Posts Tagged ‘Mythoi’

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Semantink State of the Union

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

Greetings readers! If you have been checking out our site this week, you might have noticed that we have begun running our blogs in a slightly different manner. I know that change can be scary, so I just wanted to give you a run down of what you can be expecting from us here at Semantink every week:

Every Monday you will get to read the newest strip in our web-comic, THE UNDERGROUNDS. You can also find an archive of all posted UNDERGROUNDS strips at the-undergrounds.com.

Tuesdays still give you Sgt. Angle and his weekly Cinegasms column, dealing with all things movie.

On Wednesdays Akatzen regails you with his weekly Book Report delving into the world of books that don’t have pretty pictures.

Mr. Wolff still owns Thursday with his Hump Day Rant.

Friday sees new Semantink blogger Dr. Cellus delve into all things paranormal on his blog Cognitive Alchemy.

Saturday gives you Admiral Eo’s Soft Shoe Diaries, wherein the good Admiral looks into the world of theater.

Sunday, you will be stuck with me as I talk comics in my weekly Comicopea column.

Not a bad line up right? Well our new blog schedule is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of news here at Semantink. Over the next few months, our site will be getting a bit of a face lift courtesy of the fine gentlemen at SanBox Inc. All of the content that you love will still be here, but the whole place will be prettier and easier to navigate.

For our MYTHOI lovers, I have some great news, our latest issue of the MYTHOI Birth series, TAROS will be out this week. Here is the cover art to the upcoming issue to whet your appetite:

April is going to see the last issue of MYTHOI Births, TOUCH, hit the internet. As always, MYTHOI will be brought to by the electrifying team of James Ninness and Jed Soriano.

The MYTHOI Birth series coming to a close means two things, 1) MYTHOI proper will pick up again in June with issue #2, and 2)the MYTHOI Birth graphic novel will be available around the same time. All of our MYTHOI issues are available for digital download, but this graphic novel will be the only place you can find the whole Birth series collected in in one place. The GN will be chock full of original content as well, so make sure you pick up a copy when it comes out!

This fall we will be launching two new series, THE HEAVEN’S and SIM-I. THE HEAVEN’S will be written by James Ninness and illustrated by spectacular newcomer Turbo Qualls! THE HEAVEN’S is a steampunk power struggle set on the alien desert world of Terra. Joe Pezzula will be writing SIMI-I, the madcap tale of a super intelligent monkey trying to evade vaporization. I will have more information and pretty picture-tude on these soon.

Next month is also the start of convention season for us here at Semantink. We will be at WonderCon and Wizard World Anaheim in April, The Phoenix Comicon in May, the world famous San Diego Comic Con in July, and the Alternative Press Expo and Long Beach Comic con in October.

So, to make a long story short (too late), 2010 is an exciting year for us here at Semantink, and I just want to say thank you for being a part of it. Keep an eye out here for more details on our upcoming projects, and if you have any questions you can always drop me a line.

Benjamin Glibert

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The Long Beach Comic Expo

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

Hello all!  I was fortunate enough to join the Semantink boys on another convention outing yesterday back to Long Beach, for the Long beach Comic Expo!  The Long Beach Comic Con kicked off its first year just a few months ago, and a second year is coming in October, but the good people behind the LBC’s comic craze decided to give us a one day sort of midpoint break in patience.  While yesterday’s event was only a miniscule sampling of the glory that is the Long Beach Comic Con proper, it hailed a haughty list of talent:

