This is also a rather shameless way for me to solicit gifts – if you have no idea what to get me for whatever occasion, consult this list.

Books

I like to read. For leisure and enlightenment. Books are amazing in how they impart information in such abstract forms – no more than sets of typographical flourishes on paper, yet able to move minds and hearts. Note: I think I have recently become a Penguin fan, seeing how their cover designs are so elegant. In the case of multiple publishers, the Penguin version is appreciated.

• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
  • The notorious book… I recently read The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. One of the themes covered is forbidden love, first between Indian castes (which we would call meaningless tradition) and between twin siblings (which we would call taboo). But I now see no difference between them. Why does society try to dictate whom one can love? The way we have built up arbitrary norms and mores frustrates me, as it must frustrate many people out there. Reading Lolita will be my further exploration into that morally grey area.
  • Bought for myself.
• The Outsider by Albert Camus
  • I have been toying with the notion of moral relativity for quite a while now. It seems to be the most logical outcome from observing the world… yet laws exist in contemporary societies. The book deals with an outsider – an outsider to modern society – who does not feel remorse for committing murder.
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  • Again, dealing with morality. Again, the crime happens to be murder. It is an obvious choice for moral dilemmas – it is the most easily damnable crime in modern society, but has been committed countless times in the name of things such as religion and territory, during the strife-ridden history of warfare.
• The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
  • Deals with a teen’s identity crisis, frustration with society, and strong sense of personal justice, among other things. Or so I’ve heard, but yet to read for myself…
• Dune by Frank Herbert
  • Science-fiction classic. I don’t know much about the plot except that it has shaped the genre for decades after.
• The Sprawl trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive) by William Gibson
  • The Matrix trilogy drew a lot of inspiration from this, apparently. That alone warrants a read for me. Cyberpunk is intriguing in how it discusses the immediate future, and the implications that technology (thus the cyber) will have on the underbelly of society (thus the punk).
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
  • Blade Runner was based on this. I watched the film with detached intrigue – while visually stunning, didn’t strike true with me, despite being thematically relevant to my interests. Perhaps reading the source material will amend that. It discusses what being human means and entails.
• Penguin by Design by Phil Baines
  • This is an odd one. Can I just pretend I am a 30-something graphics designer? It’s a coffee table book about the evolution of paperback designs by Penguin. Beautiful images accompanied with commentary and history. It also discusses typography, which I am developing a slight fetish for. Font types, page margins, text justification… I believe prose should be well-presented.

Pretty much anything by…

• Friedrich Nietzche
• Franz Kafka
  • I would love to have the series of paperbacks by Penguin that this book belongs to; the greyscale cover photography intrigues and beckons, and they would look so nice together on a shelf.
• Terry Pratchett
  • I possess or have read Strata, The Dark Side of the Sun, The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Maskerade, Going Postal, Thud!, Making Money and Good Omens.
• Neil Gaiman
  • I possess or have read American Gods, Anansi Boys, The Graveyard Book and Good Omens.
• Orson Scott Card
  • I possess or have read Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind, Ender’s Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant and A War of Gifts.
• Garth Nix
  • I possess or have read Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen, Across the Wall, Shade’s Children, The Ragwitch, Mister Monday, Grim Tuesday, Drowned Wednesday, Sir Thursday, Lady Friday, and Superior Saturday.

Video Games

Video games are the new art form. The new medium with which to tell stories, impart messages, and entertain. The advantage it has over other types of media? It is interactive. In this manner, players are directly engaged with the narrative. Also, the choices a player makes serves as a mirror for his psyche with which he can discover more about himself. Granted, choices in games are often still binary (see Exhibit A, Bioshock), and bleedingly obvious as to what the outcome will be (see Exhibit B, Fable), but that is simply a matter of poor writing. By the way, I enjoyed both of those games, but they could’ve been so much better…! Remember, the medium is still in its fledgling stages. Film was once considered a frivolous medium full of drivel that was purely to entertain. Give the game industry some time. That said, there are a lot of contemporary titles that fascinate me for various reasons. While I prize story, games are made up of so much more: settings, art style, gameplay, and so on.

