The Beatles and the public domain

I've more than once dipped into the well of the public domain, both for inspiration and for resources necessary to get the job done.  And I'm hardly the biggest beneficiary, with Les Mis taking in $16 million at the box office this past weekend.  The Walt Disney Company, still making bank from the brow-sweat of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, has built from that base a presence in every aspect of media.

In fact, it's the total absence of mention of The Mouse that makes David Patrick Stearns' piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer analyzing the facts behind the Beatles' Love Me Do falling into the public domain under European copyright law all the more remarkable.  While citing an entity nearly as terrible and durable (Keith Richards), he mentions almost nothing of the massive media companies that have laid siege to the public domain.

It's an odd omission, as Stearns makes his case for why pop music is somehow different, and thus should be granted longer copyright protection.  He admits that learning that Love Me Do falling off the 50-year cliff into the EU's public domain makes him feel old.  Having spent some supermarket time listening to New Order's Love Vigilantes I can certainly sympathize.  But interestingly, he fails to make the case that since people are generally living longer, copyright terms should be extended so that creators could still enjoy the fruits of their labors in their lifetimes.

Stearns' further efforts to carve out a "just-so" justification for tacking another couple of decades onto the EU's copyright term serve to further illuminate the elephant in the corner:

"If there's one thing your generation gave us," a young guy on South Street said recently while blasting the Rolling Stones on his car radio, "it's great music and great weed." It helps that the music continues to be prevalent on radio, not to mention the sound system at your gym.

First, kid, that's two things, not one.  Might want to cut back on that weed.  But I digress.

So the nostalgia factor among the old, and the cool factor among the young.  All of that adds up to a powerful financial incentive for the keepers of modern media from allowing any intellectual property that remains within living memory from falling into the public domain.

To review, giving the simplified version: Copyright exists so that creators may enjoy the fruits of their labors without fear of theft while contributing to the larger culture. By the time it expired under the original rules, creators had ample opportunity to use their creations in order to secure a profit for themselves and hopefully their heirs.  Then, upon expiration of copyright, the work enters the public domain, becoming public property for the rest of us to use as we see fit.  This system has allowed us to build further upon prior creations, giving us Les Miserables (adapted for stage and screen from Victor Hugo's novel), the movie Forbidden Planet (a reinterpretation of Shakespeare's The Tempest), and Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies (which is quite frankly hilarious), just to scratch the surface.

All of this changed with The Sonny Bono Act of 1996, which did to American copyrights what Stearns seems to be hoping will happen to those in Europe: Tacked a couple of decades onto the period in which a work may be held in copyright.  Prompted, not so much by creators as our undying corporate "persons" that control the lion's share of modern popular culture, the Bono Act ensures that nothing, not one single work, will enter the public domain until 2019.

That's still one Presidential and three Congressional elections away, by the way.  That amounts to plenty of time for the same actors behind the Bono Act to kick the football further down the field.

Just to give an idea of what's staying behind the corporate paywall, so to speak, Duke University School of Law's Center for the Study of the Public Domain posts a yearly summary of what would have entered the public domain this year.  You'll recall I mentioned Forbidden Planet.  The page also mentions that, while that movie is likely to remain once its copyright term does expire, lesser known films are likely to be lost entirely before archivists get a hold of them.  And thus more pieces of our history are lost.

And I don't doubt for one second that the players behind the Bono Act are lining up for another kick, fueled no doubt by last year's Eldred vs. Ashcroft Supreme Court decision that not only reinforced the Bono Act but also gave Congress the unprecedented right to remove public domain status from any work as they see fit.

Anyone who appreciates the treasure that is the public domain finds this alarming.  But, conditioned as we are as a society to only value what's shiny and new, those who do treasure it seem few and far between.

And with cheerleaders like Stearns helping to convince the public that any extension is inevitable and necessary, we may soon find the lid on that treasure chest being closed and locked, permanently.

There is no "but." Just shut up right now.

Like everyone with an internet connection I've noticed a rise in some seriously vile behavior from guys that I used to identify as "my people:"  Atheists, skeptics, geeks, and online gamers.  Women have spoken up only to find themselves subject to horrendous threats and abuse.  Misogynists got their backs up when when called out on their misogyny and responded with graphic threats of assault and rape.

Inevitably, other voices, both men and women respected in these communities, spoke up.  I'm not certain why "don't be a dick" is such a tough pill for certain guys to swallow, but inevitably whenever these prominent voices speak up, their comment threads fill up with truly epic numbers of passive-aggressive douchebags.

One particular breed I'd like to discuss right now is the "Yes, but-" man.  These guys pop up like weeds in the aforementioned threads and give a token agreement in order to seem like a decent human being.  Then comes the word "but," after which the true pathetic specimen stands revealed.

I have no illusions that this little blog, which gets a new post once in a blue moon and a comment even less often, is going to change anyone's behavior.  So I'm going to aim a little lower than "revelation akin to Paul on the road to Damascus" and ask that the reader be aware of a single word.

