Late Adopters

There was a time when I was an early adopter when it came to technology. Or atleast an early adopter wannabe when I could not afford it. Use email! Use the latest and greatest technology! Use webcams! Use chat! And look at the older generation with sympathy when they couldnt use Outlook Express or a Mouse. Or even worse when they could not understand why a computer + the internet was so great.
Till it came to ebooks. Can't stand them. Only use them for technical books where the value of copy and paste overrules the distaste for ebooks. But fiction? No way. Kindle? Thats to be burnt. And now IPad and Digital Comics. So far there had never seemed to be a viable device for reading comics (and Im glad to see that some people still think that the IPad isn't it for comics yet) but the game seems to have changed with the new tablets. Print comics will die or atleast be ridiculously expensive. I just hope it will be after my time. I can't see the value of possessing a file - my comic has always been my copy and thus has value- Though this has taken aim at my philosophy of I'm a reader first, collector second and shot gaping holes through it. Lending a book still had value than copying a file. I suppose because while lent, you can't read the book. So valiantly I spend 70 bucks per weeks hoping that these contributions will keep the print industry in business just a little while longer, while knowing that the early adopters look at me with maybe a little sympathy, maybe a little frustration.

100

(Not a sequel to Frank Miller's book)
And so a landmark post, which was meant to represent a new writing beginning. This blog originated as a way to write (based on Neil Gaiman's recommendation that the first thing any budding writer should do is actuall write) anything, so that I could see what I liked and disliked about my own writing. If I read the earlier posts , I find them much funnier than the latter ones (or atleast attempt to be funny). I see that most of time is spent writing about
a. Books especially Comics
b. Religion
c. Sports
d. Politics.
So a summary of what has been so far
Books! The only place where we get to see dialogue like
Monk : Seek not revenge, Seek the Buddha instead
Fox : the monk told me to seek the Buddha instead of vengeance
Dream King: That is good advice. Vengeance is a never ending path. And..?
Fox : I shall seek the Buddha....But first, I shall seek revenge!
And she does ofcourse.
Though in someways there are fewer good books and a lot more mediocre ones than what I remember. Perhaps I have read all the great ones already.
And there is no thrill of the hunt. When we had no money and had to raid the various raddi shops, a single book gave a lot of happiness (and rereads). But now when I can afford most books, the thrill of the search is gone , as are the rereads. There was a time I knew the number and cover of every comic I had, and now I cant remember which friend has my books.
But there is hope, I've introduced Lucifer to a new comics reader, which thrilled me.

Religion
I think the headline of my blog sums this up
while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
Ive often been asked (by the same person) why I dwell so much on religion if I dislike it so. And the answer has always been because it affects me!. And among the major problems faced by society , religion is probably in the top 10.
Perhaps the thing that irritates me the most about religion is the hypocrisy. (e.g. oh our religion teaches us to be humble, but you'll are all wrong only my religion is correct, or oh you need religion to tell you what is moral, you disbelievers are immoral, and the followers of my religion who are immoral, well they aren't real followers,or oh look at that religion , its so funny , how could people believe in something so stupid, oh my religion? all of the funny unbelievable things are miracles. or oh look at all the violent stuff in that religion? the violent stuff in my religion? thats only descriptive/thats a metaphor/ dont take everything literally or...) That was meant to be one example.
Its also that some conclusions are inescapable. If your religious God is Good(any commonly accepted definition of good), and is capable of making a difference or a change and chooses not to (and we know from all the religious tomes that he is capable of making differences) , then he can't be Good. Whenever Im told of how some God actually healed the sick, Im reminded of a comment, So you have this omnipotent God, who can cure, actually cure people with a touch but chooses to do so only to a select few people, how good could he be?
Any road (thanks Robbo) to conclude with an anecdote
When Captain Sullenberger was asked whether he prayed during the Hudson river landing,he said something to the effect of "I was busy taking care of the plane. I was pretty sure that the passengers were taking care of the praying."