• Released titles:
  • Mass Effect
    • Okay, so I pirated it. After having finished the main story, I do think Bioware has come up with a winner. Remember what I just said about binary, obvious choices? While Mass Effect has a few of those, it often forces you to make tough, complex decisions with far-reaching consequences. One of the best role-playing games I have ever played. And now the sequel is set for release, with the choices you made in the first game being carried over via save file. Now that it’s on Steam… very tempting.
  • Prototype
    • I’ve read mixed reviews about this game. On one hand, how this was such a fun game but it could have been so much better. On the other hand… you can throw a tank at a helicopter to make them explode. That negates any criticism, really. It’s that sort of game, that doesn’t really hold any pretentions and chucks the player into utter chaos. I want to try it for the gratuitous violence, if nothing else. I’m usually not one for senseless killing but when you see the sort of ridiculous spectacle Alex Mercer is in battle… That’s what The Force Unleashed fell short of. I wanted to feel like a terrifying god of war. Even the eponymous God of War doesn’t pull this off as mercilessly (although gouging out the eyeballs of basilisks does come close). What is this insanity that I speak of? See this video.
  • The Wonderful End of the World, AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity
    • I really, really should have gotten them when the pre-order deal was still around. The former, while taking a lot from Katamari Damacy, has enough creative personality to make me smile. Within the demo, there was a delightful level with imagery from many classic retro games. As for the latter, I’m sold on the concept; BASE jumping obstacle courses. Also, there is the fact that the one of the developers did a video response to RockPaperShotgun comments. Which is just plain awesome of them. Indie devs need the support more than anyone else.
    • I went and bought this for myself. The developers were awesome enough to extend the pre-order deal to me after I emailed them. All devs should be like this!
  • Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2
    • As a freshly minted Bioware fan, I’d love to see what KotOR was like. While the sequel was developed by Obsidian, it received positive reviews and I’d like to try that too.
  • Dragon Age
    • Well, according to review sites and whatnot, Bioware have struck gold again. Despite my knee-jerk reactions to the crappy trailers and meaningless sex scenes,
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum
    • Released to rave reviews. Although I’m not a major fan of Batman, this might just be the tipping point of my interest in the series.
  • Left 4 Dead 2
    • Okay, there’s something interesting about this one. While I do enjoy L4D intensely, it feels lacking in content – maps, weapons, variety of scenarios, etc. I do not expect such meagre offerings for $60. This is after the amazing post-launch support Valve has given TF2. A bit odd, no? Valve themselves have stated the profitability of TF2′s business model. Well, now they’ve gone and announced a sequel, barely a year after the first. Knowing how notorious they are for slow development, this is quite strange. The new features seem slim – melee weapons that will likely just involve swiping at zombies, new types of infected, procedurally generated levels – could they not have made it into an expandalone? Also, they introduce a whole new cast without regard for the attachment players have gotten for Bill, Francis, Louis and Zoey. (They might end up being awesome, but still, to abandon such popular characters now…!) I approach L4D2 with apprehension. Perhaps after I have played the game at a LAN centre after release can I determine whether it is worth purchasing.
    • Hilariously, there has been an ongoing flamewar that arose from the formation of a Steam group boycotting L4D2. The venom exchanged is of hilariously poor quality and unsightly quantity, clogging up all sorts of places from Kotaku comment threads to Wikipedia talk pages! Just wait for the game to come out, man. Then decide whether you want to buy it or not.
    • Update: And now L4D2 has been refused rating in Australia entirely?! Wow, way to go, OFLC. I’ll probably write more about this in a future post.
  • Cities XL
    • Citybuilding MMO? Heck yeah! I have no idea what it’ll play like but the idea alone is tantalizing. I get a chance to flex my obsessive-compulsive tendencies and interact with other urban architects and their masterpieces. I’m not sure what the extent of interaction is but I can dream of economic and political dealings with neighbouring regions… *drools* Hmm. I’m rather geeky, aren’t I?
• Upcoming titles:
  • Assassin’s Creed 2
    • I loved the combat in the first game, and they seem to have improved on it vastly. Also, setting it in Venice is awesome.
    • Update: What? They just delayed the PC release, with a launch date of “early 2010″? To reduce piracy, I bet, since the PC version of the first one was leaked ages before release. This is frustrating.
  • Mass Effect 2
    • Really pumped for this. The first one was already epic in scope and execution. This will probably top that.
  • Bioshock 2
    • Bioshock was a really atmospheric, if linear, FPS. Really put me on the edge of my seat. High expectations for the sequel.
  • Beyond Good and Evil 2
    • This one is a bit more nebulous, having few official announcements, but the trailer looks very promising. The first one was a bit of a mishmash of gameplay types, so this might not even be the focus of the game, but it looks like they’ve vastly improved the platforming.
  • Brink
    • A sandbox, objective-based multiplayer fest with a daring art style.
  • Global Agenda
    • It’s like a cross between TF2 and Guild Wars. Persistent world with class-based 3rd person tactical combat. I’m not sure how it’ll pan out but it looks fun.
  • The Secret World
    • A noble attempt to put a twist on the MMO genre in an oversaturated market. They plan to take out the grind and make it fun from the get-go. The fiction is shaping up quite nicely, there’s even a personality test to see what faction you’re most suited to. I got Dragon, by the way; are my anarchist agitator leanings so obvious? Heh.
  • Guild Wars 2
    • Some reserved anticipation for Guild Wars 2. I enjoyed PvP in the original and would love to see where they go with the sequel; sadly, the story trailer was rather cliched and uninspiring. Also, with the above games in production, I have much less enthusiasm for MMOs that stick to the same old tired formula. That is why I have been steering clear of them recently.

