Things have come a long way since then and Amazon now tells you within about a day when you’ll be receiving your next novelty item. Didn’t you know? Dead tree books are like sculptures of blogs. It’s a kind of origami that uses stitching. As you may know, I am a huge fan of a certain blog that is written by the previously mysterious Bike Snob NYC. Ever since I began reading it I have said that I would like to compensate him for his work somehow beyond sending him links to things for his quizzes. So it was that I went to sleep last night comforted by the knowledge that I would most likely rush home from work today and find the most recent Snob x Paper collabo waiting for me. I slept the sleep of a child who has already peeked at his Christmas gifts but has parents that are clumsy enough to misplace them during the transition from their closet to the tree. Well, they made it. Here is what I saw when I got home.

The first thing I noticed after I ripped this book from it’s protective covering was that it is small.  Perhaps that is because it was built for performance.  I immediately decided to take some measurements.

Like succulent homarus americanus meat ripped right out of a claw

In keeping with convention I opted to use sunglasses and improvised as necessary.

As you can see, the book is about one pair of sun glasses wide.

And one and a half eyes wide.  I couldn’t take a picture of the most important dimension, width, because I had to measure it in cell phones and I was capturing the images with mine.  It was two HTC Ozones thick FYI.  I tried to weigh it but since my scale is set to babies, it wouldn’t register.

This bodes well for a quick, snappy read.  I expect it to accelerate great in the bathroom.

To give you an idea of the last time I wore dress shoes, I didn’t recognize the box at first because it was full of shooting targets from when I went to summer camp. I assembled an outfit that I like to think projected, “I’m wearing this sweater because I value unrestricted limb motion” and not, “I don’t have a jacket and I wanted to cover up the fact that I don’t have a belt.” I have no idea what the cut on my forehead I inflicted upon myself while trying to shave said, but, thankfully, they didn’t seem to notice. I’d say there’s some room for improvement with my morning routine but all in all I can do this professional, be-seen-in-public thing.

I’m not going to say where this interview was because A. I’m pretty sure they don’t want to be publicly associated with someone who can’t shave properly and B. I don’t want to increase the odds of them coming to know that I can’t shave properly. The fact that I even had an interview was out of the ordinary for me at this point but the interview itself was actually relatively standard in that, while being interviewed by another man of similar age, Star Wars became a topic of discussion early on. One of the things we talked about was the superior quality of the original versions of episodes IV-VI. Nothing ground breaking there. (I’m pretty sure there are people who have no idea who Greedo is that can tell you Greedo shooting first was a mistake.) As the discussion progressed I had a new insight into why I probably liked them better besides the obvious reasons that they were what I knew first and they were aesthetically consistent throughout.

I recently found the bulk of my Star Wars toys cached away in my brother’s home office and these were probably the finest children’s toys ever produced. The fact that you could tell that they were using models in the films didn’t make it less realitic, it made it more realistic because I actually had all of those space ships in my room! When I think of an X-Wing, I actually think of the behind the scenes footage of the Death Star run where they’re moving the fighters with wire. I don’t want to say that the props used weren’t detailed, because they were, but that’s never been the point with Star Wars fans. For every obsessive that goes out and buys an official piece of merchandise their are dozens more that make their own. Polish has never been the point. This is a fantasy franchise that is, perhaps more than any other, rooted in its fans’ ability to bring about physical manifestations and see it in reality. The more I think about it the more confused I am as to why merchandisers and film makers ignore this aspect of it’s success. I am not a toy collector or fanatic. I don’t buy any real collectibles at all. Not even those vinyl figurines people who like urban art seem to enjoy so much. But I’m pretty sure a common complaint (from children) is that these toys are poor representations of the films’ subjects. It’s probably a relatively alienating process to play with a toy from a more recent movie franchise. Not because the toys are bad, imagination is always going to be inherent in playing with a toy. It’s actually the best part. That aspect let’s you have the fun of putting Han and Chewie in Sherwood Forest, only to be “bat-a-ranged” by Batman. If anything, I’m saying the movies are getting too good.

I haven’t seen Avatar yet but from what I understand this movie is all about polish. It’s supposed to be immersive on a level we haven’t seen yet and apparently Cameron has set his sights on Lucas’ franchise in terms of producing a back story and universe to rival the one present in Star Wars’ literature, games, encyclopedias, and what-nots. But it’ll never happen; because, while Avatar might be more fleshed out with it’s scientifically accurate planet descriptions and it’s professionally created and documented languages, the film was made with the intention of being realistic to an unrealistic degree. It’s hard to say a movie that has brought in over 1.3 1.9 billion dollars worldwide is a failure. Especially considering how close it is to eclipsing Episode IV’s revenues (adjusted for inflation.) A film as financially successful as Avatar will surely have an impact on the industry and will probably always have a certain type of pop culture cache as the first of it’s kind technologically. However, there is no way a fan can take a piece of a movie like Avatar home and, in my mind, that’s going to kill it.