Sports
Being in a country obsessed more with the show then with the sport and with one of the absolute worst sports in the history of mankind, has dampened the enthusiasm for sports. Oh for the days of watching cricket and a little english premier league football, some golf, some NBA, and look there's even a kabbadi match, some tennis, some hockey .. sigh.. Im down to why the heck does cricinfo not refresh faster! how about some AJAX,you useless developer!!!

Politics
The only thing that leaves a worse taste in your mouth than religion (hey we aren't discussing my cooking so it doesnt count). It's sad to see that American politicians are as bad and in some cases worse than their Indian counterparts. If I ever approve of the death penalty, it will be because some politician is on trial.

Married SuperMen

There is a storyline that just finished in the SpiderMan book's where they ret conned his entire marriage , as part of his attempt to save his aunt, Peter Parker cuts a deal with the devil of the marvel universe and is no longer married to M.J. and does not know that he was ever married to her(yes , some comics are still that silly). Anyway some of the fans were in uproar and since this seemed to be an editorial driven story, Joe Quesada said he doesnt like the concept of married super heroes, and that there is no story he can tell with a married superhero that he can't tell with an unmarried one, but there are plenty of stories he can tell with an unmarried superhero that he can't with a married one.
And I think , that he is ofcourse talking rubbish. When Clark Kent married Lois Lane, i had to get Craig's mother , then on a cruise, to stop at a port and buy me the wedding of Superman comic book , and it was too good. It was sentimental, mushy , it had all the writers and artists of the comic book present at the wedding , and it was fun. And now it is tough to imagine an unmarried Superman, and the stories havent suffered much (though there are still bad superman stories as there always were). And if you ever read Whatever happened to the man of tomorrow story, that really is a perfect send off for superman, the way superman should end, and what do you know, in the end he is married to Lois Lane with kids. Some things are just meant to be.
Batman though is a different character. You would never expect or want to see him married and settled down with kids. Batman is an obsessive character and remove the obsession and he no longer is the same character. Batman is the loner.
And so it's not a question of how many different types of stories you can tell (someone has said there are only 7 seven types of unique stories in the word and everything else is a mixture of the 7 in varying degrees) , but it is how well you can tell them. Keith giffen and J.M. de matteis used humour to depict The elongated man and Sue dibny and it worked, till Brad Meltzer , for reason's best known to him killed off Sue. But if you read the next mini by Keith and J.M. written after Identity Crisis but placed before Identity Crisis timewise (yes comics are still that confusing) where you as a reader know that Sue will die but the characters themselves don't , it was both funny and touching and bittersweet , and how many stories can claim to be all of those?
And if you read 52, with a suicidal Ralph, who is finally reunited with Sue, oh wow, what an end , and a new beginning,try telling that story , Mr Quesada, with an unmarried superhero.
the problem with the comics though is that they run for a long long time. and just like any soap opera that has outlived its welcome, the writers try to find new (old) ways to shock the audience and get them interested again. And unfortunately all are cliches (infidelity. misunderstandings over infidelity, death, divorce, memory loss, etc etc.) and all of these solutions taint the characters. Can you imagine clark kent divorcing his wife? No? how about we kill her off then? get a new romantic interest and a new wedding? would sure boost up sales!
and I guess that's why Vertigo with it's mostly finite in time stories which have a beginning middle and end , turn out to be written so much better than the unlimited batman/superman.

Kingdom Come

For those who have read Kingdom Come and marvelled(!) at the art , only to realise on subsequent readings that what made this book great was not (just) the artwork , but the writing and the story, here's a tale for us
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=17538

Expect this article to make sense only after you've read Kingdom Come.

