Recently I seem to have become somewhat obsessed with the idea of “self”. What is it? How is it created? Etc.
I’ve turned to one of the many books that I own as I look for some information that might make the self more understandable to me. The main book that I have been reading is Inside Out and Outside In. Which has a really good chapter on Object Relations Theory and a decent chapter on Self Psychology.
If time allows I’ll be blogging my thoughts on this.
-N
Tagged UntitledNightshade books has made several really cool Sci-Fi books available as PDF downloads.
click here to go to the download page.
Tagged free, novel, PDF, sci-fiI’m a subsriber to Wired Magazine, and I have been for a damn long time, so I was a little bit susprised when I did a google search looking for infor that I could use for a blog post on how the idea of digital comics has reached its tipping point and I discoverd this article that I only sorta remember reading.
The article is very short, and very brilliant. It states…
There’s nothing quite like dropping 50 bucks on comics, gingerly flipping through the pages, then encasing them in Mylar, never to be read again. Yet today’s teens may never know the heady thrill. That’s because within 24 hours of going on sale at the local Android’s Dungeon, every new comic is available on BitTorrent, scanned beautifully for your downloading pleasure. Sound familiar? Just like with music, movies, and games, when content companies don’t give fans what they want in the format they want it, fans make it available themselves. But for the comic book industry, now may be the proverbial nick of time: It still has a chance to change digital distribution from a threat to survival into an opportunity for growth.
(Disclaimer: One of the reasons that I think that this article is brilliant is because I have said the many of the same things here and on several different podcasts.)
Also, as I’m sure that many of you have noticed Marvel Comics recently launched a digital comics service that allows people to read both new comics they want to expose to the maxium number of readers, and some of the comics in their huge back catalogue.
The user of this service has two choices:
1. Pay $9.99 per month for access.
2. Pay $59.88 per year for access (meaning the cost is about $4.99 per month).
*Please note that I DO PAY for this service, and thus I feel that any criticism I have is totally justified.
Marvel adopting this shows that the idea of distributing comics in a digital format via the net is something that is gaining more and more of a foot hold in the industry. Which I think is good, great even, but I believe that the service has three major problems:
1. The service does not offer enough content… The thing is that often Marvel only pusts up a few issues in a story in the digital format, which is better than nothing in the digital format, but it is clearly an attempt to give people a peek so that they will buy a trade. Being able to read only some issues of a series / story, but never a whole series / story sort of makes me mad. (If Marvel puts more and more content online, and it gets to the point where I CAN read an entire series / story than I’ll be much more happy.)
2. The service is a sort of library where I can walk in and read the books there, but I can’t check them out and take them home with me. In other words, I have to have a connection to the net to read comics. This is difficult if I want to read digital comics on a plane that does not offer internet access.
3. The resolution is not as good as .CBR and .CBZ files that people can get for free via Bittorrent. (Even though demonid which was the best place to get comic torrents is now gone they can still be got via other places such as mininova and iso hunt.) Lean from the record and film industry Marvel, much like HYDRA even if you take out one head another will rise to take its place! The silver bullet is to offer non DRMed high quality digital comics at a fair price.
Now I’m going to try my hand at being a futurist here and say somethings that I think might happen in the future, and hope that I’m right 
Marvel will make some money selling subcriptions to their digital service. This will create a proff of concept showing that money can in fact be made and get the attention of DC.
The Virtigo imprint, which creates lots of content that readers consume in the form of trade paper backs anyway, will be the content that DC offers in a digital format first.
They will offer it in a different way than Marvel does with less flaws (if things go well in a more iTunes sort of model where you can buy and download a copy that you can read with out being tied to a computer with a internet connection).
Virtigo readers will embrace this service, because they are the kinds of readers who dig this kind of thing.
Comic book shops will get pissed off for obvious reasons.
Beyond that I can’t say…
Tagged , Bittorrent, Digital Comics, DRM, Marvel, WiredFired up Adium today and saw that Rudy Jachan of Galacticast fame was online.
Neil: New BSG soon. You got any theories about what direction the story will take?
Rudy Jahchan: Find earth by mid year. Everyone is a cylon
My theory = That Babylon 4 appears out of fucking nowhere! The Vorlons and the Shadows will fight the Cylons in a Sci-Fi death match. It will be EPIC! Just when it looks like the Cylons will win the Enterprise C, D, and DS-9 will all show up because of some tachyon thing that will make sense if you watched the final episode of TNG.
(They guy from Journeyman will also be there of course.)
The borg will follow the Enterprise there and jump in on the side of the Cylons.
Then just when you think all is Lost the people from the Lost will be beamed up to the Enterprise and we will all be so lost in the intrigue fatigue…
Then Baltar will wake up and it will all have been a dream.
