- There is a special, as yet uncreated, word for people who think 4am is a good time to party. #
- It’s JUST FINE, tho. I have to be up at 5.30 anyway, for this FUCKING CONFERENCE! Yay. #
- Now i has Red Bull ‘n’ everythin’ is good. #
- At FOTE Conference. Tim Bush is very nice, tho he did just imply that if there’s a fire, we’re on our own! #
- Odd format to the day – very formalised, but quite tasty agenda. #
- Sam Peters@Google talking about Cloud Computing. Interesting stuff, tho it all seems like common sense to me. #
- Keep hearing it as ‘clown computing’, which would be something else entirely… #
- Pauline Randall@virtualE. This is a 2nd Life talk. This could go either way… #
- Again, some smart, pragmatic thinking, that should occur to 2nd Life educators, but often don’t. #
- @josiefraser Are you at FOTE today? #
- 1st attendee question was to GooGirl – Asked what Google’s agenda in helping edu is. #
- … Of course, what he meant was ‘Are Google evil?’ #
- Wow, this is quite a Google hostile crowd – conversely, they seem happy with everything said about 2nd Life. #
- Harold Fricker@JISC on mobile technology. HF was ambushed to speak early, so not yet caffeinated! #
- MULLET!! #
- BBC Backstage on ‘Why Portability Matters…’ #
- Interesting conflict between desire for privacy & peoples rampant abandon with their shit on Facebook. #
- Ian Forrester (?) is an awesome fun speaker, without enough time to go into detail. #
- Really sharp questions about online rights, but not enough time for answers… #
- Some fun Google baiting, as prep for the Google/Yahoo cage-match that I’m counting on happening later. #
- Yahoo talking! #
- The Yahoo guy is basically talking about how his early computer life was fuelled by stolen goods! #
- James Broad is his name. He is really young & enthusiastic. He scares me. I like him. #
- The day, 2nd Life aside, is more about awesome use of data than gloss & bollocks. #
- Which I like – less Flash, more function. Simple tools that users can adapt to their own uses. #
- The thing I always think when hearing educators talk about the ways they use tech? #
- … That great educators make great education, regardless of the tools. This speaker is great. #
- Philip Butler@ULCC! He was great! #
- Test @nixsight #
- @josiefraser I guessed that as soon as I tweeted. Lots of enthusiasm & ‘blue-skying’ which is ace… #
- @josiefraser A great primer in intermediate level eLearning, mind. Nice sandwiches! #
- BTW, am Tweeting blind, so apologies to anyone trying to tweet me! #
- Tim Marshall@JANET. Future of Technology in Education. Already good… #
- Innovatinting? #
- Maria Ilia@London Metropolitan Network. This is techie stuff, really, & last night is pulling at me! #
- Hm. Perfectly good business presentation by Maria Ilia, but mic is muddy & it’s wrong audience. #
- Miles Metcalfe@Ravensbourne College. ‘Basically, if it’s got a plug on it, it’s my fault.’ #
- ’100% buzzword complaint.’ Also, ‘The 21st century always does my head in.’ #
- Is- Is that comic sans? Still, I forgive him, because he’s totally great. Pragmatic but forward-thinking. #
- Someone just asked whether they should allow their students to ‘friend’ them on FB. Thoughts? #
- A cup of bad coffee & a nice ginger biscuit & we’re back! Sleepy… #
- John Hickey@Apple. ‘Technology is anything that wasn’t around when you were born.’ #
- Heard JH speak recently @ Apple. Appealing speaker & according to a colleague, ‘a lovely voice’. #
- Aw, man! A tiny little bit of Apple jingoism at the end marring an otherwise universal talk. #
- Also for some reason, the screen went a bit blurry. Or that might just be my eyes. #
- Tom Abbott@University of Warwick. Creativity and Media Production. #
- Score for being the first HE geek today to mention The Goons. & then The Boosh! #
- … The challenge of making the exceptional ordinary. #
- … And a Matt Madden slide! #
- ‘Fail again. Fail better. Creativity is about being brave. Encourage people to take risks.’ #
- Alastair Mitchell@Huddle. Social Collaboration Tools for Staff & Students. Slick CEO presentation. #
- These guys are footing the bill for drinks n food. No-nonsense so far, but surely pitch imminent? #