Movies

I have The Animatrix and most of Studio Ghibli’s stuff on DVD. Excellent stuff. I feel like expanding my anime film collection.

• Stuff I’ve watched:
  • The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
  • Paprika
  • The Sky Crawlers
  • 5 Centimetres Per Second
• Stuff I haven’t watched:
  • Everything else by Makoto Shinkai
  • Ghost in the Shell & Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
  • Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone
  • Genius Party, Genius Party Beyond
  • Tekkonkinkreet
  • Akira
  • X

And a handful of older films that I’d like to watch:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• A Clockwork Orange
• 1984

Manga and Comics

I have often professed my love for these. Here are the series that I am collecting, as well as latest collected volume.

• Manga:
  • Fullmetal Alchemist 22
  • Fullmetal Panic Sigma 4
  • World Embryo 5
  • Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle 22
• Comics:
  • Lucifer 5
  • Fables 9
  • The Umbrella Academy 2
  • Transmetropolitan 1

That’s all for the moment. Phew! What a long list. I will probably update this occasionally.
(Last updated 29 November 2009)

I said before that I share neuroses with several characters in SZS. The most immediate and apparent one would be the dear teacher, Itoshiki Nozomu, and his disillusioned, depressed, cynical view of the world and society. At various intervals, he rants about capitalism, cultural norms, and the like. That sounds a lot like me already. I, too, despair at the many issues in modern society which most people often accept unquestioningly. It is sometimes an unwelcome burden. Education and the news industry equip us with an all-too-stark awareness of the condition of the world. I wonder if being a country bumpkin is preferable – ignorance is bliss, as they often say.

Another character whom I totally empathize with is Kitsu Chiri, the resident OCD maniac. She cannot abide things that are imperfect or improper. Asymmetry and incompleteness are taboo to her. For a funny, early example of this behaviour, watch the video below.

This is funny for her hyperbolic attention to perfection, which occasionally manifests in me! I sometimes catch myself subconsciously arranging stacks of paper, aligning objects on a table to be either parallel or perpendicular to each other, correcting typos, sometimes to other people’s anger. These acts often have practical, ergonomic applications, but in cases that don’t, it’s just to satisfy my inner perfectionist. It’s a bit hard to describe, but it’s a sense that things should just be in their best possible order.

Sadly I am also an incurably lazy procrastinator, which is at odds with my perfectionist side. Thus my room will be in a mess, with things lying around for ages, mildly annoying me till it reaches a sort of critical mass. At which stage I can no longer abide it and will spend several days organizing it to perfection again. Here’s the rub – I inherited this perfectionism from my mom, but she’s much more conscientious in daily housekeeping. But she doesn’t regard order when packing things up, she just doesn’t want them to be all over the place, while I categorize and arrange my belongings carefully. So she hates those extended packing sprees which I go on, because I pull everything out to reorganize them.

Anyway, that aside, I also exhibit characteristics of Kaga Ai, a girl who has a guilt complex. Basically, in any public or social setting, she feels guilty when doing things that might inconvenience others, even when it is just imagined. For example, when she gets a wrong order at a cafe, the staff offers to replace it, which she apologizes to them for. I’d feel incredibly sheepish too if that happened to me. When I get the wrong order at a fast food restaurant, I think to myself, “Everyone makes mistakes,” and just accept whatever I got. In crowded places, when I’m heading somewhere and catch myself taking the wrong turn, I’ll actually go on a roundabout detour to reach my destination instead of turning around abruptly, so as not to startle and annoy people behind me.

