In which the author wonders if she's the only person who thinks these things /matter/
I tried to draw Bart today: because I fail at fanart, it didn't work. Also, it looks like Seth, if Seth dyed his hair and underwent certain personality alterations. Then, there were girls in swimsuits. And why not?
There will now me some musings and grumblings about comics and what I've heard of the new Flash series with some straying into video games, Bujold, and validating emotional responses in storytelling.
... Naturally, I don't think there's a single person who might read this who'd be interested in all of these things together. Because I have that kind of luck.
A while back, I talked about how I was essentially breaking up with DC, if I could ever have been said to be for DC in the first place; after all, I first fell as a result of a series which, at the time, had already been cancelled, which I knew, so maybe DC and I were never meant to be in the first place. The ending of a series shouldn't necessarily mean a complete reluctance to become involved with anything the company produced in the future, but the end of Impulse and the knowledge of what was going on in Teen Titans did that for me, although I continued to enjoy backissues of other series. Then, Infinite Crisis came about, Ted Kord, Sue Dibny, and Maxwell Lord were killed, and the message from DC was, resoundingly, "These developments should not upset you. You should be excited about the new and exciting things we're doing in the wake of Infinite Crisis. Love these developments! Love our new heroes! And if you're still moping about Ted Kord, you're a damn dirty racist! Also, lesbians are awesome!" Impulse, as a character, has essentially been dead for a couple years by the time these things were going on, so I can only imagine if I were to put up a fuss about /that/, the answer I receive would be so many ellipses. Fans have felt the loss of things they were fond of and these feelings of loss are not only dismissed by the people responsible for them, but those who are saddened by the direction DC is taking are told in so many words that they as fans are not the kind of fans DC is interested in continuing to cultivate.
I know I'm not the kind of fan DC wants around. An introverted, twenty-something girl who didn't discover comics until she was in university? Who's interested in characters? Puh-lease. It is to laugh. So I don't expect DC to go about making comics specifically for me. But it still hurts when a comic and a character I loved and found fascinating is taken from me and replaced by ... something that probably won't get close to capturing that feeling over again. Noel says that the new Flash is being written by the fellows who did the Sentinel (a tv series I never watched and haven't a bloody clue what it was about - another detective series?) and they were awesome at doing tv for guys and awful at doing character development. Great. Just what I don't want. Which is unfortunate, because I think the setup for the current Flash has the /potential/ to capture a similar feeling the original Impulse series did and undo the mess caused by Teen Titans to some degree ... but I doubt they'll bother. Bart, when I was introduced to him, was a character from the future plunged into a time that was about as alien to him as another world. He had the body of a teenager but there was something inherently childlike about him. The results of being raised in VR lead to a toddler-like impulsiveness, an inability to comprehend his own mortality. He /wasn't/ a toddler in the body of a young teen, but a lot of his personality was child-like because of his inexperience with dealing with anything beyond video games. There's the /potential/ for something similar to be created with the newly adult Bart. (Note: I have no idea if Bart was again subjected to accelerated aging in the speed force or if he actually spent those years /in/ the speed force, experiencing them as a normal person would, but there's no reason why it would /have/ to be the latter, and I'd like to assume the former.) To have finally gotten the hang, more or less, of being a teenager, only to be accelerated into adulthood and forced to learn the hang of things all over again, this time without the help of a stern, old-fashioned mentor? Dealing with both being a hero, living up to Barry's legacy /and/ trying to learn how to be an adult, an immature but well-meaning teen in the body of a twenty-something? That's an idea that has so much potential ... which I'm sure will be squandered by the writers. DC doesn't give me much reason to hope, not with their track record to date, not with their new, darkish universe with big damn heroes. The potential's there in the concept, but I don't think DC is interested in making the sort of comic series where an entire issue could be focussed on a character /trying to fall asleep/ and the surreal dreams and nightmares he suffers when he finally does, allowing for both comedy /and/ a glimpse into the character's psyche. The thought of that wasted potential produces thoughts I consider highly detrimental to the enjoyment of a story: "If /I/ were writing this ..." (Which may be unfair of me. After all, the most popular thing I've ever written involved one fellow hitting another over the head with a chair, and what I've devoted the most time and love to can, most kindly, be described as "antics", while the ... less kind would probably describe it as pointless, plotless drivel. But I can still /pretend/ that if I had access to it, I could do the idea more justice than the actual writers.)
