Gotta say, I am impressed that Jim Davis has a good enough sense of humor about Garfield Minus Garfield that he’s helping publish a book of the strips. On the one hand, I’d like to think this says something about the future of parody and user-altered content—on the other hand, though, it’s probably just free money for Davis, so I guess he’s really got nothing to lose.
On the one hand, I’m kind of glad that I waited until this series was finished before reading it—my memory for plot details is patchy at best, and if I’d had to read this parceled out over six years, I have no doubt I would have had even more trouble keeping track of the hordes of minor characters and intrigues than I did. At the same time, I wonder if I would have felt even more of an emotional impact at the end if I’d undergone the journey over a period of years rather than a couple weeks. But I digress. Vaughan is an excellent writer: his dialogue is tuned and sharp and his characters are all too human; I really like Pia Guerra and Jose Marzan’s art (which is saying something, since I often spend far less time on visuals than I do on words). I didn’t get the same feeling of de-emphasis on the cause of the plague that killed the world’s men that Jason did, but perhaps that was just given the short period in which I read it. I agree with him, however, that this is the type of story I love to see told in serial medium like comics and TV: stories that are plotted from a beginning to an end.
(I see from the Wikipedia entry (which contains spoilers) that a film is planned to shoot this fall and come out next year, based on a draft by Vaughan (rewritten by the film’s director, D.J. Caruso). There is a rumor that Shia LaBeouf (Transformers,Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) will play Yorick—all I have to say to that is: “Monkeys…why’d it have to be monkeys?”)
With all the Batman-related links I’ve got to clear out, you’d think I was some sort of obsessed, er, batfan. Truth be told, I’ve really just been meaning to link to this awesome article over at Scientific American for over a week now. If you’ve ever wondered what it would take to become Batman—aside from more money than God—you could do worse than to talk to E. Paul Zehr, the associate professor of kinesiology and neuroscience at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. Who also, as it happens, has been practicing Chito-Ryu karate-do for over twenty-five years. And, not coincidentally, is writing a book called Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero, which is due to come out this fall.
As Professor Zehr points out, it’s not becoming Batman that’s hard—you could do it, given enough time, practice, and drive—Zehr pegs it at about 10-12 years to achieve the same level of physical conditioning and expertise in martial arts; although, if you also account for the fact that Batman tries not to kill anybody, that number goes up to 15-18 years.
What’s far more difficult, however, is remaining Batman. As Zehr says:
How would all those beat-downs have affected his longevity? Keeping in mind that being Batman means never losing: If you look at consecutive events where professional fighters have to defend their titles—Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Ultimate Fighters—the longest period you’re going to find is about two to three years. That dovetails nicely with the average career for NFL running backs. It’s about three years. (That’s the statistic I got from the NFL Players Association Web site.) The point is, it’s not very long. It’s really hard to become Batman in the first place, and it’s hard to maintain it when you get there.
There are also (as Jason pointed out to me) plenty of other, non-physical side effects inherent in being the Dark Knight. Such as slapping around your boy wonder. No. That’s not a euphemism.
So how likely is it that we could have a potential Batman among us? Zehr gives a rough estimate: multiply the percentage of billionaires in the world and the percentage of Olympic decathletes in the world. So, let’s give this a try.
According to Forbes there are presently 1,125 billionaires in the world (a substantial jump from the first listing, in 1986, which had just 140, and quite a jump from 1916 when there was just one). The youngest is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, at 24 (there’s still time, Zuck! Get training now and you could be Batman by the time you’re eligible to run for president).
As of this writing, the US Census Bureau’s world population clock puts the total inhabitants of the planet Earth at about 6,712,463,068. So, the percentage of billionaires on the planet is about 1.68×10-9 or 0.00000000168%.
The number of decathletes is a little harder to track down, but the 2008 Beijing Olympics website says that the targeted number of participants in Olympic athletics events (which includes but is not limited to the decathlon) is 1,100. That may be a generous number, but it’s pretty darn close to the number of billionaires, so let’s say “close enough.” The percentage of Olympic decathletes on the planet is then about 1.64×10-9 or 0.00000000164%.
Multiplying the two of those together yields our percentage of people who could be Batman: 2.75×10-20. Or 0.0000000000000000000275%. That’s a pret-ty small percentage of people. So, out of our world population used above, how many potential people could be Batman? Good news! 1.85×10-10, or 0.000000000185 people.
