a Marvel series) did have some superheroes chipping in on reconstruction. (Hercules, say). In looking at their wiki entry, it seems there was a later series about them, in conjunction with Marvel’s in-universe Stamford explosion, that made Damage Control kinda shady. But the original mini-series was both fun and entertaining.
Nope, they’re fresh messages. My copy spent all of an hour and eight minutes in a spool on an Amazon compute instance.
Hmmm, I’m now wondering if their use of Amazon cloud stuff may be why earlier acknowledgements and notifications were delayed or went missing. My spam scoring is really unhappy about the use of IP addresses instead of hostnames, and dynamic IPs at that, in the mail.
Also the PIN in this one and the original sent in February are different
I remember three Damage Control miniseries:
– The first one, which was indeed fun and entertaining. Including such things as the cover with one of their members holding up a long bill and saying, “You’ll pay for this, Doom!”
– The second one, which is what I think you’re referring to, where it turned out that the Kingpin was involved with some of Damage Control’s funding, and some of the political fallout around that. Mostly forgettable.
– The third one, where the construction/cleanup worker who had ‘an origin’ in the first issue comes back to Earth and decides to clean it up until it’s a nice sparkling polished ball. Oh, and the main construction crew are on strike. Probably most noteworthy for the fight between the ‘cleaner’ and the Byrne-era She-Hulk who acted as though she were a comic book character, where the crew foreman is counting each time somebody gets thrown through one of the walls of the building. At ‘four’ and the resulting collapse, he shakes his head and says, “I keep telling people, when you break the fourth wall, the entire structure comes down.”
Obviously the containment chamber MACII has been using to hold all the wild PINs has developed a leak.
@Rose Embolism: “How does one educate itself on the risks of […] goods taking their conflicts to Earth?”
I know it was a typo, but I love the idea of a Martian blender and a Venusian toaster duking it out in some hapless Earthling’s kitchen. Maybe one of them gets picked up at a yard sale…
@Hampus: “What always irritated me with comic books is that more or less all superbeings seem involved in fighting. So few in building and creating things and those who do keep everything to themselves.”
That’s one thing I especially like about the present comic-book version of Spider-Man. Peter Parker’s taken a couple of pages from Tony Stark’s book to turn his Spidey-related inventions into consumer-level tech. Even better, he pays a decent wage, caps his own salary at a modest amount, and funnels a big chunk of the profits into humanitarian efforts through a foundation named after Uncle Ben.
@Steve Davidson: “Me? I worry about all the stuff the comic books generally ignore, like how much does an Avenger’s insurance cost? Or, why don’t we have a Moon base already? How come none of them does endorsements? Why don;’t they just say screw it and make their own south pacific island paradise?”
A. Either Tony Stark or Stark Industries covers that in most of the iterations I’m familiar with.
B. Because the Watcher and the Inhumans are there, and we’d be trespassing.
C. The FF did, way back in the day, and Spider-Man is the Parker Industries “mascot” now. I distinctly remember the FF series mentioning that they’d licensed merchandising and likeness rights; in-universe FF toys were (ahem) a Thing. Offhand, I think Wonder Man also did some endorsements, but I refuse to mention NFL SuperPro beyond naming the comic.
D. It was called Genosha, and that ended badly.
@ Anthony
Yikes, I didn’t think to check the number! This latest PIN is different than my original one, too?!
I wish we could nominate again with our different PINs. Heh.
Simon Bisson on May 9, 2016 at 11:57 am said:
Thanks Simon! I was a fan back in my teens. For the curious they’re also available in the US.
@lurkertype I wish we could nominate again with our different PINs. Heh.
I just got my retro awards are open for nominations. I’d love a chance to nominate again. Maybe we’d be less diverse in what we nominate if we had a do over.
Also, Rocky Scroller Pixel Show
Cat Pixels Please
Apropos of nothing much, here’s an article I just found (via Astrid Bear) about early fan Myrtle R. Douglas (Morojo), crediting her as “The Woman who Invented Cosplay“.