I don't expect things to be tailored to my taste, although sometimes it seems nice, but I don't think 'Well, it's being written for /boys/' is an excuse, either. Let's look at another medium that's made for a male-dominated audience: video games. Maybe it's just because of the video games I choose to play, but I'm not overwhelmed by a sense of what I think's important being neglected in the video games that carry on the legacy that I love. Let's look at Suikoden. Sometimes it's handled badly, true, but the fact that most of the games don't have carry-over main characters helps me give them a chance even after being disappointed. Suikoden IV was horrible and a chore. Suikoden V is a pure, unadulterated delight and I've never got the sense that this is not for me, even though the average gamer is male. Not only that, but there's little things, pointless things inserted that almost act as a code, a way of conveying the reassuring message of 'You love these games. We love them too. Don't worry.' The hero dressing up like Tir McDohl for part of the game. The loading sprites. These aren't necessary but in their way they let you know that even in a time when video games are maturing and evolving, the roots are /remembered/ and they're /important/. It's fanservice, I suppose. Maybe the problem is in their fanservice comics are too specifically geared at a type of fan of which I am not.
It's not like video games companies can't produce similar senses of outrage in their fans. I'd liken Lucas Arts cancellation of Sam and Max: Freelance Police after E3 got up the excitement of fans and the media to what's being done with certain things in DC right now. The message, officially, was that the market couldn't support Sam and Max at the time. What was heard? The fans who remember Sam and Max, fans who've been around since before the medium went mainstream, aren't fans we care about anymore. That's the same message I get from DC now, except that message is coming from the comics themselves as well as the higher-ups. It's a double-blow.
I'm not asking for, every time something bad happens in a comic, book, tv series, or anything else, someone to pat my head and say 'Don't worry, little Ingrid, all will be well, don't cry'. Not exactly, anyway. I'm mostly looking for some sign that the creators, writers, artists, whoever else, /acknowledge/ the emotional potential of what they're doing and don't belittle my reactions. Let's move into books for our example and further alienate any readers who have stuck around. At the end of Lois McMaster Bujold's "Mirror Dance", I was elevated, because it was a wondeful book. I was also in /tears/, because I was sure one of my favourite characters, Bel Thorne, was being cut out of the series. I'd never see it again and I was /sad/. I'd loved that character and would miss it in future Vorkosigan adventures. I didn't refuse to read any more Bujold in the future, because what was done had been necessary, in the context of the plot, and had actually resulted in Bel having the most prominent role to date in any novel, but I was still upset. Then, a few years after I read "Mirror Dance", "Diplomatic Immunity" was announced.
And Bel Thorne would be in it.
I don't think there are words to describe the stunned delight I felt. The novel itself was far from Bujold's best, but that didn't matter. In making a role for Bel, Bujold told me it was /okay/ that I'd missed the character in the last novel. There was nothing wrong with crying when I thought I'd never see it again. It had been an important character and it was /fine/. It wasn't dead in a ditch, it was happy, life went on.
It's knowing that you aren't looked down upon for feeling the way you do. It's being given the impression that the writer, the powers that be, respect you, respect their characters, and respect what they're creating. And I don't get that from DC comics.
I don't know if I'm going to read the new Flash or not. I had to be held down and have the comic thrust in my face to read even a few panels of the relevant issue of Infinite Crisis. Maybe I'll give it a try, maybe I'll try not to be a bitter, jaded fan ... and maybe I'll get drunk so it seems like a good idea.
I believe in stories. I believe in their power and what they can do and I don't see the point in investing myself in the storytelling of someone, or a group of someones, who don't consider it as important as I do.
Oddly enough, I'd have been perfectly fine with reading the new Flash if it was all about Jay Garrick.
I'm starting to wonder if the passionate interest I have in storytelling, the way I can be hypnotized for hours by fish in a tank, my love of lying on my back and just watching the clouds go by, are a result of the fact that all the pleasure a normal person gets from sex and drinking and whatever else all has to go /somewhere/ in an asexual person with a disinterest in drink. Or maybe I'm just crazy.