  • Amanda Dawn Wolf
  • Bernie Wrightson
  • Beth Sotelo
  • Brian Haberlin
  • Cat Staggs
  • Christian Beranek
  • Christian Meesey
  • Chris Moreno
  • Dan Brereton
  • Dan Wickline
  • Dan Taylor
  • David Wohl
  • Drew Johnson
  • Dustin Nguyen
  • Eddie Nuñez
  • Eric Basaldua
  • Eric Canete
  • Frank Mastromauro
  • Gus Vazquez
  • J.T. Krul
  • Jim Daly
  • JJ Kirby
  • Joe Benitez
  • Joe Rubinstein
  • Jordan Raskin
  • Josh Dysart
  • Lauren Perry
  • Joshua Hale Fialkov
  • Livio Ramondelli
  • Lou Ferrigno
  • Mark Dos Santos
  • Mark Roslan
  • Michael Lopez
  • Naomi Baker
  • Norm Rapmund
  • Peter Steigerwald
  • Philip Tan
  • Ray-Anthony Height
  • Richard Starkings
  • Rick Basaldua
  • Rob Levin
  • Scott Lobdell
  • Stan Sakai
  • Steve Niles
  • Tim Bradstreet
  • Tim Vigil
  • Todd Nauck
  • Tone Rodriguez
  • Tony DeZuniga
  • Tony Fleecs
  • Trent Kaniuga
  • Trevor Goring
  • Vince Hernandez
  • Whilce Portacio

Sgt. Angle and Benjamin Glibert give R2 the “what’s-what.”

Ben, Sgt. Angle, Ash, Admiral Eo and I made our way up to Long Beach in the wee hours of Saturday morning and pushed through minimal traffic-resistance, arriving at the Convention Center just after doors opened at 10am.  We were greeted by a few cars resembling entertainment icons and pushed past a group of Clone Wars veterans into the expo.  Now this event was not in the main hall, as the convention was, but in a smaller room to the side of the main entrance — but it worked.  There was enough space to get around and sample each of the vendors/artists/writers/publisher’s tables without feeling to cramped.

Admiral Eo and James Ninness don’t mind Huey Lewis, but hate the News.

Once we had our wristbands, we leisurely strolled through the hubbub and ran into Mike Mignola and Steve Niles (both incredibly personable) — not a bad start.  After a very lovely discussion with Tone Rodriguez (who told me that he was in DEXTER, something I did not know), we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping.  One of the booths was selling everything at 40% off, so between the five of us, a few hundred dollars was spent and everybody went home with goodies galore.

Admiral Eo, James Ninness and Ash think Anakin acts like a girl. ;-)

Cosplay was ensuing, with quite a good many fantastic costumes, and a few not so good ones…  But it was great to see fans out in force, enjoying each others geekery.  While I wish that there was more, I understand that this was a $10.00, one day event and I’m not complaining, I just wish there was more to see or do.  There were no panels (understandable), no contests (again, understandable) and no incentive to stay after doing a couple laps around the showroom floor.  It was, as one would think it to be, simple.  We went, talked to some amazing people, met some courageous fans, and bought some fantastically priced merch — a fine time.

ZBladeXX scares Sgt. Angle

I look forward to the Con-proper in October (assuming I’m invited again) and have to hand it to the Long Beach organizers, MAD Event Management and the Long Beach Comic Convention, they made a lot of people very happy on an otherwise plain February afternoon — so a very special thanks to them!

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Talk to you guys soon!

James Ninness

PS:  The response to MYTHOI has been overwhelming — thank you all!  I hope you continue to enjoy it!

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Dressing Up

Sunday, February 7th, 2010

Happy Sunday Semantinkists!

I was up late into the night with the Semantink design team, working hard on the trade dress for our first MYTHOI graphic novel. Now, before you get too excited, the first GN is still several months away, but it is going to look awesome. The reason I bring all this up is because I wanted to talk about all the hard work that goes into designing the beautiful books you flip through when you are killing time at the local book store.

The biggest step in the design process is the overall layout of the book. Where will all the elements go? Will the cover have one large piece of artwork, or several smaller ones? Will the art wrap around to the back or end on the front? There is an ungodly amount of design decisions that could mean success or failure on the stands. Let’s look at the front cover first.

The standard for front covers on graphic novels, especially superhero books, is to have one large image adorning the front cover with the book title scrawled across the top of book. Having this large image is a great attention grabber, but lacking in originality. Here are a few examples of the straight forward cover layout:

While the single large image is a great way to get attention, some books strive originality in their design, hoping to grab attention with design instead of pictures. Y: THE LAST MAN and HELLBOY are great examples of emphasizing design over artwork.

