Sunday, March 31, 2019

Waiting for the World to Load


I purchased Watch_Dogs 2 this past week and I’ve been blown away by its attention to detail, which, I suppose, invokes a greater design concept inherent in “open-world sandbox” games. (I say this in quotes because, typically, the most exhilarating moments of playing these games comes when the player is constrained and limited, which seems antithetical to the core philosophy of in-game freedom.) In order for these environments to feel lived in, they require elements of immersion to trick the player into thinking that the non-playable characters are “real,” as if every character interaction is a form of Turing Test. The representative populace of San Francisco, in my opinion, seems to be the most true to life distillation, especially when taking into consideration the carefully kept balance between technology (ie. in-game rendering of the world) and iconography (ie. contents of the world). One little detail, to those who are listening, I will share regarding my next book is that the setting is the San Francisco Bay Area. And, having spent a good portion of my childhood visiting and experiencing the Bay Area first hand, Watch_Dogs 2 will be instrumental in my approach of gaining a better visual frame of reference. Because, up until this point, I’ve used Google Maps and the street view to encounter and better understand the environment. The former is, at the very least, three dimensional. That helps.

As much as I hate to admit it... this is too fucking real.

 
When I saw the early screening of Shazam! the weekend I was in town to attend my grandmother’s memorial service, I was a little disappointed of the lack of an appearance by Black Adam (played by Dwayne Johnson), who is by far one of the most interesting anti-heroes/villains in comics today. Villains, much like the environment that a story takes place in, are critical in building the world, specifically because villains are foils to both the physical appearance and ethical constitution of the hero. In the case of Billy Batson (ie. Captain Marvel/Shazam!), his personal desire to aide those systematically disenfranchised (foster children, the terminally ill, victims of child abuse, et al.) contrasts with Black Adam’s autocratic characterization, and how this influences his view on Justice and the role of the fate of the “oppressed” in society. Whereas Billy is forgiving and patient, Black Adam (born as a slave in Egypt) consolidates power via the brutal suppression of his opponents (up to, and including, summary public executions). Both arrived to the wizard Shazam from similar circumstances, but their responses are black and white. And this ultimately builds the world, its ethics, its ultimate purpose as a theater for thought experiments on Justice, Rehabilitation, Consequence, and Fairness under the definition of Natural Law.

Villains, in general, have such potential for story-telling. It’s strange to me that there have only been small attempts to develop villain centric properties. I would love to see a series on Solomon Grundy, who, despite being an undead abomination, has displayed lots of depth throughout his character history. Likewise, a Vertigo-esque character study—similar to Neil Gaiman’s run on The Sandman—for Darkseid could have momentous potential. Other than the Joker (via The Killing Joke), this hasn’t been attempted with critical acclaim (at least to my knowledge).

Simply put, the above is easy to conceive on a purely theoretical level. Actually writing it down is another thing altogether. Consider what has already been done. The formula to creating a villain is nothing new. So creating these characters is almost like building another piece of the world. The opposition requires a narrative that is equally as credible as the hero, as well as symbolize stasis. Being the catalyst for change, the hero interacts with the opposition, not the other way around. Bringing it all back to where we began, the setting of all narrative is like wallpaper, and the hero is pushing through it into the moldy drywall.

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

On Dedicating My Book To My Daughter

The other day I said goodbye to a large swath of comics on my shelf. My personal goal of building a personal library over my lifetime was hindered by a lack of space, so I meticulously truncated my library based on the likelihood of re-reading titles. Those that didn’t make the cut are pictured below:


To be completely transparent, I recently acquired an Absolute Edition of
World's Greatest Superheroes, Kingdom Come, and All-Star Superman.

There’s so much to love about comics, yet, at the same time, there’s a lot of chaff that doesn’t deserve to be bound in the first place. After all, comics are serials, monthly installments that get churned out with incomplete stories. Though, when I was collecting monthly issues a year or two ago, I never recalled reading a story that I outright hated. Tom King’s current run on Batman, is beyond imagination and it feels interesting to watch presently something that in 15-20 years will have the same renown as Grant Morrison’s Animal Man. That said, what I was giving away were from the era of the New 52, back when DC was lured by the siren song of Zack Snyder’s grim cinematic universe into making shitty, transgressive stories—remember the 80s, am-I-right? Selling them was difficult, but ultimately I was able to consign them to a local comic book store. (Go Avalon!)