"Yes, guys who stalk and harass women in a shared game world are losers, but-"

"Yes, threatening to rape and kill a woman is wrong, but-"

"Yes, you shouldn't creep on a woman and make her feel unsafe, but-"

Guys, when you feel that "but" forming on your lips, pause and consider.  You're about to try justifying the inexcusable.  You will fail and your true colors will be revealed.  Everything after "but" is why your parents and society as a whole have failed you.  And you, them.

Think about why that is.  If you value rational thought as much as you claim to, what is that snarling impulse in your forebrain?  What is that raw, ugly hatred?

Whatever it is, name it and put it the fuck down.  You are the party in the wrong, dude.  Not Rebecca Watson or Amanda Marcotte.

You.

This has been a public service announcement.

Cue the theremins

Don't get me wrong, I liked my old house:

But when you get right down to it, I'm just not a Hollywood bungalow type.  Plus, it was made more with the needs of couples in mind, rather than a solitary type like myself.  I had no real compelling need to even go upstairs.

So rather than rattle around in the same place, I began to explore other options.  And an idea really started to form once I stumbled across this blog entry by Ener Hax, talking about her wonderful retro flying saucer builds.  So, I thought, why not a small saucer fleet to call home?

In order to make it work I'd need a teleport system to tie it all together, and fortunately this one by Mistress Lycia is easy to configure and use.  So, with all of the tools in place, it was time to roll up my virtual sleeves and set up the Martian beachhead.

After removing the house, step one was the placing of the first saucer.  It had to be easily accessible, because it would double as my photo studio, and I'm not the only one on the sim who uses it.

Unlinking and phantoming the "light beam" were necessary steps for access.  At the moment I have to jump into the saucer to get inside.  I'm investigating other solutions that don't require visitors to hop up and down like jack-in-the-boxes.

Each saucer came with a pilot's seat.  Regrettably, in the name of freeing up floor space...

... they had to go.  Sorry, Ener.

Then I threw out another saucer, this one being one of the flying models.  The idea for this one is for a "living space" to entertain friends or chill out.

In this ship the hatchway in the middle was unnecessary, so I closed it up.  The grey disc to the right is that saucer's teleport platform.  I would also go on to add another saucer, much higher up and out of view, for working on clothing to avoid awkward moments brought about by nosy camming. As it's strictly another utilitarian space, it looks like the photo above, with no embellishments.

But getting back to the lounge saucer, I thought a nice view would give more of a sense of space.  So I took every inward-facing surface and replaced its texture with a totally clear one.  From the outside it's still the same saucer, but now I have a great view.

A little rummaging in my inventory produces the furniture and decor.  Despite killing any chance of anyone ever hiring me as an interior decorator, I find it suits me.

One final touch and my new home is in place, freeing me to continue to wait for the Utopian Playland.

One does not simply walk into Marketplace

Things have gotten a bit heated up my way, as in the mid- to upper 90's. According to the Murphy's Law principle that dictates the inner workings of bookmobiles, this is also when the air conditioning gives out. Usually on the first day of summer, just in case we might miss the point.

So yesterday, after roasting like a peanut for the better part of an afternoon, I finally settled down in the computer chair at home with no plans whatsoever. I'd just finished adding to the clothing line, the new poster wasn't due yet, and I hadn't heard back from the one person wanting a custom job. I figured it would be a night to just chill and hang out for a change.

This pleasant fantasy carried me through all of the time it took me to boot up and check my email.

Therein I saw not one, but two complaints from two different people in regard to our affiliate vendors. We give them away for free on Marketplace, and whoever sets them up gets a 20% cut of sales. We have dozens of WIN affiliate vendors out there, and they make up a good chunk of the gym's income. So if there's a problem, in these days of monolithic tier fees, there's a problem.

The problem, in this case, was that every affiliate vendor being direct-delivered from Marketplace was vending the exact same set of products. Whether one ordered the MMA gloves, boxing trunks, boots, bikinis, whatever, the vendors were only dispensing women's boxing robes. A nice product, to be sure, and one I think I can be justly proud of. But when it's not what the customer is expecting, quality control becomes a moot issue.

So yeah, a problem.

And, as it turned out, just the beginning.

The first step in troubleshooting is to recreate the problem. So I logged into SL and bought a couple of vendors off of Marketplace to see what they'd do. At the same time I was talking to the customers who had complained, assuring them that I was on the case and all would be sorted out eventually.

And just then, a friend IMed me.

And not just any friend, but a friend whom I adore and have not heard from literally in years until just that very night.

SL has made me a happy multitasker. At the top of my game, I can hold three conversations at the same time (if one is in voice) and still build up a quick little something for a photo shoot if need be.

But I had so much to do. A problem unresolved is a hair in my mouth. I can't rest or think about anything else until it's solved. And I couldn't stay logged in under the Abel Undercity account to solve it.

I wanted to stay and stay, and catch up, and have a laugh with my friend.