Whatever the layout, the cover has to be exciting enough to draw readers in. Just as I wont talk to an ugly girl, no matter how wonderful her personality, if a cover doesn’t grab me, I’m not going to open the book.

Another design element that is a key to sales success is the book spine. When graphic novels are all lined up in the book store with only the spines showing, how does one grab a new reader?

The run of the mill spine will contain the books title, volume (if necessary), publisher, and creators. This is all usually set with a single color and an attention grabbing typeface. Books like SANDMAN will use bands of color to make the book stick out on the shelf. For books that are part of a large series, it’s important to have to have continuity between volumes. THE WALKING DEAD has the same typeface and text placement on each spine, but a different color for each volume.

Finally, there is the back cover. The back cover contains odds and ends that just don’t fit anywhere else. Some of the things commonly found on the back cover are quotes from other professionals, a story synopsis, and the bar code. Sometimes art will grace the back cover, but from a design standpoint, its the red headed step child of the book.

If the layout of a graphic novel is it’s skeleton, then the art used on the book is the muscle and skin. No matter how good the layout is, a bad piece of cover art can kill it. By the same token, even if a GN layout isn’t great, a spectacular piece of art can save it. The key to the best covers is to make an image that will pop off the shelves at readers and tell a story at the same time. As an example, let’s take a look at one of the most well respected graphic novels of all time, WATCHMEN:

WATCHMEN’s cover doesn’t just ask to be read, it smacks you in the face and says ” Take me home or I’ll break a bottle on your head.” The art isn’t even very complex, but the bright color and the rather disturbing blood stain draws the reader in. As an example of a graphic novel that doesn’t work as well, let’s take a look at THE TEEN TITANS: JUDAS CONTRACT

To be fair, this was made in the 1980’s, but looking at this cover doesn’t make you want to buy it, it makes you want to throw up a little bit. The image is overly busy and the color is (for lack of a better word) yucky. Also, the more iconic your image is, the better. Just about any comic book fan can spot that WATCHMEN cover and know that it’s the Watchmen, but without the title, many would have no idea what the TEEN TITANS is.

One final element to consider when putting together a trade paperback is the typeface that will be used. Will you use a standard font, or create your own? THE WALKING DEAD has a unique font that sticks out and fits the book well, while BATMAN: YEAR ONE has a standard font, that doesn’t pop as much, but still fits the book.

The most important thing about selecting typeface is making sure that it fits the book. A heavy Gothic font doesn’t fit with a futuristic cop story. While it’s important to have your title pop out at people it still has to fit the book.

Creating a good looking trade dress is a lot of work, but the results can be spectacular. When I look at books like WATCHMEN  and THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS (another iconic trade) I think about how good a TPB can look, and I get excited for our own Semantink trades. That’s it for today folks, thanks for stopping in. If you haven’t gotten a chance yet, check out our latest issue of MYTHOI, MYTHOI Births: YUKI. And if you haven’t checked out the other MYTHOI Birth issues (also free!) do so now!

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Odds and Ends 2/5

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Good Morning!

As we head into the weekend (yay Super Bowl!), it is time for another edition of Odds and Ends. Let’s see what’s going on in the world of comics:

Super Sunday: Comics Alliance is ramping up for the big game in their own way, throwing out rosters for a would-be DC/Marvel Super Bowl. It’s odd but funny.

Catching Up: IGN runs down the last decade of X-Men continuity to get you ready for this year’s X-event. Thanks IGN!

Worse Than The Clone Saga: For all you cinephiles out there, The Razzies have announced their nominations for the worst of 2009. As a special treat to commemorate the new decade, this year’s Razzies actually include categories for worst of the decade.

Waxing Marvel: Jason Karouac and Lee Rodriguez from Panels on Pages sit down for an interview with Marvel’s Uber-editor Tom Brevoort. The whole interview is available for your listening pleasure here.

Why Haven’t You Read This?: Semantink put out it’s latest MYTHOI comic, MYTHOI Birth: YUKI. Why have you not read it? There are Yetis and scantily clad women kicking butt.

