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Finding Jesus At Burning Man

August 31, 2012 / Klint Finley

Pastor Phil Wyman writes about his Christian missionary work at Burning Man:

I see Burning Man as a developing festival culture in American society. Like the children of Israel, who gathered for holy days like Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, millions of people throng to festivals such as Burning Man, the Rainbow Gatherings, and Mind Body Spirit. Such events are imbued with a hedonistic party culture, but they often foster a search for deeper spirituality. That spirituality is typically not Christian—it’s not specifically or predominantly anything. Rather, it’s at root the search for meaning. Like the Jews running out to the desert to see John the Baptist, these spiritual seekers run to festivals and find new crazed prophets. […]

Like others at the festival, we devoted ourselves to building a large art installation—one of more than 300 built on the playa that week. Ours would be something of a sociological experiment. We were looking for people who were hoping to hear something—a still, small voice, perhaps.

I found some friends to help me—Hope Deifell, Dennis Huxley, Scott Veatch, and Matt Bender—and we built something we called Pillars of the Saints. It was an interactive meditation project based on the life of Simeon Stylites, the 5th-century Christian desert father and ascetic mystic. Simeon lived on a pillar for 39 years, seeking God and sharing wisdom with the multitudes who sought him out. Even popes asked for his advice, and Simeon’s work started a small movement of “pillar saints.”

It took us four days to build the installation: three pillars 10 to 12 feet tall and three blank walls with a flame altar in front of each. Each of the elements—the pillars, the walls, and the flame altars—had its own purpose.

Christianity Today: Finding Jesus At Burning Man

(via Al Billings)

New Dossier: Paul Laffoley

August 29, 2012 / Klint Finley

Latest dossier is up: Paul Laffoley.

Early Issues of Heavy Metal Reassessed

July 6, 2012 / Klint Finley

Sean Witzke reviews the first two issues of Heavy Metal magazine:

The first issue of Heavy Metal is shakily put together by the offices of National Lampoon. Equal parts translated reprints from Metal Hurlant, American underground comics, and new work, which is how the book would eventually move forward throughout the years. The first issue isn’t quite sure of the tone it wants to set or the kind of material they’d be interested in publishing. Metal Hurlant had a very vague definition of “science fiction”, one that the uncredited introductory editorial at the start of the issue pokes fun at. Heavy Metal is just a name for the book, and the material inside may have an emphasis on science fiction it is by no means a collection of science fiction or fantasy. Instead it a showcase of the kind of talent and the kinds of comics that would become the magazine’s standard – here in the first issue are Moebius, Druillet, Corben, Mezieres, and Vaughn Bode. All make their first appearances to herald a defining run on the series where for YEARS in every issue, at least one story was made by an absolute genius of the medium, even if it was a two page gag strip.

Full Story: supervillain: Time builds itself painlessly around them

(via Ian)

Aaron Diez’s Hypothetical X-Men Reboot

June 24, 2012 / Klint Finley

Aaron Diez, artist of the online comic Dresden Codak, put together a pitch for an X-Men reboot. I’d love to see this!

Thousands of years ago, godlike alien beings known as Celestials came to Earth to secretly experiment on the human race. Their goal was to use homo sapiens as a genetic template to revive long-dead civilizations and species throughout the universe. However, their initial tests proved inconclusive, and the project was abandoned. What was unknown at the time was that the original “program” developed by the Celestials had spread and embedded itself onto the DNA of countless human beings and continued to be passed down through the generations, dormant.

The story begins in the near future, where in the past few years this “x-gene” begins to activate, creating outrageous mutations and causing a general panic in society. While no one is sure what is causing the mutations, it’s clear that the power in human society may quickly shift if something isn’t done. Most mutants go into hiding or destroy themselves when they are unable to control what is happening to them. A few, however, are taken in by a handful of more knowledgable mutants like Charles Xavier.

Full Story and More Art: Dresden Codak’s X-Men Reboot

Drone Artists/Hackers Detained Held in London on Suspicion of Terrorism

June 23, 2012 / Klint Finley

Silicon Republic reports on the detention of the drone hackers/artists group Tomorrows Thoughts Today:

The trio, headed up by Liam Young, had created the robotic drones from components that were originally intended for police surveillance.

The drones had been swarming around Science Gallery last night to show how they can broadcast their own Wi-Fi network as a flying pirate file-sharing formation.

As they swarm, people in the audience can log onto the drone network with their phones and laptops and use the drones as a local network to upload files and share data with one another.

It was just as the three performers were disembarking from their Dublin flight in London that their suitcases were swarmed in upon by customs officers at the new London Southend Airport.

They were released after about two hours of questioning.

Full Story: Silicon Republic: Quadcopter drone group held in London airport on suspicion of terrorism

The Origin of Those Blade Runner Magazine Covers Floating Around

May 28, 2012 / Klint Finley

For the past few days scans of magazine covers allegedly appearing on newsstands in the background of the film Blade Runner have been circulating thanks to the Science Fiction Tumblr (you can find great quality scans and notes in this Flickr set).

Alexis Madrigal, a senior editor at The Atlantic, saw them and decided to find out whether they are real or not.

Spoiler alert: Yes, they’re real and they appeared on a Blade Runner special feature Signs of the Times: Graphic Design.

It’s still interesting to read Madrigal’s post because for some insight into the process of journalistic verification. Enjoy!

