I'm Moving

Given the scarce amount of time I have doesn't allow me too much flexibility online, check out http://www.myspace.com/bjtdad for all new posts.

Thanks.

MicroChunking

The first thing you might ask is, "What is microchunking?"

If you'd like the answer, check out YouTube.com. There you will see video clips put together by people from all over the world and then put into this page and sent about in viral videos to millions of people who have just discovered high speed internet (myself included). The videos range from bizarre amateur versions of your favorite movie scenes, to sketches done by 16 year olds, to bits that are psychotic America's Funniest Home Video clips.

This is microchunking. It's going to change the world.

I'm not kidding.

Years ago, George Lucas said that digital technology was going to "democratize" film-making. The high cost of film was a barrier not present in things like book publishing, so you had to be connected somehow to get in the door. Digital technology puts the ability to make professional level films in the hands of more people.

I always felt he was right and he wasn't even thinking about the internet at the time. Now you can make videos and get them distributed to millions all over the world. Do you know what the best part is? The distribution is practically done for you.

Rupert Murdoch thinks this is the television of the future. It may be hard to see right now, given the quality of most of the videos, but anyone who's seen Lazy Sunday from Saturday Night Live online realizes that this doesn't have to be the case.

Why am I talking about this? Because I swear to God I'm going to own a piece of it. Call it the new Flying Turtles. Call it Dan screwing around again with some friends. Call it whatever you'd like, but Andy Konik just sent me a list of digital equipment at our disposal and I smiled real big. Now I just have to line up someone to do the site and we're off to the races.

I'll let you know when the first bits are together. See you then!

Defending Daniel Craig

I've been reading lately about all the negative reaction to the new James Bond, Daniel Craig. For those of you that don't know the actor, he's been in such movies as Layer Cake and Munich.

When it was announced he was the new James Bond, the first complaint is that he's blond. To that I simply say that Sean Connery was bald for his last three Bond films, so a little hair work is nothing new.

As time's gone on, so has the momentum of negative press. When you read most of it, you realize that it's written by people who have no clue what they're talking about.

First off, the man can act and if you think he can't give an aura of cool, watch Layer Cake sometime. The movie's not perfect, but I went away seeing what the folks at Eon Productions (the studio behind the "official" Bond movies) were thinking.

Secondly, there has been no Bond in history perceived as perfect for the role before they started, except maybe Pierce Brosnan. Most people consider Sean Connery un-toppable in the part, but not even Ian Fleming (Bond's creator) thought he was a good idea.

People are complaining that when it came time to drive the Aston Martin, Craig didn't even know how to drive a stick shift. They've somehow equated this to him being a bad fit for the part. After all, what real man doesn't know how to drive a stick shift?

Well, me and most every other guy I know.

I've got news for these folks. You know the high speed chases in the other Bond movies? Or the ski chases? Or the skydiving stunts? They have these people called stuntmen who do all these things and it's not actually required for the actors to do them. I know this shatters your deepest fantasies.

Sean Connery had never worn a tux before he played the role. He had no sense of personal style and had to have it all taught to him to play the role. Roger Moore couldn't even run for God's sakes. I do mean that. You never see extended sequences of him running because he can't do it well.

Some of the complainers have also said the studio is somehow cheating us by not casting a known actor like Hugh Jackman. Let me see, you're mad they cast someone who doesn't already have box office mojo? You know who else didn't? Every single Bond before him! Sean Connery was a minor character actor. Roger Moore had an English TV show, but never a starring role in a major film. George Lazenby was, well, George Lazenby. Timothy Dalton was an accomplished stage actor whose only internationally distributed film before Bond was Flash Gordon. Pierce Brosnan had been Remington Steele, though the show ended YEARS before he actually got the chance to play OO7.

I guess what infuriates me about these complainers is they could taint what promises to be a good movie. Casino Royale is shooting right now. It's the first Bond movie in a long time actually based on an Ian Fleming book. They're bringing it back down to Earth again (think The Bourne Identity instead of Die Another Day). I'd hate to have it all ruined by bad buzz created by dweebs who don't really know their Bond. Take it from a dweeb who does.