Thanks for stopping in folks, have a great weekend, and check back tomorrow for Geek of The Week!

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Academy Award Nominations — Brief thoughts

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Sgt. Angle reporting for duty!

Oscar nominations were announced this past Tuesday at 5:38 AM PST. Yours Truly wakes up at the late hour of 4:30 every day, so with my morning routine already in the bank, I decided to watch the chuckly Anne Hathaway and the what’s-his-face President of the Academy spout out the nominees in “top categories” for the awards. What defines a top category, in this instance, is the showiest titles, the big cheeses of actors, the “most important, flashiest bits” of the movie — the actors, the writers, the directors, the pictures themselves, and the foreigners. What you need to understand is that the Academy members — or, more precisely, the folks in charge of the Oscar Telecast — are more interested in generating buzz and viewership for the telecast than they are for honoring the latest-greatest contributions to the art form.

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I won’t ask you to forgive my foul-ish mood today regarding Oscars, and won’t even pretend to chalk it up to the fact that Mr. Wolff ate away at our regularly scheduled blog-time this week because of his timely chomp-up of the Grammy Awards. I can only ask you to read YUKI, the #3 BIRTH issue of MYTHOI, written by a fella named James Ninness, and worthy of every iris in the states to see and download.

Folks, lend me your ears, and your time, and I’ll tell you a little something about the missing piece of the Oscars, something that has left a void since 1952, and shall perhaps one day — through the genius and respect that is Martin Scorsese, or perhaps even from another writers’ strike — return to show us the way. I’m going to tell you about actual respect towards a craft, and how Television Killed the Triumph of Awards.

The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony in the media. In 1929, the first Oscars were given to celebrate the excellence of film professionals in the years 1928 — 29. The awards show was conceived by Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM studios.  Key word there is “excellence” — not celebrate, but excellence. After the LA Times leaked the award winners in 1940, the names were thereafter sealed in an envelope and revealed only during the ceremony, which was first televised in 1953 with Bob Hope as Master of Ceremonies. It is perhaps the decision to televise the show which has brought the most criticisms to the awards themselves.

No longer are voters or Academy members interested in honoring timeless classics or films that will go on forever to be known as the greatest in the pantheon of the art of film in general. Tim Dirks, editor of AMC’s filmsite.org, has written of the Academy Awards, “Unfortunately, the critical worth, artistic vision, cultural influence, and innovative qualities of many films are not given the same voting weight. Especially since the 80s, moneymaking ‘formula-made’ blockbusters with glossy production values have often been crowd-pleasing titans (and Best Picture winners), but they haven’t necessarily been great films with depth or critical acclaim by any measure.”

Make no mistake about it, the Academy Awards are still the most prestigious award ever to win as a filmmaker. But you must be cautious when you win it, think about what you’ve done to deserve it. Should you be given the award as a gift because of your family relations (Sofia Coppola, “Lost in Translation” writer)? Or how about because the Academy forgot to honor you for a prior piece (Russell Crowe for “Gladiator” instead of “The Insider”)? What if you just had something important to say, despite your film being mediocre at best (“An Inconvenient Truth”)? The point is, because of the commercialization of the Oscars themselves, the awards and honors encapsulated by them have become less prestigious over the years, more about popularity or politics than actual excellence.

Twelve years ago, one of the best films of the 1990s (a fantastic decade for films, despite what anyone else says to you), “L.A. Confidential,” was virtually shut out at the Oscars by the Billion-Dollar-Baby “Titanic.” The monster that slipped on an iceberg offered smooth sailing into Awards History for James Cameron, and somehow captured hearts and minds of moviegoers across the US, and around the Globe — most notably, Academy members were swept up in the wave of apparent heaping praise for the film. And that became the problem. Advertising. Campaigning for an award that SHOULD be given on artistic merit and excellence in the craft, was instead doled out to those who could afford to buy it.