- Love the thinking behind Huddle, but concerned that, in practice it might just be another login. #
- FOTE over! Time for sleeping! #
- Reet, final Lahndan tweets of the day. FOTE was enervating; is that the right word? Hopeful, anyway. #
- Feels like finally, a few people at a certain level are asking the right questions bout tech in edu. #
- On train at Waterloo. Looks like I dodged the ‘terrorisms’ watchlist bullet, despite this weeks EW! #
- Now, blessed sleep. Apologies for so many Tweets – mainly meant as aide-memoires due to addling. #
-
Found Objects
We need comics. We don’t need the comic mainstream – certainly not as much as it needs us. And we wouldn’t even be having this argument about Watchmen if that book wasn’t part of that industry. It couldn’t have existed without it, it wouldn’t have been relevant without it, and most of us wouldn’t have even had the chance to read it without it.
We don’t have to give a shit about Watchmen, or Before Watchmen. We choose to.
We don’t have to fight about issues that we really have no skin in. We choose to.
We should really grow out of it.
Last Friday I wrote a really long post over at my site about Before Watchmen. It was probably too long, fence-sitting and unstructured to get as much widespread attention as some of the more aggressive pieces out there, but I still feel everything in it.
This is the tiniest part of it - a sentiment that I feel is pretty important - you can read the whole thing here.
I AM IN CONTROL OF MY EMOTIONS!
The Newly Announced Before Watchmen Is a Prime Example of What's Killing Mainstream Comics
“I have no idea whether this project will be any good or not. But it sits as a shining example of the fundamental flaw that exists in the comic industry, especially within DC Comics. They spend most of their time chasing the readers that grew up with their iconic characters rather than attempting to attract new readers who are growing up right now.”
Totally agree with this - though I think DC52, being a company-wide initiative, was more indicative of it, and I said as much at the time.
However, that backward looking trait in comics isn’t unique to publishers. Comic readers - many of whom are also comic retailers, which is a bigger issue - run wild with entitlement on either side of any comic-related debate, and stand ready to jump on anything that they perceive as a deviation or affront to comic texts or characters that they feel shouldn’t be touched. It all adds to the stupidly binary way any comic-related issue is handled.
The huge amount of brilliant work that goes un-discussed, unsupported and unbought in-between those two dominant cultures is the only genuine ongoing tragedy in comics today, I reckon. The rest is just semantics and negotiation of contracts.
Yup, yup, yup…the fact that people are wasting their time arguing about the merits of Before Watchmen while amazing books like The Interactives go largely ignored is, quite frankly, criminal.
Not least because it means that yet again we’re all having a conversation about Watchmen. I came to Watchmen a little bit late - like, a year after publication - and loved it at the time. It encouraged me to go on and read so many more other books, to read them critically, and work out why they work and don’t work etc etc etc. But the more people hold it to this impossible standard in such a hyperbolic and aggressive way, the more I find reasons to chip away at it.
If you love Watchmen that much, write about how good Watchmen is in it’s own right. Don’t use it as a stick to bash everything that’s come since. Don’t use it as a way to try and win an argument about whatever your pet comic issue is that week. I think Alan Moore’s biggest issue is that his book isn’t regarded enough in it’s own right, and it’s an important enough work to be handled without gossip-context and all the other bollocks that passes for adults-who-read-comics-talking-about-comics.
Show Alan Moore and Watchmen a bit of respect, and don’t try and impose your fucking context on it. It’s a work of art. It genuinely can’t be ruined by any art that follows, but it can be ruined by every third word spoken about it being bleaty, entitled shite.