I had to go.

As if I didn't already feel like enough of a heel while making my excuses, another friend, one all too used to my "hello, I must be going" schtick, said "hi" just then too.

And I was leaving both of them in the lurch in order to go play with Satan's Little Beta Test, the Second Life Marketplace. So, not only am I a heel, I'm an idiot as well. Choosing fiddling with Marketplace over quality time with friends is like choosing thumbscrews over a nice slice of chocolate cake.

I could forgive the interface for being ugly if it wasn't also slow. Then there's the matter of bulk delete, which doesn't work at all. This was especially problematic during the transition from magic boxes to direct delivery, because switching over from a boxed item to a direct delivery folder unlisted the former. Very soon, anyone with a large number of items ran up against a limit of only 100 unlisted items, with no more being allowed until some were cleared off. Without bulk delete, this means clearing items off one at a time.

Did I mention that it was slow? Perhaps "glacial" is the better term. The combination of lack of bulk delete and slow response time is what turns Marketplace, for a vendor, from a necessary evil into a massive, grinding time-suck.

Not to mention the almost-random error message (I say "almost" because it comes up 100% of the time if you're a hopeful soul attempting a bulk delete despite all past history) that kicks you back to the front page instead of the one you had come from.

As the night drug on,  the annoyances became so commonplace as to become mere irritations.  But at the back of my mind I kept thinking about everything I was missing out on, for the sake of getting the damn thing to work properly.

It's times like these that really have me reconsidering the notion that Second Life is something I do for fun.

My place in the Care Bear Corps

For the explanation of that title, see here.

So I Googled "Lantern Corps personality test," and now I'm sharing results. Woo. I'm a wild man.

Your result for Which DCU Lantern Corps Is For You?...

Indigo Lantern Corps!

Take Which DCU Lantern Corps Is For You? at OkCupid

Who knew I was such a nice guy? :p

Allons y!

I missed the turn of the year and decade* here on the old blog, so best to dispense with the year in review (you're welcome) and look to the year ahead (sorry).

Another Day, Another Doctor:

Spoilercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

First off, big props to BBC America for not making us wait to say goodbye to David Tennant as The Doctor. Both episodes of The End of Time aired Stateside the day after each did in the UK. It was a fitting sendoff, taking a darker turn than usual as The Doctor grappled with his mortality right up until the very end. Tennant's last words as the Doctor took the form of a haunting final plea: "I don't want to go."

Heavy stuff, and a hard act for the new Doctor, Matt Smith, to follow. Mercifully, the slate seems to have been wiped clean for his new incarnation, Tennant's Doctor having given his goodbyes to every major supporting character from Sarah Jane Smith to Rose Tyler. Thus we might be spared another unwieldy "Companions Assemble!"-style mashup in the style of The Stolen Earth/Journey's End.

The BBC has also posted a preview of Smith's upcoming turn as The Doctor to YouTube:



My first take is that I really, really hope there's a Plan B after "hit the Dalek with a stick." The Doctor looks like a tweedy college professor (even with the gun; remind me to introduce you to some of my old professors), and that seems to work for him. After all, call yourself "The Doctor" and eventually I suppose you can expect an occasional academic turn.

As with all Doctors before him, fandom seems to be taking a "wait and see" attitude for Smith's following Tennant's wildly successful run. I'm eagerly awaiting it myself.

More Human than Makehuman:

My favorite piece of software still under development, Makehuman, seems to be back on track after two setbacks in 2009. The first came from without, as their original site was attacked by hackers, necessitating a time-consuming move to Blogspot. The second was self-imposed, as the original mesh model was replaced with a newer one. The alpha 4 release just came out a couple of days ago.

According to the road map, alpha 5, originally planned as the final alpha release and including the pose engine, has been bumped down the hierarchy, with the pose engine and transition to beta now set to follow alpha 6. Perhaps wisely given the events of last year, Makehuman has declined to set a date for future updates. But barring disaster the end of the year should find us, if not at, then at least much closer to the final release version of an open source alternative to Poser and DAZ3D Studio.

Comic Relief:

More and more I feel like it's time to explore alternative outlets for my favorite medium, comics. As I get older, big crossovers in superhero books feel less like events and more like attempts to pick my pocket. Don't get me started (again) on the meaninglessness of a character dying. At least The Doctor has a built-in "out" for that.

More and more it looks like the only thing I have to look forward to in the comics realm this year is another visit to Wizard World Philadelphia, which seems to have learned its lesson from last year's fiasco and looks to be putting a good show together this time. Of course, given the current financial realities, I can't say if I'm actually going just yet.

Still, a guy can hope.

Here's to 2010. May we all see 2011.

UPDATE: Forgot something else planned for the year ahead, assuming the principals can stop fighting in court and take it to the ring where it belongs. My call for Pacquiao vs. Mayweather is Pacquiao. He's got the speed, and I don't think Mayweather has the tools to counter him. Hopefully they'll take their corners on March 13th and we'll see.