-N
Tagged , Babylon 4, Babylon 5, Borg, BSG, Cylon, Enterprise, Lost, Shadow, Star Trek, Vorlon1. Today I was using twitter to talk to many people at one time, and I said that people who use to read and enjoy the X-Books, but left them for whatever reason, should really consider jumping back on with the Messiah compleX sotry that just came to a close. One person sent me an @message asking why now was a good time.
Rather than say something I’m going to quote this great email from someone who listened to comicology 113 today.
As for Messiah Complex, I was a big X fan in the late 80’s and early 90’s, until Age of Apocalypse made me give up all together, and Messiah Complex is what has brought me back on board with the X-men. It was a great story, well told by 4 different authors yet with seemingly one voice. And for an old X fan such as myself, I didn’t feel as if I’d lost years and years of continuity. Everything was close enough to the way I left it years ago that it was more like putting on a nice comfortable pair of shoes that you had thought lost and had recently found the back of the closet.
I think that is one of the best ways to articulate why a person who use to be a fan of the X-Books should be jumping back on.
2. Also, Freakangles part three came out on Friday, everyone should be reading it.
3. I want there to be a way I can read digital comics (.CBR and .CBZ files) on my iPhone. Does anyone know of a way to make that possible?
4. March is now here, which means that soon there will be new BSG to watch! This makes me happy.
However, today my cable went out… If I miss BSG my cable company will have one angry customer (who has checked to make sure that the bill was paid, and paid on time) to deal with.
5. Going to be heading out to San Diego on March 6th. Anyone who reads the blog / listens to the show in that area? If so shoot me a email.
Tagged .cbr, .cbz, BSG, Digital Comics, iPhone, Messiah Complex, trip, X-BooksI’ve started to do some planning and research for the next Comicology Podcast that will be a character profile that focusing on Lucas Bishop of the X-Men.
If anyone has some good ideas of where I can find some good information please shoot me an email.
-N
Tagged Bishop, character profile, Marvel, Messiah Complex, Research, X-MenShow notes:
1. I ask about the phrase “just peachy” because when I say it I mean that I’m not in a good mood.
2. Talk about the 13 part X-Men story arc Messiah Complex (the link has spoilers the show does not).
In short: I really dug this story, about as much as I did Inferno which is IMHO the best X-Men story ever.
If you want to buy the trade of Messiah Complex on Amazon
A few days back I got an email from Sam who is the driving force behind a very cool digital horror comic anthology called Split Lip. Reading the different stories there reminded me of the classic EC Comcis of the 1950s that were taken down by Dr. Fredric Wertham’s writing on how comic books were crupting the youth of America.
Here is a description of what Split Lip is in Sam’s own words (Taken from his email to me)
Tagged , Digital Comics, EC comics, horror, WerthamSplit Lip is a monthly horror webcomic, written by me and drawn by a different artist from all over the world each month (the artist reside in countries as far-flung as the U.S. and Hungary, the U.K. and Uruguay) . Each story is self-contained. The series explores a horror of both ideas and images and has influences ranging from The Ring to Joyce Carol Oates, David Cronenberg to David Lynch, House of Leaves to Junji Ito.
Split Lip has been online since Oct. 2006. In that time, we’ve published 15 stories for a total of nearly 200 pages of comics. It has been called “the predominant original horror comic work on the Internet” by The Horror Blog and has been mentioned on many horror and comics websites, as well as in Rue Morgue magazine.
I received a email from Zack one of the creators of a really interesting digital comic called City of Thamesis recently asking me if I would take a look at his project and tell him what I thought.
I figure that in addition to telling him, I’ll tell anyone who happens to read this blog as well.
1. I think that this is a really interesting and innovative way to present a serialized comic, that will be very attractive to people who are use to reading comics, and new comers to comics.
2. I think that it the artwork is something that is lots of fun to look at, and it shows the ways that art work that is of a more digital style can be used effectively in a sequential from.
3. I’m excited to see the next issue / volume.
4. I think that more people should check it out, and if they like it link to it.
Here is an example of some of the art you might see there.
You will of course note that I did not do a plot summery. This is because I really think you should head over to their site where you can not only get information, but can read and enjoy the story.
-N
Tagged digital art, Digital Comics, interestingFreak Angels by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield represents the future of the comic books, though perhaps not the comic book industry.
I say this several simple reasons:
1. all that people need to read this comic is a connection to the internet.
2. broadband is getting less and less expensive by the day
3. it is free to read (and as Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine and TED talks fame pointed out Free is the way of the future
4. it shows that even a free comic book that is read via the web can have a damn good writer / artist team on it. (I really think that this comic represents what Malcome Gladwell’s idea of a tipping point in comics.)
5. it is more than a comic book it is a community, which any reader can join over at the whitechapel.
For real people. This is something big. If you are not a part of it yet you should be. The story is really good (so far) and the art work is beauty.
-N
Tagged Avatar, Comics, Digital Comics, freakangles, free, Paul Duffield, tipping point, Warren Ellis, whitechapel