Funny how things work,
Almighty Ingrid, Signing Off
There will now me some musings and grumblings about comics and what I've heard of the new Flash series with some straying into video games, Bujold, and validating emotional responses in storytelling.
... Naturally, I don't think there's a single person who might read this who'd be interested in all of these things together. Because I have that kind of luck.
A while back, I talked about how I was essentially breaking up with DC, if I could ever have been said to be for DC in the first place; after all, I first fell as a result of a series which, at the time, had already been cancelled, which I knew, so maybe DC and I were never meant to be in the first place. The ending of a series shouldn't necessarily mean a complete reluctance to become involved with anything the company produced in the future, but the end of Impulse and the knowledge of what was going on in Teen Titans did that for me, although I continued to enjoy backissues of other series. Then, Infinite Crisis came about, Ted Kord, Sue Dibny, and Maxwell Lord were killed, and the message from DC was, resoundingly, "These developments should not upset you. You should be excited about the new and exciting things we're doing in the wake of Infinite Crisis. Love these developments! Love our new heroes! And if you're still moping about Ted Kord, you're a damn dirty racist! Also, lesbians are awesome!" Impulse, as a character, has essentially been dead for a couple years by the time these things were going on, so I can only imagine if I were to put up a fuss about /that/, the answer I receive would be so many ellipses. Fans have felt the loss of things they were fond of and these feelings of loss are not only dismissed by the people responsible for them, but those who are saddened by the direction DC is taking are told in so many words that they as fans are not the kind of fans DC is interested in continuing to cultivate.
I know I'm not the kind of fan DC wants around. An introverted, twenty-something girl who didn't discover comics until she was in university? Who's interested in characters? Puh-lease. It is to laugh. So I don't expect DC to go about making comics specifically for me. But it still hurts when a comic and a character I loved and found fascinating is taken from me and replaced by ... something that probably won't get close to capturing that feeling over again. Noel says that the new Flash is being written by the fellows who did the Sentinel (a tv series I never watched and haven't a bloody clue what it was about - another detective series?) and they were awesome at doing tv for guys and awful at doing character development. Great. Just what I don't want. Which is unfortunate, because I think the setup for the current Flash has the /potential/ to capture a similar feeling the original Impulse series did and undo the mess caused by Teen Titans to some degree ... but I doubt they'll bother. Bart, when I was introduced to him, was a character from the future plunged into a time that was about as alien to him as another world. He had the body of a teenager but there was something inherently childlike about him. The results of being raised in VR lead to a toddler-like impulsiveness, an inability to comprehend his own mortality. He /wasn't/ a toddler in the body of a young teen, but a lot of his personality was child-like because of his inexperience with dealing with anything beyond video games. There's the /potential/ for something similar to be created with the newly adult Bart. (Note: I have no idea if Bart was again subjected to accelerated aging in the speed force or if he actually spent those years /in/ the speed force, experiencing them as a normal person would, but there's no reason why it would /have/ to be the latter, and I'd like to assume the former.) To have finally gotten the hang, more or less, of being a teenager, only to be accelerated into adulthood and forced to learn the hang of things all over again, this time without the help of a stern, old-fashioned mentor? Dealing with both being a hero, living up to Barry's legacy /and/ trying to learn how to be an adult, an immature but well-meaning teen in the body of a twenty-something? That's an idea that has so much potential ... which I'm sure will be squandered by the writers. DC doesn't give me much reason to hope, not with their track record to date, not with their new, darkish universe with big damn heroes. The potential's there in the concept, but I don't think DC is interested in making the sort of comic series where an entire issue could be focussed on a character /trying to fall asleep/ and the surreal dreams and nightmares he suffers when he finally does, allowing for both comedy /and/ a glimpse into the character's psyche. The thought of that wasted potential produces thoughts I consider highly detrimental to the enjoyment of a story: "If /I/ were writing this ..." (Which may be unfair of me. After all, the most popular thing I've ever written involved one fellow hitting another over the head with a chair, and what I've devoted the most time and love to can, most kindly, be described as "antics", while the ... less kind would probably describe it as pointless, plotless drivel. But I can still /pretend/ that if I had access to it, I could do the idea more justice than the actual writers.)