* - I know, I know, math purists, but what can I say? People like watching multiple digits roll over (cf. the Millennium).

PSA: Just Say No.

The holidays are looming large ahead of us. That means celebration, festivity, and frolic.* And as always, when we gather with friends, there's always the possibility of temptation, of doing something that we know we'd later regret.

So when your host opens that drawer and pulls out its contents, it's perfectly natural to want to go along, to not be the party pooper.

But this is not the time for comity or compromise of principle. As your friends and loved ones plunk down on the sofa, ready to take in the offered contraband, it is time to take your stand.

Warn them.

Stop them any way you can.

Under no circumstances can you call yourself a friend if you let them watch The Star Wars Holiday Special.

I'm serious. There are good movies, bad movies, so-bad-they're-good movies, and awful movies. Then there is The Star Wars Holiday Special in its class of one, where we can only dream of it being merely awful. If the dread Necronomicon came with a dvd insert, the first selection on the menu would be The Star Wars Holiday Special.

I have come back from that dark land, where Bea Arthur tends bar at Mos Eisley, and where Harrison Ford joins the final sing-along at the end looking like he wants nothing more than for a very heavy set piece to fall on him, to warn you.

Don't do it.
* - Whether you want to or not. FROLIC, DAMMIT!

My dream library project: Putting tools into as many hands as possible.

A public library, a good one, is always more than a mere collection of books. Libraries are a hub of the communities that have them. They act as founts of knowledge, crucibles of human thought, and the foundries of creativity. In a library, one seeking the tools to engage the world will find them.

With that principle in mind, picture, in the lobby of your local library, a box. It's open, with the top torn off like a supermarket candy display. A hastily-scribbled note taped to the box simply says: "FREE! TAKE ONE!" You reach into the box and, instead of candy, you pull out a flash drive. A cheap one, say, no more than 4 gigs in size. The kind they hand out as promotional items at trade shows.

You take it home, plug it into a USB port on your computer, and (perhaps against your better judgment) turn on the machine.

It boots up to a desktop that you've never seen before, but this is no hijack. You're clearly still in control of what's on the screen.

A quick exploration of the menus reveals what you suddenly have at your fingertips.

A full office suite. Powerful Photoshop-level graphics programs. 3-D applications, both simple and complex.

Game engines of all sorts.

And that's not all. There are audio and video editors.

And so much more, that it seems like, with time and application, one might be able to create almost anything.

A box full of these little drives, there for the taking on a library table, all free and legally available. All unasked for, but discovered by people who had never thought to seek these tools out.

Putting aside, for the moment, matters of funding such a project, or its feasibility. What wonders would grow from such a scattering of seeds?

Don't try this at home.

When a shitty, inexplicably popular franchise needs to be bashed, sure, you could just sit on the couch and mock it between handfuls of Doritos. But are you really bashing it? Are you applying the full spectrum of sheer scorn that needs to be heaped upon this insult to the collective intelligence of humanity? Or are you just winging it as best you can within your limited scope of insult humor while trying to avoid choking on a Dorito?

In cases like this, it's best to call on the movie bashing professionals at RiffTrax, for quality MST3K-style acts of cinematic destruction:

I am that which I used to mock.

So yesterday morning I found myself alone with both breakfast and the remote, my wife still feeling tired and having gone back to bed. I'd had more than my fill of Michael Jackson coverage (here's the latest: He's still dead), so it was time to head into the outer limits of basic satellite service.

At 5 AM it's mostly a trip into infomercial hell, of course. I had no urge to have the question "Is Colon Detox Hype?" answered, and so too did other such siren calls go unheeded. My normal refuge, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, was showing something like Home Movies, a crudely-drawn sitcom featuring annoying kids, self-absorbed adults, and not a single speck of actual comedy. Plus for some reason everyone on the show, from the tall to the small, wears footie pajamas 24/7. Seriously.

Finally, shelter was offered in the form of VH1's 120 Minutes, which used to be the MTV show for the latest in alternative rock and pop. Now it's a nostalgia show, its content very much unchanged from the days when it came on after Headbangers Ball.

I had just taken a sip of my coffee and was nodding my head to the beat of the Pet Shop Boys when realization hit me: Here I was, wallowing in nostalgia for my youth, just like the forty-somethings I used to make fun of during my youth. Only now the bands in question were Sonic Youth and Depeche Mode rather than the Grateful Dead and Manfred Mann.

Ah, well. I guess somewhere in my brain it will always be somewhere between 1987 and 1991. It's the karmic price I pay, I guess: Leaving myself an open target for the next generation of smartasses, as those middle-aged men before me.

I won't be going so far as posting "The Circle of Life" or "Sunrise, Sunset" here, but I am willing to throw out some Love and Rockets:



And if I'm playing Love and Rockets then I have to follow up with Sonic Youth (with special guest Chuck D):



And follow that up with XTC:



And end it all with a bang with Wendy O. Williams and The Plasmatics:

Wizard World Philadelphia: The belated con report

Yes, Bill, I'm posting it now.