Enter Harvey Weinstein, Stage Right. In case you don’t recall, Weinstein was behind one of the greatest coups in Academy Awards history when he sold members on the idea that “Shakespeare in Love” offered a more historically and artistically brilliant film than “Saving Private Ryan” and “Life is Beautiful.” Even Spielberg stood backstage, holding his still warm Best Director Oscar, wondering how the mighty Miramax Man managed to flatten Ryan’s privates.

And lo, the Awards themselves were pushed back, from late March to late February, to hopefully collapse the campaign season and bring forth honorable films rather than wide wallet films. But that still wasn’t enough. Gone are they days when films released any time before May of the year (“Silence of the Lambs”) are even within radar of Academy members — or marketing wallets. This year, for instance, the only film to be nominated for Best Picture and released before June of 2009 was Disney-Pixar’s “Up.”

And that was released on May 29.

Look, I’ll still watch the Awards, and hey, if I could, I would go to them. But the thing about Awards is, once you start spreading them around, giving them to the moneybags rather than the talentbags, you start to lose sight of why they exist in the first place. You shouldn’t make movies to make money, and you shouldn’t make movies to win awards. You make movies to make a piece of Art, whether it’s a 3-hour character piece exploring the existence of love, or it’s a 3-hour action piece creating a new world, using new technology, and still somehow exploring the existence of love.

I’m as hard-assed as the next soldier, but when it comes to executing your job properly, I’m hoping you don’t spend the most money on the most expensive gun to hit the target; I want to see you hit that target with the cheapest man-made rifle you can find. That’s where real talent lies, and that’s where real inspiration comes from.

That’s just the type of soldier I wanna see on my set.

Let me know what your reactions are to this year’s awards nominations, and next week we’ll ramble on about celluloid history — the type that should disappear from history.

You are dismissed.

Sgt. Angle.

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MYTHOI Continues!

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Good morning!

The next exciting installment of the MYTHOI saga is now available! We here at Semantink are proud to present MYTHOI Birth: YUKI from the creative team of James Ninness and Jed Soriano. The best part? It is absolutely free!

You can find a downloadable PDF on our MYTHOI site here, along with the first two parts of MYTHOI Births (also free). However, for the best viewing experience possible, I recommend checking out YUKI through issuu, which you can do here.

From all of us here at Semantink, we hope you enjoy the issue, and if you did, feel free to tell a friend, get the word out, share the MYTHOI love!

Thanks for stopping in folks, enjoy the comic and check back in tomorrow for another book report with Akatzen.

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MYTHOI Birth: VITO!!

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Greetings Semantinkers!

Ben was kind enough to let me share the exciting news — Vito is here!  Jed and I have been working very, very hard to push ourselves with each issue and we’re both very proud of MYTHOI Birth: Vito — I hope you like it!  Vito is the smallest of the MYTHOI gang, but he’s also the most gruesome…  If you like vampires, Gothic culture, or anything Brahm Stoker, I think you’ll find Vito an entertaining read!  If you like Twilight, well…  I’m sorry?

Suck it.

There are a few viewing options at your disposal here.  Option 1: Go here and download your very own copy of Vito as a pdf — for free!  Or for the viewing method preferred by many of us here at Semantink, you can go here and check it out on ISSUU!  Either way, be sure to check it out and as always: LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!  The best publicity is word of mouth.  We want you guys to enjoy it and tell your friends, remember: it’s 100% free!

I’m honored that you’ve taken the time to check out the beginning of a story I’ve invested the last four years of my life into.  It’s very exciting to see Jed breathe life into these characters and even more so to hear back from you guys about the good times your having reading them. You guys are the best.

Benjamin’s also asked me to mention that Semantink is currently being “re-imagined.”  I’m not privy to all the details, but I do know that the site will be relaunching with all new designs and a complete interface overhaul.  I think I’m allowed to tell you that they’ve just finished negotiations with a new team of bloggers to be producing new content every day, as well as production on a yet-to-be-titled web comic, released every Monday.  All of this coming to you in mid-February…  So stay tuned and hold on to your butts — good stuff’s a-comin’.

Keep on keepin’ on!

James Ninness

PS: In case you haven’t figured it out already, there is something else going on between the pages — here’s a hint: read the ads.  Have fun!