For those of you with high speed, check this out.

http://www.nbc.com/Video/videos/snl_1439_natalieraps.shtml

Also, check out my new page at

http://www.myspace.com/bjtdad

A Letter to Frank Miller

Dear Mr. Miller,

I first started reading comic books in late 1984. I believe Green Lantern was the first comic I collected. Little did I know that I was picking up the hobby just before it was about to enter a glory period like it had never seen before.

For the past several years, superhero comics had begun their next big step forward, the first since the Marvel Revolution of the Sixties. Your work on Daredevil and Alan Moore's work on various titles were introducing a new level of sophistication to the genre.

In 1986, it all came to a head. After the conclusion of Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC Comics had a clean slate to reintroduce and restart their books for a new audience. Your two great Batman books came out that year, The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One.

It is impossible to overstate how much you blew my young mind. Those books, and others that followed in the year ahead, moved my literacy level up several notches and introduced me to ideas and themes I hadn't read yet in anything intended for my age group. This was mostly because the books I'm talking about weren't really intended for my age group. I remember seeing naked people in Watchmen and hoping my mom would never think to thumb through it herself.

I will always be a great admirer of yours because of those books, along with many that followed, including: Sin City, Give Me Liberty, and others.

Because of this, my ever undying admiration of you, I'm asking you to please stop a moment and take a look at your recent work. Especially the work you've done featuring your favorite character, Batman.

I read The Dark Knight Strikes Again and defended it through the first issue, when people went through shock because of how different it looked than your predecessor. I stuck with you through the second issue. Then came the third and I could defend you no longer. Batman so over the top I expect froth to be coming out of his mouth. Batman grinning in triumph as Lex Luthor's brains are smashed out of his skull. Batman supposedly fighting for the freedom of the little guy, then turning around and supporting the idea of Superman running the show. Oh, I guess it was okay for us to have a dictator, he just needed to be a nice one.

And let's talk about Superman. First, he's a pawn of the government in The Dark Knight Returns. Sure, it's a betrayal of the character's origins (though it's a betrayal that everyone else seems to base their opinion of the character on), but it worked in the story and you've even voiced regret that he was marginalized that way.

So, when you have a chance to put him into your next opus, you give him a reason why he was a government pawn and it's a convincing one. By the end of the story, however, he's decided that he's not really one of us and that the Earth is really his. Again, you swap one dictator for another.

The real problem, though, is what you've done to the character you helped define for the modern age. I'm, of course, talking about Batman. So, in The Dark Knight Strikes Again he's become a sadist. He's also so over the top and unreasonable that he really isn't much of a hero anymore. Even that couldn't prepare me for All Star Batman and Robin.

All Star Batman and Robin has gotten a lot of press. To comic book fans, it was engineered as the perfect Batman book. You are writing it and Jim Lee's drawing it. Even I was floored at the prospect. It's too bad that the book is horrible.

I can't blame this on Jim Lee. His art still works. I blame it on your script. The first issue is half filled with womens' asses hanging out of panties. This happens all the time in comics by the way, but only to this extent typically in bad ones. Then in issue two, you have Batman cooking police, corrupt or not, with the Batmobile's flamethrower. The worst part, though, is the way he treats Robin. I get what you were going for with this, but when Dick Grayson acts scared and Batman backhands him (Dick's parents were killed about 30 minutes before this in front of him), you are officially not on this character's side anymore.

But the worst of it was the line. The line that is just starting to live in infamy. Dick asks Batman who he is and Batman yells at him, "What are you, retarded? I'm the goddam Batman!"

Since when did Marv from Sin City put on a costume and start driving around Gotham?

You are, or were, better than this. I can't tell you what to create or what your takes on characters should be but as of now, I'm out. Your current is selling on the strength of what it used to be, not what it is. I have faith that in the future, you'll produce something new that stuns me again (in a good way). I'm not banking on Batman: Holy Terror to do it.

Regards,

Dan Trudeau

The New Digital World

For those of you even still checking this blog, I'm back. The reason for my long absence is mostly technical and involves an eight year old computer that we've just replaced. On top of that, I'm now high speed on the internet. To get everyone up to date.