Pre-Con:

I can be hard on my friend Bill, a cataloguer in Technical Processing, the department across the hall from mine. When I agreed to go with him to this year's Wizard World Philadelphia I had actually broken precedent by agreeing almost immediately, without hemming and hawing for weeks while he nagged and cajoled me, as I had done in previous years.

By affirming that this year I was in almost as soon as the subject was brought up, I had, in essence, taken all of the fun out of it.

Sorry, Bill.

After I ruined everything by being so goddamn cooperative, our preparation for the convention mainly consisted of me checking in at his workstation to take a quick inventory of the guest list. We checked to see who had been added and who had been dropped almost every day. I personally kept an eye on Artist Alley, scanning it for names I recognized and doing a quick calculation of how much I'd be willing to pay for a sketch balanced against my budget for the day.

Thus were the days passed until...

The Day of the Con:

Bill picked me up and we headed down to the train station in Bryn Mawr to catch the R5. Despite just having had breakfast, my stomach felt like it was going to eat itself, so I went into the station and ordered a toasted bagel from the snack bar. The proprietor was a nice, sociable fellow, who even sat down with Bill and me to chat while we waited for the train.

Great bagel, too.

The R5 came and went with us on it, and we headed toward Center City with great feelings of anticipation.

Once we reached the con we checked in quickly and headed toward the main floor. The Convention Center staff kept the lines moving, though each and every one of them looked like they had been forced to eat a bug after clocking in.

The first thing I usually notice upon entering a convention is the costumes. This time was no exception. Harley Quinn and Emma Frost arrived together and posed for pictures (no doubt fueling many a fevered fanboy fantasy). There was a striking Black Manta costume, in the helmet of which the maker had installed a voice changer, making him sound much like the way the villain did on the old Super Friends show. Fan anticipation for the upcoming GI Joe movie was evidenced by the clusters around Snake-Eyes and The Baroness. And movie quality renditions of Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and an entire platoon of Imperial Stormtroopers were an inescapable presence.

Bill and I tooled around the floor a bit before separating to pursue our parallel lines of fandom. He headed for Autograph Alley while I started scouting out the bargain bins for trade paperbacks. I kept my focus on series that I had already started to collect instead of trying to break new ground. I was rewarded with a copy of Grendel: Devil's Reign, which rounds out my Grendel reprints from the original Comico run. Other books were had, but Reign is the day's crown jewel from the bins, as far as I'm concerned.

From there I went to Artist's Alley, where I found the booth of my favorite cartoonist, Evil, Inc.'s Brad Guigar.

By a weird little bit of serendipity, I was actually standing by, waiting my turn, while this video was being shot:

Meeting Brad Guigar from Rafael Irizarry on Vimeo.

I love meeting Brad Guigar. He's a great guy, and gracious to his fans, even refraining from telling them outright that the gag they thought of for his strip was too awful to use (cough-cough). I make a point to seek him out whenever I'm at Wizard World and this year his book was the only one for which I paid cover price. For each book purchased he added a quick head sketch on the flyleaf for free. Like I said, a great guy.

I was a bit boggled to find only one vendor - Krypton Comics - actually selling comic art supplies. I mean, it's a no-brainer that artists and artist wannabes like myself are drawn (heh) to these events. You'd think more vendors would have twigged to that. Still, that one did was enough for me, even if they had run out of non-photo blue leads for automatic pencils, thus forcing me to buy the old-fashioned variety (grrr...).

On the downside, scarcity seemed to be an unintended underlying theme to the convention. There were hardly any freebies to speak of, mainly due to the absence of the companies in the best position to hand them out. DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, none of the major publishers had a booth there and pickings were slim. I attributed it at the time to the economy, but that wasn't the whole story.

More on that later.

Well, Bill and I fulfilled our various personally-assigned missions and headed home. We were generally satisfied with the day, having both gotten what we'd came for.

Post-Con:

After plowing through the adventures of the Ultimates, John Constantine, and the Justice Society, and beginning to savor the story of the rise of the Grendel-Khan, I got to wondering about the absence of the major publishers. And not just in comics, either. When I had last gone to Wizard World there were a couple of game companies taking up a lot of space that dealers and artists were then noticeably spread out to fill.

With the high of the trip having worn off, I thought about some of the rumblings I'd heard from the fans and vendors. I was hardly the only one to notice the big companies' absence. One or two gone might be attributed to economic forces, but all of them?

Something was up.

I'm sure this is old news to fans who follow the politics of the convention scene, but I'm an occasional con goer, and my eye was completely off of this ball. Happily, I wasn't the only one disturbed by the omens and portents.

My go-to guy for the day after turned out to be the same as it was the day of: Brad Guigar. You can just hear the scribbling of signatures on restraining orders right now, can't you?

The fans had, indeed, noticed the absence of DC, Marvel, et al., from what was supposed to be a major East Coast convention. It boded ill for the future. Fans had even gone so far as wearing "WWP-RIP" t-shirts on Sunday, the con's final day.