On writing

I finished reading Fables , The Good Prince and like all the fables volumes so far , what an amazing read. After reading the story about the tragic Christmas gift given to the Frog Prince, what a followup. The story has this underlying sorrow running through it, you know things are not going to end well, but there will be a brief period of sunshine and everything about this tale is done correctly , and that includes the ending as well. And it makes me think what makes a story great? Or rather what about a story's telling makes it great? If i look at frog prince lets see , A good guy's family is tragically killed and he embarks on a quest to make it right, his way (and no , fable's is not an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie). Seen this multiple times and in various ways, but fable's rises above all of them. I guess it is the ability of the writer to make us care about the characters. And I think the best guys are able to no matter what character they write. Bill Willingham did it in Fables. Mike Carey is another writer who was able to make the readers care about Lucifer , while not changing the character in any way at all. And Carey is able to do it , no matter what characters he writes. Whether its Frankie in my Faith in Frankie, Or Jen in Re-gifters or Tash in Confessions of a Blabbermouth or Constantine in Hellblazer, when you read the story you care about them (Did I just admit to liking the lead characters in two chic-lits?)
Greg Rucka is another such writer, i can't remember ever bothering about wonder woman , except when Rucka was doing the writing. Same character , same powers, but when Rucka writes you care. Surprisingly If I take a look back at the previous buy on sight Author's (Moore, Gaiman, Miller) they don't share this quality as much. Gaiman and Moore both wrote interesting concepts and idea's which were new/original. Miller was always tough guys being tough, which gets a bit old after a while. I wonder if my reading tastes are changing to preferring character driven stories instead of plot driven?
But anyway this was meant to be about writing. Oh and I would so like to write characters that people would care about , but I think I can't, because I can't invent any, I usually have to base them on people I know (An elf named ... !). At which time it is difficult to change their personality, because that would be in some ways cheating . I think it was Moore who said that you should always write what you would like to read, because that way you are at least guaranteed one satisfied reader. which reminds me I have to complete a story , well not complete, update!

Piracy

Dan Slott (comics writer) started a debate when he demanded that his fans buy the comic he writes rather than download it illegally. The series he writes seem to be well liked by those who read it , but sales are poor which might cause cancellation hence the challenge.
Scott Adams has also written about the topic of copyright abuse.
So herein my history.
I was first introduced to comics scanned and downloaded by folks when my friend from the states wrote half a dozen of CD's of comics we read. DC's aren't easily available in India and the prices are exorbitant(comparatively) and we didn't think much of it. It was a way to read books that weren't otherwise available and expensive to boot.
But after awhile i remembered the software piracy promise i had made myself( once i can afford it i wasn't going to pirate software) and then i thought was it really different?. And i haven't read any more pirated comics anymore(well except two below, pirated tech books is a different matter).
Lucifer(by Mike Carey) was one comic(a paradox) , for which i started buying single issues instead if the trade paperbacks because i sympathised with the low sales and i didn't want to see this series cancelled(it didn't , dont you love happy endings), and this was my contribution.
But when issues 74, and 75 were out and i desperately wanted to read the series end and the monthlies were available in UK but with no means to get them to India, i went and downloaded these issues. I suppose it was alright because i had bought those two issues already and they were in London. Oh yes i did download Nirvana and read, but it was the book was out of print and there was no way to get it. Back issues cost 75$ which was really ridiculous. Since then nirvana has been collected in the last trade , but to buy it i would have to buy the issues i already have , and so i haven't. Which is my entire comics book piracy history.
Having a collection of 2000+ comics, i don't think I've hurt the industry much :)
But the issues being debated are moral, ethical ones.
Analogies are being thrown about.
I remember seeing a software book license. it said that you could distribute the copy to someone else , free of charge , so long as you delete it from your machine (similar to if you lend a book, you cant read it yourself)
Overall though i think allowing people to scan books and distribute them to other people to read is good, especially for books from vertigo which have a low readership. and are actually very good reads. Because a lot of people (me for instance) , really detest reading from the computer screen. So if we like a book , we more often than not buy it. And we follow it , instead of waiting for the download to be available. We buy it as gifts for others, and we explore other books on the same theme, books by the same author, books about the same character.
That doesn't make it right however. Whether or not you disagree with copyright law, you have to follow it. Though i wish people would show some sense before passing absurd(e.g. American patent) laws.