The Family
All still doing well, though Ben and Beth are currently fighting a cold bug. I myself spent half of last weekend with a stomache "issue" that had me curled up in the fetal position. Aside from the yuks, we're all okay as Beth plows through another school year, I continue to hunt down new engineers, and Ben learns new innapropriate things to say because his Dad forgets how good of a listener he is.

The Writing
Almost Evil is making the rounds. I currently have a synopsis submitted to The Purple Rose and have put it out of my mind until they respond. Andy's working on financing for the script I wrote. As for my comic book work, Paragon was delayed a bit with some artist issues, but we've lined up a new guy to work on it. He goes by Mr. Halpin. You may know him as Rich, my friend and Urban Mystics collaborator. Due to the delay, though, it's publishing has been put behind the publisher's other three books.

The Watching
I had always heard that Thunderbolt was one of the worst Jackie Chan movies. I now know this for myself. Avoid it like the plague. If you can get your hands on a copy of Project A 2, however, enjoy some old-school Jackie Chan action. I am catching up still on the movie front otherwise, and will write about it more when I see some new stuff that impresses me.


The Reading
Just reread Black Boy by Richard Wright for the first time since high school. It's still one of the greatest books I've ever read. On the other side of the spectrum, I have to admit I've been swept up in DC Comics' Infinite Crisis mishmash. I'm not so excited about the series itself, but the books coming out of it look outstanding from a creative point of view.


A shout out to Mr. Jeremy Brown of Flying Turtle fame. Last week his first book by Scholastic came out. He's writing a late-elementary age series called Crime Files, which are 4 minute mysteries written CSI style. Best of luck to him on that!

Come back soon!

The Future of Radio

I've never written about radio on this blog before. It's because radio had become such a mind-numbingly boring landscape of homogeneous music, wacky morning personalities, "shocking" hosts, and right wing idiots that it had long passed out of my thoughts.

That all changed this Christmas when I bought Sirius for Beth. I bought it for her because my wife is a Howard Stern fan and because they're a client of mine (they develop all of their technology in Farmington Hills, MI). Having taken some time to check it out, I'm dang impressed by the whole thing.

First off, while I have zero interest in what most of the talk stations are playing, at least they're not being watched over by an inconsistent, politically motivated regulatory body. By the way, that means the FCC.

It's the music stations that have really impressed me. I can't believe there's a service with a whole station devoted to 80s progressive/alternative rock. A whole station! And while there's still some rap music I love with all of my heart, you'll never hear it on WJLB, but Sirius has it. Ever wonder what happened to the good old days when we had alternative rock stations that played actual alternative rock. Turns out they still exist. They're just beamed from space.

Once satellite can get past the money it costs to get the technology in the first place (I was thankful for the discount I got as their partner), there'll be no stopping this.

By the way, there's been debate on the floors of Congress recently about whether the FCC's reach should expand to cable and satellite radio. This, of course, is being spurred on by broadcast companies that don't like you having an alternative. The fact that this is even being debated shows that there are too many congressmen and senators that are either in the pockets of these companies or are "moralists" who know so little about the Constitution that they'll never understand why the FCC wasn't given that right up front.

Big Weekend in the Big City

Folks who know me know I don't have a huge interest in football. As a result, you'll rarely find me paying attention to the Super Bowl. Anyone who knows me also know I have an unshakable faith in the city of Detroit. For this reason, this Super Bowl meant something to me.

Yes the city has its problems, but if I heard one more joke comparing it to Baghdad, I was going to have to smack someone around.

With this in mind, I headed downtown this Saturday to see if Detroit really had a shot of shaking this image. I knew it could. For one thing, there is no major city in the United States that is half as bad as everyone thinks Detroit is. That makes it easy to surpass expectations. Beyond that, a lot of good work has gone into downtown in the last few years that had it in good enough shape to where they could "fill in the holes."

It turns out that this was the correct way to view it, because downtown looked great, the people running the whole thing were incredibly helpful, and everyone from out of town seemed to be having a great time.

I feel this way despite the miserable time I had myself. Cold + rain + 2 year old = no fun. I think Beth and I could've gotten along well on our own, but lugging Ben through capacity crowds while mother nature turned her worst on us left me tired with aching arms 2 hours into the trip.

I'm glad I got down there, though. I hope we can grab some momentum from this not just to turn downtown around, but the city as a whole.