Although they probably don’t see it this way, even Avatar’s most rabid fans are admitting that this is a problem.

The more I think about it, the more benefits I see to treating a film project like open source software, at least if you’re trying to foster a community surrounding the work. I think about a show like Pure Pwnage which has become wildly successful for a web series (and is making a switch television.) They have done an amazing job monetizing the form. Part of that is due to the fact that they have a relatively uniform audience with a shared, targetable, interest — gaming. Online advertising is really only part of the puzzle, merchandising has got to be at least three of the corner pieces here. In the beginning the characters wore distinctive (sometimes copyright infringing) shirts that were obviously home made. You can buy those shirts. You can wear your FPS Doug shirt and feel like you have a piece of the show. Even if Jeremy isn’t rubbing each shirt on his balls.

Pure Pwnage is also a show that has the spoof factor. It’s actually gotten pretty sophisticated now and has aspects that would be difficult to reproduce but when it started out they were literally walking around with keyboards and using a PSP with a chord hanging out of a pipe to “open” security gates. I’m not saying everything has to be that rudimentary, there are plenty of large scale productions out there that allow people to get the same sense. Indiana Jones had a huge budget and tons of action scenes but what do people love most about Raiders of the Lost Ark? They love a hat, a whip, a bag of sand, and a dude getting chased by a big rock.

And fans go out and make stuff like this.

The fact that this Lego boulder got busted on Mythbusters doesn’t matter, just like it doesn’t matter that I’ve never heard of a boulder booby trap in real life or that the motorcycle scene from The Last Crusade got busted. These films don’t have to be realistic, they just have to make you feel like a real part of something.

A quick search will yield some awesome non literal star wars interpretations…

yoda oragami

and they’re all more satisfying than this

It’s weird what we gravitate towards.  I know there’s a ton I could do with this phone and I should be trying to figure out how to streamline my life or get organized or something.  My first priority however has been finding a good twitter application.  Right now I’m leaning towards Twikini.  While there might be lots of good looking tiwtter apps for the iPhone I haven’t seen any for Windows Mobile.  They’ve been bland and free versions don’t include DM’s etc.  Twikini is 4.95 (potentially free after this post) and has all the little conveniences I would expect, integrates with my gps locator, WMP, and has url shortening etc.  Here’s a screenshot from their site which conveniently looks exactly like my own stream.  Anybody have any experience with this app or have a better one to recommend?  I’ll probably be doing a bunch of phone follow ups from whether it successfully revolutionizes my existence and liberates me from my laptop and apartment, makes my social life deteriorate as I use it to shield myself from strangers/lulls in conversation, or just makes me wish I had my 50 bucks back.

Looking for wordpress, stock, and ebook applications next.

For all of these reasons I’ve generally been against getting rid of print media.  I am one of the few people I know who still buys music magazines in addition to reading blogs and have learned to expect the looks of pity I receive when I tell people my post-graduation aspirations include writing for said magazines.  Out of all the print media I consume, I was most disturbed by the idea of paperless comic books.  For one thing, when I had disposable income I was a pretty avid collector.  We’re talking bags and boards of course and comic boxes but I also made up spreadsheet wishlists and cataloged my collection and tried to keep tabs on what I’d paid for them and their Overstreet values.  While my room was in shambles I would pull out my boxes and neatly alphabetize my comics.  I’ve tried to distance myself from the collecting mindset over the last couple of years and realized its silly to pick up an arc I’m not feeling so much simply to keep my complete run going or to even keep getting a series because “I’ve already got the first three and it’s only going to be six issues.”  I swear, I’m never getting sucked in by another Marvel “event” ever again.  Basically, the point of all that was I like having comics as “things” that I can look at like a painting or regular piece of art not to mention cool artifacts.  I like to think that reading older comics gives me at least a little glimpse into what my dad’s childhood was like and some of my favorite aspects of my older comics are the ads.  Comics used to be five cents!? You could buy x-ray specs?!  What happened to correspondence ninja training schools?

The .cbr format had a lot of obstacles to overcome if it was going to persuade me to shift my allegiances and while it certainly hasn’t made me want to stop going to my local shop, I feel obliged to recognize its right to exist.  (That’s another thing I forgot to mention, half the fun of reading comics is going to your comic store and arguing/complaining/commiserating with the staff and patrons.)

I experimented with two different programs for this project CDisplay and a reader which I deleted and forgot the name of.  While the latter was prettier and had seemingly beneficial features like a library function and playlists which allowed you to go past the library’s author or title groupings it was too heavy and when it wasn’t taking forever to load the different groups so I could pick an issue it was frozen.  I quickly dropped it and switched exclusively to the simple and nimble CDisplay which allowed for plenty of sizing and other display options.