With my wife editing my second draft on the weekends, there has been more time for me to spend with my daughter, Eowyn. To my sweet surprise, she fell in love with all the Miyazaki films (the ones for children, at least) as well as Batman: The Brave and The Bold. The other day, she picked up my bluray copy of Justice League and was able to pick out all the members of the JLA without breaking a sweat! (“Bah-mah!” for Batman, “Wuh-muh!” for Wonder Woman, “Sum-mah!” for Superman, and “Fshhhhhh!” for the Flash.) The amazing thing about children, something that I never truly realized before having one, is how young children attain this environmental awareness. Like, you can talk to a dog, anthropomorphize it, but a dog could never talk back to you. That would be fucking crazy.

Talking kids. Now that’s fucking crazy.

I find myself in these positions where I’m having an existential crisis. How do I introduce her to comics? To guitar? To Jesus? Do my introductions actually matter? Do they appear forced? I try not to think about it, as much anymore. All the things that I fell in love with, were I to go back and look for the spark that ignited such passions, I doubt they would be anything obvious. Hobbies always start with a little push. I wrote my first “story” when I was in middle school. But I was also killing it when I started writing three sentence “sandwich” paragraphs in 3rd grade. Neither of those things would have lead me down the path to writing novels. Yet, here I am. Artistic talent isn't like building model rockets. And, at the end of the day, whatever she chooses to love will make me proud. 

Maybe this is my way of concluding on an announcement? Sure. I’ve decided to dedicate my third book to her, my kid. I pray that she will read it one day. 

Friday, March 15, 2019

This is Not the Gospel


A bit ecumenical for my taste, but, if you are a christian,
this is how you love others in line with the gospel. 

“This is not the Gospel.” That’s my usual response to atrocity. So, especially, when I see the news this morning (Friday) that 49 have been confirmed dead in New Zealand due to a right wing “Christian” terrorist, I just sit there shaking my head, without words to express my sadness. This would be the second time in recent memory that a white supremacist in a country of traditionally non-violent people carried out a shooting, motivated by race and hatred of immigrants. (In 2011 Anders Breivik killed 77 people, mostly children, to “protect” Norway from liberalizing and compromising the ethnic makeup of the country. These children were attending a liberal sponsored summer camp at the time for those volunteering with left leaning political organizations.)

The mark my faith makes on my books usually is Tolkien-esque—making subtle allusions in the interest of telling a story with a worldview in the background, not at the fore. In my stories, drawing from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, I decided—rather arbitrarily—that in order for a character to live, one must die. That is true of Spirit of Orn and Tall Men and Other Tales. I bring this up because the sordid past of the Catholic Church and Protestant sects, have on display a wide array of atrocities, some more recent than others. And while someone may have a “membership” to a particular strain of Christendom, I often steer clear of specific denominations because they function more or less as arbitrary categories and not demarcations for actual “saving-faith” in the resurrection of Jesus.

It’s frustrating both personally and existentially to see these things happen. I find it difficult to believe that anyone could read the New Testament and draw from it the conclusions of the NZ and Norway shooters. The only thing I can imagine, the only thing that could possibly explain this, is the fundamental desire to augment the practices of 1st century Christianity to fit our current cultural climates. And, make no mistake, there is not truly “right answer.” Christian ethics professors would say that something like Just War Theory is far more “reasonable” than the Crusades of the Middle Ages, which were motivated by misinterpretations of the Revelation of St. John and the need to consolidate the papacy’s political dominance as a nation-state. (Far different, one could say, from the Eastern Orthodox Churches that remained subservient to the governments in power.) But Just War theory is a pragmatic attempt to justify killing others in war, who at the end of the day are just other pawns being moved forward by heads of state.

It’s further frustrating when other communities observe these actions made by lone gunmen and equate those actions with modern Christian Orthopraxy. But I could say the same thing about Christian expressions of republicans, Southern Baptists, and people that don’t let me drink beer at homegroup (our weekly Christian gatherings affiliated with my church). These previous examples demonstrate a linear curve of de-escalating prejudice, which is observable in any community, be it Muslim or comic book fans. So, at the end of the day, the things that define us are tempered by our own conscience and reason.

As I said before, there is no definitive answer, or absolute definition of orthopraxy. The only absolute in this world is the absolute—of course, to myself, this is Jesus. And when people raise up a tertiary cause to become what, in their minds, is absolute, the only resulting path is destruction. Jesus’ actions, the reality of who he was, and is, culminate in the gospel that I believe. The same gospel that prohibits prejudice, slander, and xenophobia. That is why I am not without hope, because what happened in NZ isn’t the gospel.