Semantink.com

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Geek Of The Week: GI Joe PSA’s

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

rat-hunter-gi-joe

Well hello again everybody and welcome to another Geek O Da Week. This week it is more great youtube videos. These videos, if you don’t like to read the title of blogs before you read them, are about the old GI Joe cartoons. These are not the whole cartoons they are what came at the end of a cartoon episode. Basically the creators of the cartoon series thought it would be a good idea to leave the children with a good message. These messages varied from your typical don’t do drugs or eat yellow snow. They also had more unique messages, I guess for the unlucky children that couldn’t live in San Diego, that warned of the dangers of frozen lakes having thin ice.

WOW don’t do drugs I’m LMAO already right. No what is funny about these PSA’s is that someone went and remade them using their own voice over completely changing the message and making an instant youtube hit. Well I was going to leave it at that and post the videos but figured why not find out who the mastermind was behind these videos.

Eric Fensler and his company Fensler Films were the ones behind these funny videos. Fensler not only recut and changed the audio of the PSA’s he also added some animation to them as well. All of these videos were once hosted on the company website. I say once because like most parody’s of old things from our childhoods, like Bill Cosby, a cease and desist letter came from Hasbro, the owners of GI Joe. So all the videos had to be taken down. Thankfully we have youtube and the crazy people that make it so no matter what anyone tries to do the video will always get reposted for our viewing pleasure.

So if you need a good laugh then check these videos out. I am off to go see what the writer of Mythoi is up to at his birthday relaxer. I guess his life is always a party and so for his birthdays he relaxes.  Until next week I’m Street Fece and I’m out! PORKCHOP SANDWICHES!!!

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Hump Day Rant: James Michael Ninness

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Greetings kiddos and welcome to another Hump Day Rant.  Today we’re going to do something a little different and depending on your tastes it’ll wither be a treat or a complete snooze.  I’ll let you decide, though if you opt for “snooze” you’re probably either a moron, a sorority girl, or burdened with some degree of mental incapacity.

28 years ago today a poor woman had her water violently bludgeoned open, and gave birth to one of the most talented (albeit unattractive) writers I’ve had the pleasure to know: James Michael Ninness.  James grew up in San Diego and after high school, spent a few years traveling through Europe and the Southwestern United States, ending up with a degree in English: Creative Writing from Cal State University Long Beach (additional alumni include: Steve Martin, Steven Spielberg, and X-Files Chris Carter).  Eventually he realized that travel doesn’t give you anything more than a confused worldview (and in some cases a proclivity for bisexuality) and moved back to San Diego with his better half, Kyleen.  The latest news in James’s life is the birth of his daughter: Natala James (what a fucking ego) Ninness.  So why are we interviewing this bum?  Well, he’s the creator/writer of MYTHOI, Semantink’s inaugural comic.

Mr. Wolff:  Hello James, good to see you again.  Happy early birthday.

James:  Yeah man, thanks.  Thanks for having me.

Mr. Wolff:  You look confused…

James:  [laughs] Yeah, well — you make me a bit nervous.  When Benji (Benjamin Glibert, Director of Publishing for Semantink) told me that you’d be doing the interview I thought for sure I’d done something to offend somebody.

Mr. Wolff:  Ah, don’t worry.  I’ll be gentle.

James:  Please!  I’d appreciatte it.

Mr. Wolff:  Well then, let’s get to it with my first question.  I’ve read MYTHOI Issue One and both of the completed issues in the  MYTHOI: Birth series and after careful contemplation I wanted to know: Did you perform any sexual favors to get this published, or was Benjamin just desperate?

James:  Wow!

Mr. Wolff:  This is me, nice.

James:  Okay.  Fair enough.  Um, no.  I didn’t have to perform any favors for Benji, we’d been sleeping together for some time.  I’d say he was sick of me to be honest.  He probably just wanted to give me something as a thank you.

Mr. Wolff:  Good answer.  Seriously though, what drugs were you on when you came up with MYTHOI?