Full Story: The Atlantic: The Fake Magazines Used in Blade Runner Are Still Futuristic, Awesome

Thoughts:

*MONI is clearly a reference to OMNI.
*HORN looks like a predecessor to Future Sex.
*I wonder whether KILL is a reference to Solider of Fortune, but the first trials involving that magazine didn’t happen until the late 80s.

Online Comics Cannibalizing Print Sales? One Creator Says “Nope”

May 10, 2012 / Klint Finley

A few months ago I linked to Brian Wood’s post on how comic creators were caught in the cross-fire between publishers and comic shops over digital publishing sales.

But here’s some more evidence of what Warren Ellis already found out with Freak Angels. Jim Zubkavich, creator of Skullkickers from Image Comics, started serializing his comic online for free. The results:

Good news: Serializing the issues hasn’t negatively affected our sales one bit. Our trade sales through comic and book stores are up, steadily climbing. Making more people aware of the series has made them want the current material more, not less. Quality and good word of mouth is helping build our readership in shops bit by bit.

Better news: At conventions I’m selling a lot more. I’m not twice the sales person I was last year, but I’m selling more than double the number of books since we started serializing online. 9 times out of 10, I’m selling it to people who read the series online. I asked almost every person who came to my table if they’d heard of Skullkickers before. No word of a lie, when they said “yes”, 90% of those folks also said they were reading it online. It shocked me.

Jim Zubkavich: Everybody Wins

(via Comics Worth Reading)

This doesn’t mean, though, that paid digital downloads through tablets wouldn’t cannibalize comic shop sales, but this is indeed good news for creators, publishers and retailers.

Zen Pencils

May 2, 2012 / Klint Finley

Gavin Aung Than illustrates quotes from historical figures as comics. For example, here’s Hunter S. Thompson’s “Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride”:

The most popular are:

12. CARL SAGAN: Make the most of this life

17. FRANK HERBERT: Litany against fear

21. RUDYARD KIPLING: If

40. CALVIN COOLIDGE: Never give up

33. EDGAR MITCHELL: A global consciousness

13: The DALAI LAMA answers a question

36. BRUCE LEE: There are no limits

41. AYN RAND: The question

But don’t forget the Bill Hicks one.

It may seem that these skew towards touchy feel good inspiration and affirmation, but there are some darker ones, like George Carlin on assassination.

I love how certain characters recur in the strips.

Some of the navigation is confusing, but you can head straight to the archives to find all the strips.

(via Metafilter)

Male Writer Tries to Imitate Male and Female Fantasy Novel Poses

April 28, 2012 / Klint Finley

Fantasy author Jim C. Hine tries posing as both male and female characters from fantasy novel covers. His conclusions:

Men on book covers are indeed posed shirtless in ways that show off their musculature. However…

Male poses do not generally emphasize sexuality at the expense of all other considerations.

Male poses do emphasize the character’s power and strength in a way many (most?) female cover poses don’t.

When posed with a woman, the man will usually be in the dominant, more powerful posture.

Male poses do not generally require a visit to the chiropractor afterward.

Jim C. Hine: Striking a Pose (Women and Fantasy Covers)

Jim C. Hine: Posing Like a Man

Another Brandon Graham Interview

April 13, 2012 / Klint Finley

Above: “The Current State of Me” by Brandon Graham

Great interview with Brandon Graham by Gavin Lees, where Graham talks about the origins of King City and whether there will ever be a follow-up:

I began working at The Strand bookstore in Manhattan, unloading trucks and everything. That’s when I started King City, only at the time it was called Cat Master. I just drew it entirely for myself. I drew the first 40 pages on my lunch breaks, not even planning, just doing it page-by-page. I remember I had a rule that I would tell myself, that if there was another element that didn’t advance the plot, then that’s what I needed to spend the most amount of time and pages on. If something advanced the plot, then I wanted to ignore that as much as possible and get it out the way. […]

Yeah, the book feels very free — very creatively liberated. Was there ever a worry that people wouldn’t get it, and Tokyopop would tell you to rein that in and make it more conventional — put all the things that advance the plot back in?

BG: Actually, Tokyopop was doing that the whole time. I think that it pushed me to develop what King City was even more, because they would bring up these things like, “What’s this character’s motivation? What’s this?” It just made me react the opposite direction. I always joke about this one thing when this guy called up — this is when it was getting really autobiographical — and he’s just like, “What’s Joe doing? The guy’s a total loser! What’s he going to do with his life? We need to give him an arc where he becomes a better person in the end.” And I was thinking, “I’m not going to become a better person by the time I finish this book!” [Laughter] I think it’s disingenuous to think that the characters have to change in 200 pages. It’s cool if they do, and maybe there is some character change in that, but I certainly didn’t want to force it.

In the second half of the book, I actually had a really good editor at Tokyopop, this guy Troy Lewter who had read the first one as an assistant editor, and then they moved him over. The first editor I had — whose name I never remember — was really difficult. I remember we got nominated for an Eisner and he didn’t care. He was like, “Eisners won’t sell books.” But Troy was fantastic to work with because he had a different take on it, he was throwing these basic plot-points at me, and I came up with so many great ideas with him being like, “What about this?” and it gave me an understanding of what the reader might expect in a standard adventure story. Also, a fantastic thing is reading people’s reaction to the book, and reviews, and what they expect to see next. I read some comment online where somebody said, “Oh, I can’t wait to see where Cat Masters come from!” and it had never occurred to me to show that. So, I started the second half of the series with that because I was like, “Oh shit!” and I was really happy with that and it would never have come out of my own head.

Bleeding Cool: Brandon Graham – Manga In The Microwave

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