Apparently Wizard had tried out its 800-pound gorilla status in the comics industry and came up about 500 pounds short, scheduling the Philadelphia con on the same weekend as the venerable HeroesCon in Charlotte, North Carolina. It blew up in their faces as DC, Marvel, and more took their toys down south, deciding that the Charlotte con was a better use of their resources.

This led to some bloodletting on the Wizard payroll, as the people responsible for the fiasco were sacked and their replacements were left to try to salvage the mess left with only a few short weeks to go.

So the egg on Wizard's face was unavoidable by that point. In retrospect, it was clear that this year's Wizard World Philadelphia was a holding action. That notion was reinforced by the fact that Wizard couldn't even staff its own booth, leaving only the merest fraction of a display in place (never has the original cover art for Watchmen looked so lonely...).

The day after the convention, damage control was already underway. The Wizard World site put up next year's dates as June 11-13, a full week earlier than HeroesCon's traditional Father's Day weekend dates. So it's a first step in a walk back from previous mistakes.

Time will tell if the show redeems itself in the eyes of the fans.

Stalking ≠ Romance

I'll get to the matter of Wizard World and the good time that was had by all momentarily. First, as a lover of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a loather of Twilight, I wanted to share this video that was posted up at Pandagon.

Without spoiling it, let's just say that one Edward Cullen picks the wrong teenager upon whom to try his creepy "stalk ya/control ya/maybe wanna kill ya" shtick.

I really don't know how Twilight manages to get pushed off as "romance." Vampire, shmampire, the dude is a stalker! Even in these little re-edited snippets the guy is giving off a vibe of genuine danger. Not the old writer's crutch of "bad boy with a heart of gold," but an actual predator to whom the only logical responses would be restraining orders, arrest, and/or the business end of a shotgun.

All the young zombies

Wizard World Philadelphia is underway even as I write this. I get my shot at the place tomorrow (details forthcoming, of course). But I want to draw your attention to a facet of the celebration that had me scratching my head.

I like to grab me a copy of the Philadelphia Metro on the way in to work. While paging through it an ad for Wizard World caught my eye. This wasn't a difficult task, as the ad featured Terminator 3 star Kristanna Loken (a wise choice; don't get me wrong, I love the Guest of Honor, Garth Ennis, but, well, look at him, then look at her, and tell me who you would put in the ad copy).

But while Ms. Loken grabbed my attention, what kept it was the copy at the bottom of the ad: "Kids 10 & under get FREE zombie face painting!"

Who what now?

I've known for some time now that, as long as three or more are gathered in any social function, someone will set up a table to paint kids' faces. But I had to wonder: Why zombies? I mean sure, there's the gross-out factor, and... well, we're dealing with 10-year-olds here. Do we need more than the gross-out factor?

But there's more going on here, it seems. In addition to the smell of comic ink, there's the definite whiff of the charnel in the Philadelphia air this weekend. Low, guttural moans emanate from the darker corners of Arch Street, and the stiff shuffling of feet can be heard in the shadows of the Trocadero Theater.

Wherein the Philly Zombie Beach Party is taking place.

And while I'm sure everybody wants to get in on the act, it's only open to zombies who are 21 and over.

Sorry kids. Back to scaring the neighbors.

UPDATE: OK, they won't be knocking back zombies with the grownups at the shindig, but it turns out that this ain't no "soccer-mom-with-a-tray-of-greasepaint" setup for the facepainting. This is professional caliber movie makeup.

Let me put it this way: If I came home with a face like that, nobody could blame my wife for using the only logical response:



She's got the knives and everything. Seriously.

MuppetMuppetMuppet!

A classic Sesame Street song about the diversity of human experience.

With the notable exception of the lactose intolerant. Heavy. ;p

Test drving the 1.23 viewer.

So after much hype and ballyhoo, the 1.23 viewer is upon us, tool of the Great Sanitization, wherein all of SL's adult content has been moved to its own continent. This puzzles me because, well, SL is only meant for adults anyway. Why are we protecting adults from adult content?

My personal theory, uncontaminated by research or verified facts, has less to do with any squicky feelings residents might have regarding the more intimate side of the human experience than it does with corporate sensibilities. Coca-Cola isn't going to want Jodi's Fetish Castle as a neighbor in the virtual world anymore than in the real one.

Hence the new zoning scheme, which is all the new continent really is.

So what about the viewer itself? Well, the Linux version is still in beta, so not everything is smooth sailing in it regardless. But there seems to be a general cleaning up of the interface and it certainly presents better than previous versions.

Search is now divided into "PG," "Mature," and "Adult" (here we go again). One has to go into Preferences to enable "Adult" search (which I did immediately; I have no business in the adult sphere, but it grinds my gears to think, at my age, that someone is trying to tell me where I can't go).

