Month: April 2007

It’s Like “The Sixth Sense” Meets “Unbreakable,” Only More Derisive

Posted on Posted in Comics, Television1 Comment

NBC’s Raines episode 4, “Stone Cold” (viewable free online right now) leads the detective to investigate the murder of a kid who’s studying comics in college.

Raines says he didn’t know people could study comics in college, and the victim’s girlfriend explains that he was studying perceptual psychology and color theory, defensively insisting that it was hard work. She then goes on to explain that he was working on a superhero called “Payback” who eats toxic waste to live and who is getting revenge for his murdered family. She also explains that the victim’s best friend is a former comic creator who owns the local comic store, Geek Farm. At the store, Raines sees employees peevishly explaining that removing comics from the bags to read them reduces their value, and he overhears the owner relay to a phone caller, “Tell him that if he comes in it costs more because I have to look at his big fat face.” The victim’s friends include a bunch of stoners with a PSP. To get an expert opinion on comic collecting, the detective visits a guy who lives with his mother, recognizes the price guide value of a comic at first glance, and counts the number of times Raines insults him. He refers to the comic book store owner as “a jedi level nerd” who would “never go to the dark side” of selling forged comics. The vicim turns out to have been killed by fantasy weaponry sold by the comic store. The murderer instructed a friend to dump the murder weapon, but the friend kept it because “it’s a collectible, man!” We also get a bonus shot of the detective playing a collectible card game which completely baffles him. Really, the episode is mostly about how the victim is killed for his involvement with drug dealing.

Between the line about color theory and the first mention of Payback, I kind of expected this to go in a different direction—maybe something about Will Eisner, Chris Ware, Scott McCloud, or a dozen other names that come to mind when you think about the phrase “sequential art.” In the end, though, it unaffectionately reproduces a bunch of stereotypes, with a cursory nod to the “comics as art” camp with a gallery-style showing (in Geek Farm) of the victim’s drawings at the end. I have been getting the impression that such portrayals of comics fans in popular media are less common than they used to be, though I guess they haven’t disappeared entirely.

Mario T-Shirts vs. Corduroy Jackets

Posted on Posted in Games, Research

I find it interesting that the recently-linked Joystiq article about a game club at Harvard seems so openly suspicious of (if not hostile to) the idea of academics discussing video games. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed that kind of reaction, either.

When I was doing participant observation research in arcades, a lot of the people I chatted with (mostly the younger guys) seemed impressed that I was getting graduate credit to write papers about video games. People I chat with at video game conventions seem less impressed. When I told one game developer at the Penny Arcade Expo that I research video games in grad school, he replied, “I’m sorry.” I’m not sure I convinced him that it’s actually a pretty good gig. Perhaps “living the dream” is, for adult gamers, to actually be making games full time, whereas the young gamers who feel stuck in school indefinitely are more likely to see my career path as an acceptable compromise.

That said, I’ve been impressed by how many academic game researchers and critics attend the same conferences as game designers, not to mention those who do some design of their own. Part of what I find appealing about academia is the flexibility to work on a variety of projects, without a corporate master breathing down your neck and diluting your best ideas. Also, I find corduroy jackets very comfortable (best if worn with a fun t-shirt underneath).

I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Would Accept Me As a Founder

Posted on Posted in Comics, Games, School Culture1 Comment

Joystiq links to an article in the Harvard Crimson about the University’s Interactive Media Group. I can thus add Harvard to the growing list of schools hosting neat clubs I can’t attend. My old stomping grounds even hosts the Hi-Score Game Development Club and a newly revived UMass Comic Art Society (which I founded my senior year before seeing it run into the ground within a couple years of my graduation).

I’d love to find something like these at Penn; a game development group seems particularly plausible, considering the growing number of interested parties majoring in Digital Media Design and working on masters degrees in Computer Graphics and Game Technologies. On the other hand, maybe it’s tougher to get club-style groups together in places that already include game design as part of the curriculum. Sadly, given my own research schedule, I’m unlikely to start another club up anytime soon.

Ranches Are Like Monasteries, But Manly

Posted on Posted in Computers1 Comment

A friend referred me to a story about “Big Nerd Ranch” that seemed worth noting for future reference. Marketplace reports:

Hillegass was the head trainer at Next and Apple. To programmers, he’s kinda like Yoda, but taller. He says Big Nerd isn’t so much a ranch as a kind of zen hideaway.

HILLEGASS: Monks would retreat from the world so they could do their spiritual work, in quiet and in a community. So I didn’t think I could sell “The Big Nerd Monastery,” so we came up with the idea of the Big Nerd Ranch.

There are two things I find interesting about the “nerd monastery” at first glance, though I don’t have a lot of time to comment on either. Briefly, though, I think it’s worth mentioning that monks are known for being (a) keepers of sacred knowledge, (b) male, and (c) celibate (which might be part of what made the “monastery” concept a harder sell).

Notes on Combat and Spectatorship

Posted on Posted in Games, Movies

To some critics, a movie with cardboard characterization, fetishized violence, and unsubtle themes must be like a video game. As noted in a recent article in Variety, the film adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300 has been unfavorably compared to video games for just these reasons. This Variety writer is joined by some game bloggers in calling foul at the unfair characterization of games, a medium with so much more potential and some excellent examples to the contrary.