I confess that despite having been involved in fandom for several decades now, I’d never heard of Morojo, which is unfortunate, as she seems like she was a fascinating person. In addition to creating costumes for herself and then-beau Forrie Ackerman for the first Worldcon, she also personally put out several long-running fanzines, wrote editorials for pro-zines, and was heavily involved with LASFS.
The article is also an interesting look at the changing (and in some cases, not-so-changing) attitudes towards women in fandom over the last eighty or so years.
Simon, one more thing – did the suck fairy cone to visit Fusion? I hope it didn’t.
Gah, ninja’d by a few minutes by Xtifr. Yes, everyone needs to go check out that article about the mother of cosplay. That is now my #1 go-to link for the next time I have to deal with someone who still thinks Forrest J. Ackerman was the first fannish costumer.
I knew about Morojo’s various fannish pursuits, but this is the first time I’ve read about what she did after she moved on.
@Xtfir Apropos of nothing much, here’s an article I just found (via Astrid Bear) about early fan Myrtle R. Douglas (Morojo), crediting her as “The Woman who Invented Cosplay“.
Thanks for sharing. Great article.
Pretty sure we’ve had The Pixel of Dorian Gray, but have we had Pretty as a Pixel, The Last Pixel Show, or You Ought to Be in Pixels? Pixels at an Exhibition?
A Pixel Scroll Is Like a Melody
Poisoning Pixels in the Park
One-Way Pixel to the Scroll
Is That a Pixel in Your Pocket or Are You Just Glad to Scroll Me?
And after that last one, I will see myself out.
Is that played before the entrance of Jerry “the Pixel” Scroller?
Ceci n’est pas une post.
People who want to see a broader selection of superhero types might want to check out Polychrome Heroics. It’s not a comic but a series of stories and free-verse poetry, and is currently running well over a dozen different storylines and has developed some shared-universe properties as well.
The series takes place on an alternate Earth in which superpowers are not common, but not rare either; they can develop either naturally or as a result of trauma. In addition to the standard superhero/supervillain dichotomy, there are also “blue-plate specials” (people who use their superpowers as part of an everyday job, such as teleporters for hire or a super-strong construction worker) and “crickets” (people who try to hide their superpowers completely). There’s a wide range of supervillains, from complete whackjobs to people who operate with high ethical standards but don’t let the law prevent them from pursuing justice. And there are also some superheros with really bad reputations regarding operational safety and collateral damage!
The stories and poems are funded by sponsorship. The author runs sales (usually on a particular storyline) semi-regularly.
@Junego
Standard timeout is 4 to 7 days. I’ve never seen a timeout that long.
@Brian Z
I think the “art” of trolling is long dead. I can see how you sometimes attempt it, but honestly, the best trolling I’ve ever seen, the stuff that had me saving files to re-read later, was from trolls who were disinterested in the subject at hand, but were amazing at instigating. I always get the feeling that you actually have very strong feelings and opinions regarding the subjects I’ve seen you troll about, and that makes for… something other than a classic trolling. More like… you’re arguing your point, but obscuring it at the same time. I don’t mean this as anything particularly negative, or positive for that matter.
Also @Brian Z: Cat Pixels please (!!!) Awesome.
@All you people discussing Civl War… so, is there a list of canonical movies in this series somewhere? I’ve watched Iron Man (1, at least), the Ruffalo Hulk, the… team movie with said Hulk, and Iron Man, and the Scandinavian Godbrothers, and Scarlet Johanssen, and the bow and arrow dude (don’t recall that one’s title). I haven’t been much invested in these (obviously), but this discussion is making me want to fill in the blanks, and catch up. Seems like an epic story being writ.
@kathodus: yes, there’s a list of canonical movies and TV shows in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s pretty large. I’ve seen more of them than you, but nowhere near all. None of the X-Men or Spiderman movies are part of it, nor The Fantastic Four nor Deadpool. But pretty much all the other Marvel movies since Iron Man (2008) are. Even Guardians of the Galaxy.
@Bonnie McDaniel: Sleeping Giants is on my “read the sample & consider” list, but the interview thing counded not-great; I’m happy to hear it works, and I’ll read your review, hopefully tomorrow. I’m this close to catching up . . . oh no, 5/9 is already out. GAK!