Sorry, you said something? The Interactives? What’s that? I have never heard of it, therefore it must not be worth bothering with.
Yep, I completely agree with you here. As great as Watchmen was it has been a big part of what has utterly ruined comics (and I know that Moore agrees with this himself) as so many people have spent the years since using it as a template for what comic should be. It was a work of satire! It was never intended to be a “How To” guide for aspiring comic creators.
And The Interactives is this - http://theinteractives.com/
Huh. That looks ace, actually.
The Newly Announced Before Watchmen Is a Prime Example of What's Killing Mainstream Comics
“I have no idea whether this project will be any good or not. But it sits as a shining example of the fundamental flaw that exists in the comic industry, especially within DC Comics. They spend most of their time chasing the readers that grew up with their iconic characters rather than attempting to attract new readers who are growing up right now.”
Totally agree with this - though I think DC52, being a company-wide initiative, was more indicative of it, and I said as much at the time.
However, that backward looking trait in comics isn’t unique to publishers. Comic readers - many of whom are also comic retailers, which is a bigger issue - run wild with entitlement on either side of any comic-related debate, and stand ready to jump on anything that they perceive as a deviation or affront to comic texts or characters that they feel shouldn’t be touched. It all adds to the stupidly binary way any comic-related issue is handled.
The huge amount of brilliant work that goes un-discussed, unsupported and unbought in-between those two dominant cultures is the only genuine ongoing tragedy in comics today, I reckon. The rest is just semantics and negotiation of contracts.
Yup, yup, yup…the fact that people are wasting their time arguing about the merits of Before Watchmen while amazing books like The Interactives go largely ignored is, quite frankly, criminal.
Not least because it means that yet again we’re all having a conversation about Watchmen. I came to Watchmen a little bit late - like, a year after publication - and loved it at the time. It encouraged me to go on and read so many more other books, to read them critically, and work out why they work and don’t work etc etc etc. But the more people hold it to this impossible standard in such a hyperbolic and aggressive way, the more I find reasons to chip away at it.
If you love Watchmen that much, write about how good Watchmen is in it’s own right. Don’t use it as a stick to bash everything that’s come since. Don’t use it as a way to try and win an argument about whatever your pet comic issue is that week. I think Alan Moore’s biggest issue is that his book isn’t regarded enough in it’s own right, and it’s an important enough work to be handled without gossip-context and all the other bollocks that passes for adults-who-read-comics-talking-about-comics.
Show Alan Moore and Watchmen a bit of respect, and don’t try and impose your fucking context on it. It’s a work of art. It genuinely can’t be ruined by any art that follows, but it can be ruined by every third word spoken about it being bleaty, entitled shite.
Sorry, you said something? The Interactives? What’s that? I have never heard of it, therefore it must not be worth bothering with.
The Newly Announced Before Watchmen Is a Prime Example of What's Killing Mainstream Comics
“I have no idea whether this project will be any good or not. But it sits as a shining example of the fundamental flaw that exists in the comic industry, especially within DC Comics. They spend most of their time chasing the readers that grew up with their iconic characters rather than attempting to attract new readers who are growing up right now.”
Totally agree with this - though I think DC52, being a company-wide initiative, was more indicative of it, and I said as much at the time.
However, that backward looking trait in comics isn’t unique to publishers. Comic readers - many of whom are also comic retailers, which is a bigger issue - run wild with entitlement on either side of any comic-related debate, and stand ready to jump on anything that they perceive as a deviation or affront to comic texts or characters that they feel shouldn’t be touched. It all adds to the stupidly binary way any comic-related issue is handled.
The huge amount of brilliant work that goes un-discussed, unsupported and unbought in-between those two dominant cultures is the only genuine ongoing tragedy in comics today, I reckon. The rest is just semantics and negotiation of contracts.
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