I don't expect things to be tailored to my taste, although sometimes it seems nice, but I don't think 'Well, it's being written for /boys/' is an excuse, either. Let's look at another medium that's made for a male-dominated audience: video games. Maybe it's just because of the video games I choose to play, but I'm not overwhelmed by a sense of what I think's important being neglected in the video games that carry on the legacy that I love. Let's look at Suikoden. Sometimes it's handled badly, true, but the fact that most of the games don't have carry-over main characters helps me give them a chance even after being disappointed. Suikoden IV was horrible and a chore. Suikoden V is a pure, unadulterated delight and I've never got the sense that this is not for me, even though the average gamer is male. Not only that, but there's little things, pointless things inserted that almost act as a code, a way of conveying the reassuring message of 'You love these games. We love them too. Don't worry.' The hero dressing up like Tir McDohl for part of the game. The loading sprites. These aren't necessary but in their way they let you know that even in a time when video games are maturing and evolving, the roots are /remembered/ and they're /important/. It's fanservice, I suppose. Maybe the problem is in their fanservice comics are too specifically geared at a type of fan of which I am not.
It's not like video games companies can't produce similar senses of outrage in their fans. I'd liken Lucas Arts cancellation of Sam and Max: Freelance Police after E3 got up the excitement of fans and the media to what's being done with certain things in DC right now. The message, officially, was that the market couldn't support Sam and Max at the time. What was heard? The fans who remember Sam and Max, fans who've been around since before the medium went mainstream, aren't fans we care about anymore. That's the same message I get from DC now, except that message is coming from the comics themselves as well as the higher-ups. It's a double-blow.
I'm not asking for, every time something bad happens in a comic, book, tv series, or anything else, someone to pat my head and say 'Don't worry, little Ingrid, all will be well, don't cry'. Not exactly, anyway. I'm mostly looking for some sign that the creators, writers, artists, whoever else, /acknowledge/ the emotional potential of what they're doing and don't belittle my reactions. Let's move into books for our example and further alienate any readers who have stuck around. At the end of Lois McMaster Bujold's "Mirror Dance", I was elevated, because it was a wondeful book. I was also in /tears/, because I was sure one of my favourite characters, Bel Thorne, was being cut out of the series. I'd never see it again and I was /sad/. I'd loved that character and would miss it in future Vorkosigan adventures. I didn't refuse to read any more Bujold in the future, because what was done had been necessary, in the context of the plot, and had actually resulted in Bel having the most prominent role to date in any novel, but I was still upset. Then, a few years after I read "Mirror Dance", "Diplomatic Immunity" was announced.
And Bel Thorne would be in it.
I don't think there are words to describe the stunned delight I felt. The novel itself was far from Bujold's best, but that didn't matter. In making a role for Bel, Bujold told me it was /okay/ that I'd missed the character in the last novel. There was nothing wrong with crying when I thought I'd never see it again. It had been an important character and it was /fine/. It wasn't dead in a ditch, it was happy, life went on.
It's knowing that you aren't looked down upon for feeling the way you do. It's being given the impression that the writer, the powers that be, respect you, respect their characters, and respect what they're creating. And I don't get that from DC comics.
I don't know if I'm going to read the new Flash or not. I had to be held down and have the comic thrust in my face to read even a few panels of the relevant issue of Infinite Crisis. Maybe I'll give it a try, maybe I'll try not to be a bitter, jaded fan ... and maybe I'll get drunk so it seems like a good idea.
I believe in stories. I believe in their power and what they can do and I don't see the point in investing myself in the storytelling of someone, or a group of someones, who don't consider it as important as I do.
Oddly enough, I'd have been perfectly fine with reading the new Flash if it was all about Jay Garrick.
I'm starting to wonder if the passionate interest I have in storytelling, the way I can be hypnotized for hours by fish in a tank, my love of lying on my back and just watching the clouds go by, are a result of the fact that all the pleasure a normal person gets from sex and drinking and whatever else all has to go /somewhere/ in an asexual person with a disinterest in drink. Or maybe I'm just crazy.
Funny how things work,
Almighty Ingrid, Signing Off