@Hampus Eckerman: “Would love a comic about superhero construction workers and more.” – Heh, I have a character/story idea in the back in my head (and have for a while) that’s sorta like this, if you squint. Not a superhero, really, and not for comics, but anyway, your comment made me smile.
/super-stalk!
Whoops, /super-stalk doesn’t work if I don’t check the super-box!
@Kathodus I don’t know about an Epic story, but I think the MCU is managing that thing that Marvel comics books have done (both for good and ill) of creating a potentially endless narrative that sucks you in like a soap opera. For Civil War you probably only need to see Captain America: Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron but…Age of Ultron is not a great movie and I’d be reluctant to recommend it. In fact Age of Ultron now only seems worse because Civil War was better.
I think Captain Britain’s the closest thing to a persistent, traditional UK-centric superhero? And even then he’s died repeatedly, become the ruler of another dimension, been cursed to blunder around, and had all manner off things happen to him that somehow seem stranger than the average American hero.
@kathodus: Yes, there’s an epic story in the making. *cough*Thanos*cough* It looks like you’ve seen most of the ones that introduce the characters.
Let’s see. In this order:
Captain America: The First Avenger is the introduction to Cap and to a major plot driver for the following movies. Set in WW2 and does a great job of capturing the vintage feel.
Iron Man 2 isn’t exactly critical. It introduced Black Widow. Don Cheadle took over as James Rhodes, and he got his own suit of armor. He plays a substantial supporting role in Civil War, so you need to at least be aware of that much.
You’ve seen The Avengers.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier essentially took the situation at the end of Avengers and turned the whole thing upside down. Introduced Falcon and set up a lot of Civil War. Very good movie; think Three Days of the Condor with super heroes.
Age of Ultron is … not a good movie. It spent too much time criticizing Man of Steel and not enough time actually developing a plot or characters. Reportedly Johansson’s pregnancy derailed some of the original plans for character arcs. But it introduced some important characters in Civil War, and certain events in Civil War flow directly from events in AoU. Up to you if you want to see it or read the summary at Wikipedia.
Ant-Man introduced another character who appears in Civil War. Not critical, but recommended to get up to speed on who he is and because it’s a fun heist movie.
Captain America: Civil War The first thing I said as we left the theater was, “I’m so glad this team is taking over the next Avengers movies.” Every character gets a moment to shine, there are at least three character arcs in the movie and two more are set up for the future, and I’m sure I missed things.
Also, see Guardians of the Galaxy. You’ll get an explanation of the mcguffins that have been scattered throughout the movies and a fun space romp.
@Camestros:
Fact.
@Lee:
That’s actually the central conceit of the new Hellcat comic from Marvel. She catches a wannabee thief who has suddenly developed telekinetic powers thanks to the recent Inhumans storyline. He confesses that he thought that once you get powers, you have to be either a hero or a villain, and he desperately needs the money. She stumbles into matching him up with a bookstore owner who isn’t squicked by an employee who restocks shelves without touching the books. And the idea for a job placement agency is born….
You really need to read ‘Astro City’, which is by file770 participant Kurt Busiek and which is largely about what it’s like to actually live in the background of a superhero universe.
I’m remembering the story of the girl who decided she would try to use her telekinesis for crime. So she robbed a casino by fucking with the slot machines… and then she felt horribly guilty and gave the money back. Then she figured, okay, she’ll try being a superhero. But when she steered a felon’s speeding car into a telephone pole and he got hurt, she felt so bad about it that she threw up.
So then she got a job at a special effects studio.
(Although she was the focus of a couple of issues, she first appeared earlier, in the issues about the guy who wasn’t a superhero, he just played one on TV. “Really, the show’s not about me, it’s a soap opera. They just added a superhero to make it more realistic.”)
Add me to the list of people who got my Hugo Nominations Are Now Open! email this morning. Someone at MidAmeriCon is <headdesk>ing repeatedly about this, I’m sure….
(There, there, MidAmeriCon, it’s ok. We’ve all been there at one time or another. Which doesn’t stop us from giggling madly, mind you….)