In a way I admire teenagers who don’t give a damn about these things. I wonder what their careless existence is like.

In The Umbrella Academy, I’m going to talk mainly about one character, Number 00.05, known only as The Boy. His power? Time travel. In Apocalypse Suite, frustrated by the expectations placed on a child wonder, he travels forward in time, and ends up in the post-apocalyptic future. He walks alone amidst the rubble and bodies littering the devastated streets. And he can’t go backwards in time. He initially feels liberated, but eventually the gravity of the situation dawns upon him and he spends decades in libraries reading about the events leading up to the apocalypse. He is shown to have become a doddering old man, gone slightly insane, before he manages to prove the possibility of backwards time travel and perform it himself.

When he returns to the present, he has reverted back to his child body, retains all his memories, and is shown to have stopped aging. At one point, their foster mother makes a concerned remark about Number 00.05’s participation in battle, to which he replies that he is much older than her, and requires no mothering.

This makes him the most fascinating character to me. He acted with the same escapist instinct that I have, found that an empty world is a lonely one, as I have concluded, and when he returns he claims to need no mothering, but how much has he matured in those dozens of years? Intellectually, he is probably heads and shoulders above everyone else (this is a poor joke), but he is socially stunted, out of touch. It felt like a tacit message to me. And this is the wonder of well-crafted stories. They should have a wide breadth of characters, at least some of which the reader should be able to empathize with. If every character is akin to a personified ideal – a flawless princess, an invincible hero, a sadistic villain – it falls apart.

There are some bit characters from various series which fascinate me, far more so than the protagonists. Ichimaru Gin, from Bleach – roguish grin, mysterious past with Rangiku, unknown motivations. I’m kinda hoping that his acts of villainy have some hidden, noble, but misguided reason. Really needs more exposition; even though I don’t follow the series anymore I’d watch any new episode about him. Haku, from Naruto – sensitive, dedicated, idealistic, and… dead. Out of the whole sprawling cast, this was the one character I could empathize with, and he was killed off early, dammit. Meyrin Hawke, from Gundam SEED Destiny – the few scenes that she does appear in, she’s smart, resourceful, and very human. And these are all from series which in retrospect aren’t that good.

And in the space of the last paragraph, my iTunes on shuffle summoned up tracks from Bleach and GSD… times like these, e.g. when somebody reads my mind and says what I think on Messenger, it challenges my belief in determinism. Are coincidences just that, or do they have greater meaning? Hey, that brings me to another character: the Merovingian from the Matrix trilogy.

Before I talk about him, though, I have to mention that I watched The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded when I was a kid, and loving the action scenes, as well as being vaguely aware of the ideas being explored. I also watched The Animatrix shortly after it came out, and its varied themes and visuals really stuck with me. I watched The Animatrix again on DVD before I left Singapore, and as a teenager, being able to examine the ideas it presented rekindled my interest in the series.

So when I had to do an Independent Study about a text selected from a shortlist, I jumped at the chance to write about The Matrix. It really was on the list! It ended up looking more like a philosophy essay but my teacher apparently thinks it’s great and that I “really engaged with the text” (haven’t received the final results though). Although the essay was only about the first movie I went and watched the whole trilogy, including Revolutions which I hadn’t seen before.

Again, now as a teenager, there were so many subtleties which I picked up, and the dialogue actually made sense. Things like Morpheus saying,

“You’re here because you know something. What you know, you can’t explain. But you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there…like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.”

This really resounded with me this time. Ever since I lost my faith in religion, I have sought some kind of explanation for this absurd existence. Wondered about the nature of the universe. And it does bug me, like a splinter in my mind.

At the risk of repeating my essay here, I managed to identify three schools of thought about philosophical liberty, and the characters associated with them. Fate: a belief in some kind of higher plan, or that there is some meaning to be gleaned from what appear to be chance occurrences. Morpheus has faith in fate, believing the Oracle to have some divine insight into humanity’s salvation. People have believed in fate for most of human history. Free will: a belief that your decisions are solely your own, that you and you alone are at the helm of your own life. Neo believes this and seeks to defy both the regimented system of the Matrix and the prophecy laid out for him, creating instead his own path. Then there is determinism, otherwise known as cause and effect, which Agent Smith initially believes in – that events are inevitable, because of what has happened before.