James:  [laughs] Yeah, I guess it kinda reads that way.  I’ve always been a big mythology fan.  When Ben and I were in school we tossed around the idea for a comic book set in a world where every mythology, religion and folktale existed simultaneously.  Once I set out to do some research my five mythoi (protagonists: Vito, Yuki, Wiglaf, Touch and Taros) just jumped off the page.  The plot proper was the most time consuming part, you know?  Getting all of these guys to come together and then uniting them for one purpose, without the book becoming “superhero” or anything.

Mr. Wolff:  What do you have against superheroes?

James:  Nothing!  I love those books, but the ones I love are-  Well, let me choose my words carefully.  My favorite books are the ones that have existed for quite some time: Batman, Spiderman, the X-Men, you know?  It’s rare that I find a new book in the superhero genre that really jumps out at me.  For the most part they seem like rehashes of something somebody else did better.  I just don’t want to be another copycat.

Mr. Wolff:  So in order to be original, you stole from religions and mythologies from around the world?

James:  [laughs] Yeah, I guess I did.  I’m a hack.

Mr. Wolff:  Clearly.  Another interesting thing about MYTHOI is that it has an end…

James:  Yes!  I actually wrote that first.

Mr. Wolff:  The end?

James:  Yeah.  I knew where I wanted to go once I had the characters fleshed out.  The fun part is getting them there.  J.J. Abrams is a story teller I really respect–

Mr. Wolff:  He’s great.

James:  Man, that guy knows his shit.  Well, he said something in Wireless magazine about, and I’m not quoting because I don’t remember the quote verbatim, but he said he tries to emphasize journey over climax.  He was referencing the public’s need for spoilers and their desire to know the end of something so bad that they neglect to enjoy the experience getting from beginning to end.  Well, by writing the end first I was able to let my geek flag fly and really embellish in the story as it unfolds.  I knew where I was going and I knew where I was coming from, but the journey was a blast to ride.

Mr. Wolff:  How does it feel being the first book out of the Semantink stable?

James:  Terrifying.  [laughs] I don’t know what Ben was thinking!  You know, I just hope people have fun with the experience of MYTHOI.  I’m not trying to write the quintessential mythology book or anything.  As a writer, I just try to tell stories similar to the ones I enjoy reading.  Hopefully there are one or two people out there who have tastes akin to my own–

Mr. Wolff:  We’re gonna go bankrupt if we don’t have more than that.

James:  Yeah!  I guess so.  I try not to think about all that stuff.  It’s not my job.  Benji hired me for MYTHOI, not my business savvy.  If a few people enjoy MYTHOI, then I feel like I’ve done my job.

Mr. Wolff:  How’d you find Jed (artist for MYTHOI)?

James:  He’s awesome, isn’t he?

Mr. Wolff:  I don’t know about “awesome,” but he’s a damn fine artist.

James:  I met Jed through a mutual friend — we were both working on a music video; I was doing some writing and he was storyboarding.  We just chatted up and throughout our conversations I pitched him MYTHOI.

Mr. Wolff:  Was he a hard sell?

James:  Not at all!  Jed was the first artist I had spoken to who seemed to be as gung-ho about MYTHOI as I was.  It was awesome to feel the passion in his heart for the story.  We drafted some stuff up and that’s when Ben called me.  It all just fell into place.

Mr. Wolff:  I just want to clarify one thing.

James:  Yeah?

Mr. Wolff:  I’m quoting you here, “It was awesome to feel,” Jed’s, “passion?”

James:  [laughs]  Yeah.  All over me!

Mr. Wolff:  Well, we’re almost out of time–

James:  We’re being timed?

Mr. Wolff:  No, but I’m too busy for you — I have to get back to playing Dragon Age.

James: [laughs] Oh!  Got it.

Mr. Wolff:  Are their any other projects you’re working on right now?

James:  Yes!  I’m in negotiations with Ben and an artist named Turbo in Orange County for another book, which I hope to put out through Semantink and I’m also working on my first novel.

Mr. Wolff:  Did you steal those ideas as well?

James:  Umm, I don’t think so…

Mr. Wolff:  Thanks for speaking to me James.  You know I love your stuff.