My favorite new feature, so far, is the ability to set default permissions for uploads.* No more digging into each file to set permissions on a poster before passing it on to Karine, or, embarrassingly, getting the message "full perm please" when I forget to do so. So that'll speed things along nicely.

I have found one bug, and it's rather significant. I don't know yet whether I'm the only one who's experienced it (doubtful). Sometimes, when changing my av's clothing, rather than the usual changeover, I'm treated to the sight of my av disappearing entirely. If it's just changing pants, then it's just the lower half that vanishes leaving me a floating torso. This has never happened to me in previous versions.

Rebaking or going into Appearance mode sets things right, but still, it's an odd thing.

* - For the non-SLers in the readership: Graphics and other uploadable items can be assigned any, all or none of three permissions having to do with how you want others to treat your items. "Perms" can be allowed or disallowed for the ability to modify, copy, or to send them to someone else ("transfer").

'Ere, 'e says 'e's not dead!

He was being led down the courthouse steps in handcuffs. A hero to the nation for longer than most Americans had been alive, he was now a prisoner. All that was certain in his future was his day in court, and then, most likely, prison. He knew this, but, like the soldier that he was, he vowed to face the future fighting.

That future was suddenly shattered by the report of a high powered rifle. The prisoner fell, his life bleeding out at the feet of his captors. There was nothing anyone could do.

Captain America, the Living Legend of World War II, the Sentinel of Liberty, was dead.

And across the country, millions of comics fans rolled their eyes and said: "Yeah, right!"

Sure enough, two years later, the cynics have been proven right. Cap is back as of this week. Apparently for superheroes there's little to no difference between death and an extended sabbatical.

I'm sorry, but both Marvel and DC have drawn from this particular well too often for me to care anymore. Too many characters, major and minor, have gotten up from their dirt naps, brushed themselves off, and continued business as usual. It's past the point where nobody but the entirely uninitiated (like, say, the staff at The New York Times, who wrote Cap a nice obituary) can take a character's death seriously, especially if said character had a fetish for Spandex and liked to hit people.

Whether shot, stabbed (Elektra), blown to bits (Green Arrow), run down to a skeleton (the Silver Age Flash), or blasted with lethal energies (Supergirl, Jean Grey), and no matter how long they have been dead (Captain America's sidekick, Bucky, dead since World War II and one of the few characters defined in the Marvel Universe as being absolutely, definitively dead... isn't), sooner or later they're carrying on like nothing had happened.

It's actually gotten to the point where the characters themselves, heroes and villains alike, recognize that the Reaper is a round-trip local ride rather than a one-way express. In Brad Meltzer's Identity Crisis miniseries, he plays with this a bit, as three villains at an underworld gathering discuss the passing of one of the white hats:

VILLAIN 1: Your'e sure Troia's dead?

VILLAIN 2: Dead.

VILLAIN 3: She'll be back...

Elsewhere in the room is a formerly-deceased time-traveling villain who claims to be a version of himself who slipped away a few seconds before he was killed. The headache you're experiencing now is a normal side effect of exposure to time-travel-related plot points. Just shake it off.

After the courthouse assassination, there's an entire issue of Wolverine working out his denial of Cap's death by infiltrating the secure facility where his body is being held to determine if he's morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably dead.

And of course, he is. That's actually part of the problem. Cap's death was so transparently a marketing strategy, meant to boost sales as Marvel paved the way for his eventual return, that it was impossible to take his demise seriously. No amount of histrionics over his departure from this mortal coil can obscure the fact that he has a guaranteed return ticket.

Really, it just needs to stop.

As a plot device it's become blunted and stale. There's no sense of tragedy (though the publishers treating us like we'll fall for this chestnut again is pretty tragic in its own way), and the drama of the moment is retarded by the fact that we know it just won't stick.

So the publishers have two options: One is to reserve killing a character for when they know they can deal with the actual consequences of keeping him or her dead. I don't think they can help themselves at this point, though. It's become a compulsive behavior to stand them back up after an appropriate mourning period.

The other is to just take it off the table. Stop killing the characters. It doesn't mean anything anymore and we're tired of it.

Case in point: Guess who's dead, right this very second, in the DC Universe?

Batman.

You think he's going to stay that way?

Debuffed.

One of my favorite presents from last Christmas was a copy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home, which was the first chapter in the ongoing "Season Eight," a continuation of the tv series in comic book form. I was eager and curious to see how characters I had known and loved had progressed since the destruction of Sunnydale, but I was also a bit worried. Would the things I had loved about the show translate over into comic form? God knows I'd seen some horrific adaptations in my day. Did Joss Whedon still have the touch?

Happily, he did. It was like meeting old friends again (though I'm still pissed about Anya getting killed off in the last episode of the show). Jokes, terror, one-liners, and head kicks were served up in their proper portion sizes as Whedon once again showed that he knew how to keep me both entertained and guessing.

So you can imagine my surprise when I learned that, though he is credited as Buffy's creator, Whedon doesn't actually own the rights to the Buffy franchise.