While I inferred these from the characters’ behaviour, the Merovingian states his belief in determinism openly in the second movie. Now, this is where things get annoying. First, he is an arrogant, lecherous bastard. Second, movies should always show, not tell. (Incidentally, the respective tenet for games is “do, not show”). Thirdly, he states his belief in determinism… then says that where others see coincidence, he sees cause and effect.

This is plain stupid. Why? Coincidences are when unrelated events occur in notable juxtapositions. People who don’t believe in coincidences must believe that the events involved have some kind of connection. For example, meeting a girl you like in your teenage years, but not confessing your feelings to her, then meeting her again many years later in a faraway country – I would call this a coincidence, but some people would call it fate. To call it cause and effect is plain stupid…

This is a strange case of “I agree with his ideology (determinism), but hate everything else about this character”.

As for general impressions: Visuals are all around downright amazing. Music is good too – Don Davis and Juno Reactor know their stuff. The first movie had the best balance of action and exposition. The second was a bit shaky, and doesn’t stand well on its own because of the abrupt start and end. Also, while the fight scenes had excellent choreography, it didn’t have the brutal impact of the first film’s fight scenes – no bloodied noses, no limping, etc. The third had a rather contrived plot and the ending was quite bad – Trinity’s death had no impact whatsoever, the final fight was totally anticlimactic, and it had a perfect fairytale dawn, dammit. I actually read a brilliant suggested alternative ending somewhere – the whole man-machine war turns out to be a simulation run by a machine floating in space, calculating what would have happened if the machines had stayed on earth instead of launching into space to seek alternative sources of energy. Look at that idea right there. Brilliant. Also closer to being in character for the machines – insofar they can be said to have character – a practical solution with far more potential.

And again, I have managed to ramble on, this time approaching 2000 words. Funny how I can write all this on a whim but am unable to churn out 800 words for overdue homework.

A quote from Cory Doctorow, whom I respect considerably.

Content isn’t king: culture is. The reason we go to the movies is to have something to talk about. If I sent you to a desert island and told you to choose between your records and your friends, you’d be a sociopath if you chose the music.

The quote happens to be part of a larger feature about copyright laws, which I generally agree with. But I’ve discussed that before. The point is, when I read that particular line, I had a sinking feeling that I am such a sociopath. That I might prefer the hermit’s solitude to contemplate existence. In some ways this appeals to me. If I woke up tomorrow and found everyone else had disappeared, I wouldn’t panic. I’d want to know what had happened, of course, but I’d also feel liberated, in a way. To stroll through the empty streets, raiding bookstores for reading material, and filling myself with ideas and insights. Idyllic. And also very depressing. I still need my friends.

Friendship. A connection between people. Yet another thing that I intellectualize and wonder about. I find great solace in talking with certain people who interact with my random mental acrobatics in elegant and unexpected ways. This is a core group of friends amongst a multitude of incidental acquaintances whom I never truly connected with. But even with my close friends, I wonder if I am missing the point of friendship; if it is something more than sharing interests and enjoying each others’ company. I wonder if there might yet be someone out there who can understand me, behind all the intricate barriers I have built into myself. To empathize completely and unconditionally. As of now, I may be the most aware of my own miserable condition.

Ergh, too much more of this and it’ll become an emo post, which I have promised myself not to do since every other troubled, insecure teenager already has. So, to avoid becoming the aforementioned sociopath, here’s some of my thoughts on stuff I like. I hope to elicit some discussion from this…

They say misery loves company. Perhaps this is why I seek out bleak media. Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei is a sometimes quirky, often bizarre slice-of-life series about a depressed homeroom teacher, Itoshiki Nozomu, who teaches a high school class of neurotic or strange students. It derives a lot of its humour from Nozomu finding problems in random issues and the resulting reactions, often hyperbolic, from his students. It is essentially a comedy. Random humour, parodies of anime cliches and tropes, short skits of absurd imagery (the latter is rather hit-or-miss for me).

What really strikes me is the social commentary they weave into all of this. As I said, many of the students are neurotic; for example, one is a reclusive hikikomori. They take the opportunity to examine such current issues with Nozomu’s cynical worldview, and this is where I believe the show shines. While structurally similar to, say, Azumanga Daioh and Lucky Star, its tone is stridently different. I can’t really explain further than that, so if you’re fascinated, just watch it.