My first test was the “academic test.”  I pulled out the Derrida essay of the comic book world and tried reading Alan Moore’s “From Hell.” While the layout was certainly straightforward, the book was simply too dense.  I messed around with the settings on my programs of choice but just couldn’t get into it.  I quickly discovered that I am not a fan of the scrolling zoom and that was the only way to be able to decipher the text comfortably for me.  I didn’t like alternating between looking at the image and then obstructing it with my magnifying glass like text box.  I didn’t last long enough to need to bookmark my spot and come back to it later but the mystery reader had that feature and CDisplay allows you to “Resume Reading” so provided you didn’t read a comic in between, you could pick up and leave off easily.

Next I tried the “series test” with Brian Wood’s “Pounded” If you don’t read Brian Wood’s stuff you’re missing out. I was only fair on Northlanders and stopped picking it up for economic reasons but “DMZ” is one of the more interesting and thought provoking comics out there and it’s one I’m still willing to throw money down for when I can.  While I was relatively disappointed int he comic itself and found it to be a pretty good example of how the 90′s neutered most subcultures in an attempt to create a veneer of edginess through torn clothing and obscenity, which is still an ongoing problem as seen in David Lapham’s “Young Liars,” (also out on Vertigo) the experience in CDisplay went swimmingly.  I read the whole series with no fatigue of any sort.  The pages were conveniently split down the center and evenly separated horizontally.  I did have to do a little U shaped scroll pattern down-right-up-down next page but I didn’t find it bothersome at all.

The third test was less of a test and more of an impromptu situation that lead to a realization.  The “mobility test” was born when I took my laptop to the laundromat the other night to do a little work.  I quickly realized I was too tired to work and I was stranded without any wireless internet.  FUUUUUCK right?  Normally I think of a computer with no internet connection to be a really expensive paperweight.  Especially because in this case I didn’t have any headphones so there was no hope for listening to my music or that lost venture bros. commentary (which holds up even when separated from the video.) But then I remembered that I had a bunch of comics on my computer.  I selected from my new digital library Bill Willingham’s “Jack of Fables” despite the fact that “Fables” had not been so fun to read on my computer (more on that in a minute)  Laundromat “Jack of Fables” was downright delightful. I was reading a comic outside of my room.  I stopped short of Calvin’s insistence that Hobbes use tongs to turn the pages but I definitely feared bending corner in transit.  It was a whole new world where suds and speech bubbles could peacefully co-exist.  Where my wrists no longer smarted at the bite of the CGC’s plastic sealed shackles.  I imagined myself reading a comic on a train, a plane, a hotel lobby…I had to stop at this point because my brain hurt from the strain of such fantasy but it was enough.

I think I spent enough time talking about cons beforehand.  Here’s a list of pros.

One of the best things about reading these .cbr files is the fact that it made me pay attention to layout and a way that I’ve never really done before.  Probably the only time I’d given much thought at all to it was when I heard David Lloyd from “V for Vendetta” talk about the layout as one of the primary causes for the book’s crossover success.  The experience raised a few questions for me and I now wonder how much of that process is decided by the artist and the writer together.  Like I mentioned before, “Fables” wasn’t as easy to read, it has funky and intricate layouts and epic double pages far more often than it’s spin off which is generally blocked evenly in a single column.  Since Willingham is a constant I have to wonder if it’s a result of different artists or if Willingham realizes the different nature of the books.  And thinking about comics is good for comics.

The switch to digital obviously makes piracy an issue and I’ll admit that not every comic I read for this experiment was legally obtained or involved a cash for goods transaction.  I don’t see the potentional for a real con here.  People make the logical sounding argument that when comics lose their revenue they lose a way to quanitify what should and should not be supported and titles will get cancelled or recieve budgetary cuts.  Here are my counter-points.  1 each comic is not a one time purchase like an album arguably is.  By providing readers a way to stay in a title when they either can’t buy an issue or just don’t think it’s good enough you’re leaving the door for re-entry open.  For example, I don’t read any X-Men titles because I feel like I’ve missed too much and it would be too daunting a task to catch up.  2. unlike CD’s owning a comic actually has a point because it’s a tangible product, people like holding their stuff and our nature leans toward squirrel like hoarding.

Mobility.  The idea of being able to whip out a kindle like device and settle once and for all, right then and there, the debate whether Captain America had a boner while looking at Bucky in that one frame is exciting enough to necessitate debate over whether I have a boner right now.  Sorry, unless this Hyatt has some secret surveillance there will be no photo evidence.  I honestly don’t think I’d be willing to make the size sacrifice.  Right now I wouldn’t want to go much smaller than my 17″ laptop screen but then again I’m always amazed that I can watch TV shows on my ipod.  Maybe in the future we will have adapted our eyes for tiny screen and laugh at those idiots that bought wall sized flatscreen TVs.  In the end I think the convenience factor of having your entire collection in one place will be too hard to deny.