That honor belongs to Fran Rubel Kazui and her husband, Kaz. As you've no doubt heard from the wailing and gnashing of teeth of fans of the series, they plan to do a movie relaunch of the franchise without Whedon or any aspect of tv's "Buffyverse."

That is to say, no Angel, no Willow, no Xander, no Spike. No Giles, no Drusilla, no Cordelia, no Oz, no nobody, no how.

It's probably clear from my tone that I think that as ideas go, this one sucks more than every vampire on the show put together. I know, the Kazuis probably saw all of that Twilight money and decided that they wanted some of that cash flow, and figured that their original movie was at least as bad as Stephenie Meyer's bestselling literary turds. They probably felt entitled.

Oh, and that original movie? The 1992 damp squib that disappeared from the box office like a vampire in sunlight? Fran directed it.

Suffice to say that I don't think the current rights holders have their fingers on the pulse of what will sell.

"I'm Zippy! Who are you?"

The source of this clip,1988's Comic Book Confidential, was on the Ovation Channel on Sunday night. If you haven't seen the Ovation Channel, think of it as a sort of an A&E Lite: Highbrow programming combined with the usual basic cable commercials for quickie loans, herbal male enhancement, and other dubious pursuits. What might be easily overlooked on, say, the E! Channel is rather jarring when intercut with a performance of Bizet's Carmen.

The movie starts off as a fairly comprehensive history of American comics, right up to the Congressional investigations of the 1950's. The best parts, really, are the interview segments with William Gaines, publisher of EC's horror comics, like Tales from the Crypt, and later, MAD Magazine. Combined with footage of said hearings and a piece of "investigative journalism" linking comics and juvenile delinquency (replete with a good ol' fashioned book burning), one gets a clearer idea of how much comics as a medium were stunted and censored just as they were beginning to move beyond superheroes.

That story alone would have made for a great movie, but, alas, that wasn't meant to be. Instead we get the longest piece of the film (or did it just seem to go on forever?) revolving around the underground comics scene of the 1960's. I got the impression that the entire movie was leading up to this.

So after spending time with Harvey Pekar and Robert Crumb, I would have been content and ready to move on to the next subject, with Art Spiegelman as an extra treat.

But sadly, no. This was not meant to be. I mean, you also need to see Lynda Barry! And Victor Moscoso! And Sue Coe! And more and more!

Mainstream comics rate an occasional "meanwhile" as the indie parade marches on. I admit that I boiled a little when I saw titles like Matt Wagner's art deco crime drama Grendel: Devil by the Deed and Mike Baron and Steve Rude's slick science fiction saga Nexus being lumped in (via montage) as more of that silly superhero stuff. The project seems to quickly devolve into promoting a film student's vision of the future of comics: Artsy, experimental, and often impenetrable to the casual reader.

Needless to say, it gets old with a quickness. Pity, too. It was such a promising start.

There's unintentional irony at the end, where Frank Miller pronounces the inevitable doom of the superhero, this two years after he helped change the game with the publication of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

The Dark... Knight? I seem to have heard that somewhere before. Oh, what does it matter, twenty years after the predicted demise of superheroes...

Breaking Radio Silence

Fifteen days without blogging seems like long enough. Let's see... any news?

• Well, for the Friday Tournament on the 8th I had the honor of being on the receiving end of Abbiee Benazzi's first win as a heavyweight. I feel I put in a good effort, keeping pace with Abbiee for four out of five rounds, but it was the last one that killed me. It was a good match, and Abbiee is good people. Look for her to be going for Cal's title before long.
• In more recent developments, I see that Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) has introduced legislation to revoke the ban on online gambling in the US. Despite its global reach, Linden Labs was subject to the ban as an American company. I remember a lot of SL casinos going poof as makers regrouped to figure out games that wouldn't be in violation of the letter of the law. It remains to be seen if a change in the law would also result in a change in Linden Labs' policies, but I'll bet some current and former casino operators are going to be watching this new legislation closely.
• I've been re-officed. I found some low-prim yet nice-looking houses at Yadni's Junkyard, and Karine took the beach house and Egyptian models and added them to the landscape at Averlast Vegas. The beach house I occupied as office/studio space was a bit of a fixer-upper (no connection between the floors, so Karine added a teleporter), but as prices go, it's hard to argue with "free." Plus the builds are so nice you wouldn't think they were freebies. Other models include a lighthouse (tempting, but the interior was too small for my purposes), a SoHo artists' loft (two variations, one with graffitti and one without), and a Japanese tea house. My personal favorite is the mini movie theater, which includes a media screen, seats four, and has a classic sign on the outside. They were built with tiny plots of land in mind, which explains their size.

I know Trekkies.

And I say to them, with love, that when Life Imitates Onion, it's time to pause and reflect.


Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

I'm serious. The only people I've heard from who don't like the new Star Trek movie are hardcore, exclusionist Trek fans and Daniel Holloway, the putz reviewer in the Daily Metro who likes nothing anyway.