Anyway, the rather eerie thing is, I share similar symptoms and neuroses with several of the characters. It does mean I empathize with them all the more. So while Lucky Star panders to the moe-obsessed otaku, SZS appeals to the depressed, neurotic otaku. You can see the disparity in their respective fanart. While by no means a proven statistic, Lucky Star fanart focuses on the cute factor, with a high percentage consisting of the characters cosplaying other anime characters. SZS on the other hand inspires such fanart as the following.

One more thing: In some bizarro crossover of SZS and Soul Eater, Kitsu Chiri and Death the Kid would make a perfect couple. And Nozomu would share emo poetry with Crona and offer to make a suicide pact with his travel kit. Damn, this sounds like terrible fanfiction fodder. I love it.

Er, moving on. As a Singaporean, I have enjoyed the juxtaposition of Eastern and Western influences in my life. Sometimes they have ideological similarities. Sometimes they have two drastically different takes on the same topic. It really is a shame to accept one and ignore the other. But that is often what manga/anime fans and comic/animation fans do, in many regions of the world. Both are somewhat insular communities with disdain for the opposite camp.

I have read and enjoyed some Western comics as a child, such as Tintin and Asterix (I sometimes wonder is the latter is related to why Singaporeans never seem to pronounce “asterisk” right). Recently rereading Tintin comics, I’ve noticed pointed racial and social stereotypes, nationalistic tendencies, pseudoscience, and a spattering of ridiculously contrived deus ex machinas throughout the adventures. I enjoy rereading stuff over the years, to glean new insights from beloved books using my newfound knowledge and perspective. Most of the time, my perception of the work is improved. This is probably the exception.

I never got into superhero comics much, the spandex and bog-standard plots didn’t appeal to me. How odd that my reintroduction to Western comics begin with The Umbrella Academy. Now, this is a comic with a strange pedigree – it’s written by Gerard Way, frontman of My Chemical Romance (which I don’t really listen to). While digging up info on this odd career choice, it turns out Way is a longtime comics fan who interned at DC Comics. Colour me surprised… Anyway, it was the free sample chapters they put online that really drew me in, and I eventually hunted down the trade paperback in Kinokuniya. More proof that samples and demos do work, so publishers should work on these if they don’t want pirate copies to replace them in purpose.

Why The Umbrella Academy, if I just said I dislike superhero comics? Because it subverts the genre oh-so-beautifully. The main cast is a dysfunctional family of adopted children with superpowers. Except for one… The first volume deftly manages to establish an ingenious alternative-Earth setting (think intelligent monkeys as citizens with equal rights) while setting the stage for a dramatic performance. The cast is engaging, genuine – no overblown heroes here. And the finale is shocking.

I hear that the second volume is out on my birthday. (Hint, hint) Can’t wait.

Gerard interestingly made a remark about manga in one interview that made me think he disdained the medium.

…when I meet a lot of these kids at signings a lot of them its their first American comic book ever read, they have only read manga up until this point.

Then in a later interview,

It’s fine for mainstream comics, but what excites me is this very specific group of artists who are inspired by, not the bad infusion of manga in American comics, but almost as if an American was in Japan drawing manga. Really getting the spirit of Japanese comics as opposed to just drawing it like a manga book in order to sell more comics.

Whew. So he doesn’t hate manga itself. He does highlight an annoying phenomenon, of poor manga-style copycats that have appeared these past few years. Ideally, the art should match the vision and tone of the story. Not rip off another medium’s visuals for its popularity.

My point is, fans of either Western or Eastern comics shouldn’t have a gag reflex to the other medium. And that’s what they are, mediums, not genres. There are still some misguided preconceptions of what comics and manga consist of, not everything in comics is spandex superheroes and not everything in manga is bug-eyed exaggerated expressions. And both are as equally susceptible to depictions of violence, sexuality, substance abuse, etc. By the way, those are not inherently bad – look at the context before judging, concerned parents! (Read: my mom)

If you look beyond the stylistic differences, and find the best examples of the medium, those that subvert the norms and challenge readers intellectually, you’ll find that both mediums have amazing potential. This applies to Eastern and Western animation as well.

Okay, this is fast becoming a sprawling ramble. As you can see, I often think too much about the media I view, and that’s why an isolated island library appeals to me. Media should aspire to not just entertain, but to enrich the viewer.

What media do you enjoy, and why?

There’s actually quite a lot of content they’re offering for free. Take a look at ABC’s YouTube channel, the show’s YouTube channel, or the official site which has web exclusive clips.