I certainly agree that games can indeed be more artful and intelligent than some film critics recognize, though I think it’s important to note two things: first, that 300 is still a record-breaking box office hit, despite being pretty vapid; and second, that intelligently written narrative games are still probably rarer than the action-driven hits. The Variety writer, for example, cites Shadow of the Colossus as a game that breaks stereotypes, and this is indeed a unique and thought-provoking game. Critically acclaimed though it was, however, God of War certainly moved more copies, and even seemed to rank more frequently as “game of the year” among online reviewers. As much as I enjoyed God of War, I can’t say that the plot, themes, or characterization are its selling points. It’s a fun game, more fully realizing the long-held game industry vision of action-packed epics than games before it, but it’s not exactly thought-provoking.

Let’s assume, then, that there is something else about such movies and games that people find enjoyable. For some movies and games, a combination of striking visuals and visceral thrill may be what people find most attractive, and so much the better if there is something thoughtful in there to boot. Given that this kind of draw seems particularly relevant to game sales and reviews, however, I find it interesting that games have not gone even further in exploring the visual style of fight scenes. As a longtime gamer and moviegoer, I’d still argue that game designers stand to learn a lot from how combat is portrayed in cinema.

Continue reading “Notes on Combat and Spectatorship” →

The Death of the Term Paper

Posted on Posted in Education2 Comments

A Washington Post article suggests that “the term paper is dead”. (Link via Slashdot.) The author basically suggests that plagiarism is rampant and there’s nothing educators can do about it, so we should switch to in-class methods of evaluation.

I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, I can’t help but agree that in-class writing would reduce plagiarism. On the other hand, at-home paper writing is one of the few times in a classroom experience that students can really cut loose and write about (practically) whatever they want. If it weren’t for open-ended term papers, I wouldn’t have been able to write about comic books in my undergraduate courses. Knowing that I could get away with doing things that actually interest me in academia is what convinced me to continue on this career path.

Is there a way to make a curriculum cheater-resistant but also stimulating for motivated students?

Nerd Wars

Posted on Posted in Movies1 Comment

Slashdot gets a sometimes-interesting conversation going in response to a BBC report of Serenity beating Star Wars for best sci-fi movie of all time. The result was reached in a poll of 3,000 SFX Magazine readers. One Slashdot reader comments:

I think if they were operating systems Serenity would be Linux (small market share in general, but popularised in geek circles by very loyal fans/users). Star Wars would be Windows (huge market share, almost no loyalty). This being a nerd poll, Serenity will win by a huge margin.

It’s certainly an understatement to claim that Star Wars commands no more loyalty than the default PC operating system, but consider how this poll might have turned out if there were more high-profile Star Wars news going on right now. Blogger Danny Choo takes a quick look at Google Analytics to suggest that the giant-robot anime franchise Gundam maintains a steady fan base online, whereas Star Wars fan activity online ebbs and flows with the release of new Star Wars products. (Link via Kotaku.)

If such results were to hold up under a more sustained analysis, it would be interesting to see whether Star Wars loyalty and interest are more contingent upon other product offerings. And, of course, it’s also quite possible that web site hits and SF magazine polls are poors measures for fan loyalty and interest when considering transmedia franchises.

I can’t help but wonder, actually, if the respondents in the SFX Magazine poll were answering for best franchise/universe (as opposed to best movie) with regard to Star Wars and Serenity. Perhaps the juxtaposition of the two titles was enough to heighten a sense of contrast between them, as fans have been bitter in recent years about “the prequels” and have held up Firefly as everything Star Wars could have been, but wasn’t.

I’ve Seen the Lite

Posted on Posted in Games

Looking at the travel schedule detailed in that last post, I’m starting to think it’s about time to pick up a Nintendo DS Lite. I’m thinking this not just because of time spent on the plane, but because that seems to be a major method of interaction between people at certain cons. At PAX in particular, people whiled away time between events, at boring panels, and sitting in lines, playing DS games on Wi-Fi. So many people were playing, in fact, that the wireless connection started lagging. A friend of mine commented that it was the first time he’d ever seen people actually using Pictochat. A fellow I met at South by Southwest, meanwhile, realized he was seated on the plane with a fellow SXSW-attending “nerd buddy” when they both pulled out DS’s (and subsequently played together).

I wonder, though, how people play with handheld systems when not attending special events. I once saw a guy on a bus here in Philly on a DS, and I once saw a woman in an arcade playing on a PSP while a couple of her friends played pool nearby, but that’s about it for my actual sightings in the wild, as it were. I’m interested in DS Buttons, a site that sells little pin-on buttons to invite the world to play DS with you, but I have no idea how often that actually leads to interaction with strangers.

Video gaming may have a reputation for discouraging social behavior, but the DS—which has dominated video game sales numbers for some time—may be on the road to being the most successful (non-PC) gaming system ever. Interesting that this title could be bestowed upon a handheld device rather than the consoles with massive processing power that the industry has pushed toward for so long.