James:  No problem Wolff — thanks again!

That was it!  If you have any questions for James that don’t suck, drop me an email at info@semantink.com and I’ll see if i can corner him for another few moments.  If you haven’t checked out MYTHOI yet, WHY NOT?  You can peruse the Birth series here for free, and purchase Issue one here for $0.99.

Until next time,

Mr. Wolff

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The Book Report: Snow Crash

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Hey, kids! It’s Akatzen here with another book report.

In 1992, Microsoft released Windows 3.1, an update to Version 3 released in 1990. Selling over a million copies in its first year alone, Windows 3 represented an epochal shift in mainstream personal computing towards GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) and away from CLIs (Command Line Interfaces) such as MS-Dos. (While GUIs had been around for quite some time — Xerox released a GUI model in 1981 — Windows 3 made GUIs mainstream.)
Just one year previous, Linus Torvalds started writing the code for Linux and Tim Berners-Lee introduced the public to the World Wide Web. Essentially, it allowed users to easily browse and open files around the world, but it is worth noting that “web browsing” did not become mainstream until 1993 when the Mosaic Web Browser hit the market.

The reason I say it is worth noting is because of one of Neal Stephenson’s visions of the future: the cyber-punk novel Snow Crash, published in 1992, a time where computers looked vastly different and had far fewer capabilities than the machines they are today.
The cyber-punk genre may sound a little strange to you, but films like The Matrix and Blade Runner owe much of their flavor and ambiance to cyber-punk.
YouTube Preview ImageMatrix 4?

The title of the book comes from a particular software failure on the Apple Macintosh: the system crashes and what appears on the screen is a bunch of gibberish resembling the static of an untuned or broken television.
As for the book itself, Stephenson originally envisioned the book to be a computer-generated graphic novel, with art by Tony Sheeder, but ran into difficulties when they realized that the image-processing software didn’t exist yet (and now it does. Go check out Mythoi: Wiglaf).
Stephenson eventually dropped the graphic novel idea in favor of producing pictureless fiction, and the ensuing novel is not only incredibly interesting, informative, and entertaining; Snow Crash also presents, in many areas, a shockingly accurate view of the future.

In many ways, Snow Crash has also had a direct influence on the direction and innovation software has gone.

In the Metaverse (the book’s idea of the internet’s future—think of it as a Virtual Reality mash-up of Second Life, Tron, and the World Wide Web), users navigate the ‘verse (ie. Browse the web) via the use of avatars. Yup, anytime you create a virtual persona of yourself (like you do on the Wii, the Xbox360, or any number of online applications), the avatar you are making is entirely due to Neal Stephenson’s use of the word in Snow Crash.
YouTube Preview Image

One of the programs the main character (Hiro Protagonist) uses is called Earth. What it does is create a 360 degree view of the earth from satellite photography, enabling you to view any place on earth you can think of, and zoom in as close as you want. Anyone who’s ever used Google Earth will find this description incredibly familiar. In fact, one of the developers at Google said the idea for Google Earth came, at least in part, from the similarly named program in Snow Crash.

Then there’s the burbclaves (essentially H.O.A. citystates), the complete corporatization of America, the devaluation of the dollar, the anti-rape measure called a dentata, and the ability for normal people to degenerate into savages after a crisis: a ridiculous picture of the future that feels ridiculous only because it’s actually possible.

Throw in some computer tech speak (like that GUI/CLI jargon I started the post with) and a highly intriguing exploration of ancient Sumeria, the Tower of Babel, and how civilization may have come about through a virus and you have an incredibly interesting and entertaining novel.

And then there’s the sex, drugs, rock and roll, sword-fighting, and motorcycle chases. There’s no getting around it: this book is cool. (Um, and by cool, I also mean that it has a few Rated R moments, so don’t toss a copy at your 12 year old computer geek younger brother or anything without making sure it’s something he’s mature enough for. So yeah, no copies for Mr. Wolff.)

Anyway, this book is highly recommended by Yours Truly, so give it a read. You won’t be disappointed.

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