If by some devious region restriction you cannot access them, drop me a comment. Yes, region restriction is EVIL, e.g. when you buy a DVD while overseas and find you cannot play it at home. I cannot wait till the world is united into a supernation by the common threat of alien invasion, a la Ender’s Game or Watchmen or… SPOILERS! No, wait, too late.

The length of each writer’s segment varies – could be a sentence, a paragraph, or longer. Too short a segment, and it’s hard to keep a coherent understanding of the other person’s intentions. Too long, and we lose momentum or begin to take ownership of the plot. It’s best if there is an equal contribution on both sides. The point of this is not necessarily to produce amazing writing, although that would be a nice side-effect, but to share ideas, inspiration, and learn from each other’s writing style. And there is the occasional “aha!” moment when I read a reply that I didn’t expect, yet fits so perfectly with my own conception of the story.

Note that while we do take turns to write, we may discuss each other’s segments and edit accordingly as we go along. Perhaps it might be likened to putting ingredients in a melting pot – some things mix while others don’t, and the result is something new and delightful.

He desperately tried to turn his face to the side so it would be spared from the heat. Since his strength had fled him, he found this impossible, and instead prayed to all manner of gods that he had heard of that he meet a swift end to this suffering, even if it was to be by the heavy blade of a bandit’s khopesh.

As soon as he completed that thought, he regretted it; the dunes began rumbling. The carrion birds scattered, and the sand crashed around him in waves. Cursing the very gods he had just prayed to, he struggled to flee. This was what dunesmen talked about in low voices around the campfire. The hushed uttering of mixed reverence and fear.

The Behemoth had arrived.

All thoughts of death left him. He no longer wanted death, if it had to be granted by this abomination. Fear gave him strength no drink of water could. He kicked back his feet for a foothold and struggled to stand up, despite his weariness. The advice given to him by the desert dwellers was no longer nonsense to him, and his brain worked tirelessly to remember or think of a way by which he could escape, or die trying.

From Dunesmen, an original story in progress between Alwyn and I.

“Then I am irreconcilable with the core beliefs of the Imperium of Man. I must secede. Taking with me a retinue of enlightened warriors and the billions upon exploited worlds who want their worth to be recognized. We shall forge a new faction, one based on understanding the alien, not killing it in blindness. And if need be, resist any assault your froth-mouthed kind may care to make. Goodbye, Tancred Vaul. I hope not to meet you again.” He turned to give a final line.

“For I fear that you would have to die by a colleague’s hand.”

Arcturus stepped into the airlock, which sealed behind him with thrusting pistons and spinning valves. The cruiser’s thrusters roared defiantly as it fought against the hastily erected gravitron barriers. It was not long before it was naught but a trail of smoke in the darkening sky, leaving Tancred standing on the dock.

Tancred Vaul briefly sat in silence.

Arcturus had been one of the best of their kind, in his time. But the work of the Ordo Xenos sometimes caused one to ‘go native’, so to speak. One could only presume that somewhere in his line of work, he had had to compromise. The help of the Tau, perhaps, when fighting the Hive Fleet. Eldar assistance, in learning more about the Necron? One could only speculate.

He shivered. Sometimes, even the best fall to heresy, to the love of Xenos. Old Corrino had sent him out here, to bring this man, who had once been his sworn brother, back into the loving light of the Emperor’s embrace. He had jumped at the chance, naturally, to meet a legend among the Inquisition, but now.

Now, he simply shuddered. No one was safe.

From The Schism, a Warhammer 40,000 fanfic in progress between Matthew and I.

The hostilities resumed in a flash, and Carlos loomed over Odette protectively. They crouched behind the truck, leaving her no chance to save anyone who might have made it through the blast. Even screams would’ve comforted her at this point, but all they could hear after the blasts was the sizzling of flesh. She could fix a great many injuries, but she couldn’t cure death. Knowing that she could do nothing for those already lost, she ducked away from Carlos to check on her surviving charges. The silence between shots was, in effect, deafening. It was horrible enough to hear explosions and the drilling sounds of gunfire, but this, this immaculate and innocent silence, stretched on for miles. It was so pure, and yet in a time like this, so tainted.

From Hero of the Republic: Being a Treatise on Tactical Manoeuvres in Times of War, an original story in progress between Sheri and I.

Try some collaborative writing yourself, it’s an excellent way to improve your writing, as well as being extremely fun!