So, as that devilish villain mathematics would have it, it’s extremely unlikely—nigh on impossible—that Batman walks among us. But while there may be no Batman today…have faith in the children. Remember, little Timmy and Suzy, if you work hard and eat all your vegetables, you can grow up to be Batman some day.
Trust me: you don’t even want to see the paperwork on the chances of a single alien child crash-landing on a planet whose yellow sun happens to give him superpowers.
I started watching The Middleman when it began airing for two major reasons: 1) it’s based on a comic book and 2) said comic book is written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who was also a writer on a little show called Lost. The Middleman bears a superficial resemblance to Men in Black (and—gasp!—a novel I was working on last year): young aspiring artist Wendy Watson is recruited by a mysterious guy known only as—you guessed it—the Middleman to help fight off aliens, zombies, and evil masterminds bent on taking over the earth. Possibly using gun-toting gorillas. While it might seem like strange fare for a “family” channel, what with references to sex and frequent bleeped-out swears for comic effect, the show maintains a wacky fun vibe chiefly because of its enthusiastic leads: Matt Keeslar as the all-American Navy SEAL turned planetary hero and the charming Natalie Morales (whom I failed to resist as my new TV crush) as the sarcastic and plucky Wendy. The plots are often silly (the last episode featured aliens masquerading as a boy band), but enjoyable, and the writing is at times sharp enough that it might slide right past you without your noticing. Having read that the show’s ratings are not performing as well as they should be gives me even more reason to mention it to anyone looking for a fun summertime TV show.
For some years now, I have only followed three regularly serialized comic book series, and two have been written by Brian K. Vaughan. I suppose that right there is an implicit endorsement for Y, a tale following a 22-year-old escape artist and the women determined to protect the future of his sex after a mysterious plague wipes out all other men on earth. It definitely has its high and low points; the other Vaughan series I read, Ex Machina, has less that feels like “filler,” I think. Also, part of me was kind of disappointed that the author gradually de-emphasizes the central mysteries about the “plague” itself. Still, I can’t help but feel like it ended up being just the story it needed to be. Considered alongside other Vertigo titles, such as Sandman and Transmetropolitan, I think this series represents what “mainstream” comics ought to be: self-contained, long-form stories, started with a specific conclusion in mind, not strung along indefinitely to line somebody’s pockets. (”Unless I’m in really dire financial straits and I have to do an Ampersand the Monkey spinoff,” the author allows. I wouldn’t hold it against him.)
At first, I was amused and impressed that Jim Davis seems to approve of Garfield Minus Garfield, as reported by the New York Times. Then, I got mad that they never gave credit to the project that likely spawned this, which involved just editing out Garfield’s thought bubbles. But finally, I dug around Doombot to reread my post on that project, and it turns out you can’t even see those cartoons unless you have a Something Awful forum account, which kind of made me go, “Oh, well, screw them, then.” Apparently, some part of me has decided that you’re not entitled to credit for a creative work online unless you make it freely available for eternity.
And anyway, some of those Garfield Minus Garfield strips are damn hilarious (and/or read like a Chris Ware strip).
At Slate, the winner of the New Yorker Caption Contest offers earnest hints on how to win the next time around, including:
The first filter for your caption should be: Is it too funny? Will it make anyone laugh out loud? If so, throw it out and work on a less funny one.I knew it!
John Hodgman writes intelligently about comics for the New York Times—and he’s not even BSing this time.
Please allow me to gush for just a moment, and witness a brief glimpse at just how big a nerd I am.
For years now I have been complaining that Spider-man deserves better video games, and we have the technology. Such a game needs Grand Theft Auto-style roaming capabilities, and a feeling like you’re actually making a difference in the environment. (I also thought it would be neat if you were framed for a crime and had to do some wall-clinging stealth action scenes to find evidence to prove your innocence, but my friends assure me that Spider-man is only fun to play when he is swinging, jumping, and punching.)
Joshua Glenn, writing at the Boston Globe, tries to solve the age-old dilemma: was Black Sabbath’s classic heavy metal song “Iron Man” inspired by the Marvel superhero of the same name? The conclusion is a qualified “yes,” though it suggests that Ted Hughes’s book The Iron Man, upon which the 1999 animated film, The Iron Giant was based. Glenn’s piece is worth a read, however, if for no other reason than to watch the opening theme song to the 1960s Iron Man cartoon. I’ll be walking around the rest of the day, humming “Tony Stark makes you feel/he’s a cool exec with a heart of steel.”