Sketch Fridays #23 – Lead By Example

May06
by on 6 May 2016
Sketch Fridays #23 - Lead By Example. Click to Enlarge.

Sketch Fridays #23 – Lead By Example. Click to Enlarge.

Perhaps it’s because I’m boring or secluded or one that always tries to please, but when it comes to nerdy fiction I’ve always been drawn to the leader characters. Cyclops from the X-Men. Leonardo from the Ninja Turtles. Cecil from Final Fantasy IV. The Fighter from Final Fantasy. While many people write off these characters as bland, uninteresting, sophomoric, or––worst yet––assholes, I often found a sense of contemplative calm instead.

I’ll be honest, I liked Leonardo best because he had swords––the most visibly dangerous of the weapons the Brothers Turtle had available. I am also a big fan of the color blue, which also worked in his favor. But my predilection toward him really came home in the 1990 film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a mighty fine cinematic (the best, I dare say) treatment of the venerated yet mercurial franchise. When his brother is nearly mortally wounded, Leonardo stops all retentive nit-picking to focus on monitoring and caring for the ill Raphael (who does so comatose in a rural bathtub). Leo sits in a chair, day and night, waiting for any response, and is the first person there when Raph awakens. Furthermore, Leonardo acts as the bridge between practical realism and the old world spirituality in which the brothers’ shared ninjitsu rests. When the brothers are recovering and training in response to the kidnapping of their father (the wise old rat, Splinter), it is Leonardo that establishes an astral connection with his own adopted father through practiced meditation. Instead of trying to whittle answers from his father––to receive some personalized sage advice as his father surely counts down the moments to his horrendous and violent fate––Leonardo retrieves his three brothers so they can share the responsibility.

As an only child, my friends become my family, and those I call friends are those that are very close to me. If anything, Leonardo’s behavior––again, mostly in the 1990 film––gave me a template for brotherhood that I could lay over any consequent life I lead. Despite being a nearly-naked turtle, from Leonardo I absorbed the idealistic values that constitute a huge part of who I am today. Glory is dust in the light. Leadership is a light in the darkness: alone, focused, and guiding.

In contrast, I resisted the X-Men’s Cyclops (aka Scott Summers) for years, perhaps decades. As stated before, I am a fan of Wolverine. I connected with the latter if only because of my own fiery temper but also in my one-quarter Canadian blood. But I always respected Cyclops greatly (from the stories to which I was exposed, which was not an exhaustive retrospective). I respected the inherent tragedy of the character. As a boy, he suffered a head-trauma that left him not only a kid with the mutant power to shoot force beams out of his eyes, but also with brain damage that disengaged his ability to control said blasts. The only thing that was found to keep the eye-beams at bay (aside from Scott Summers’ own closed eyelids) were lenses made from ruby quartz. So, until the day he dies, he can only see the world through ruby (i.e., rose) colored glasses. Everything will forever be tinted crimson and, even though he has been afforded the ability to see (otherwise, he’d have to wander through life with his eyes shut), he has to accept that he will not be able to gaze upon the things which or those whom he loves without a filter between them, lest he mortally wounds them due to his uncontrollable gift.

In response, Scott has become the quintessential X-Man––a boy scout, a flag-waving poster child for Xavier’s School for the Gifted––which, in his consequential blandness and devotion leaves him as either antagonist or plain background to the more colorful characters that populate the mansion. He overcorrects, for sure, but he does son in response to the life-debilitating deficit of which only he knows the fullest extent. But he demands no attention nor validation; instead, he only asks for respect when the klaxon sounds and the X-Men are needed to solve a problem. Otherwise, as you were.

Part of me wonders if my reconnection with these characters recently is a response to me becoming a teacher––a person who must (in a very focused way) lead groups of people. In that sense, I do find myself idealistically devoted to the principles of the class I am teaching, like Leonardo balancing his practical leadership with his ancient mystical lore. I also find myself sympathizing with Cyclops, himself a teacher, and wondering how to balance the genuine interest I have in every single student with the job I must accomplish. As much as I want to be a friend, I must first––and foremost––be an example.

So, I wondered what would happen if I facilitated a crossover––what if the boring, boy scout hero from one franchise met up with the equivalent from another? I bandied about with possible action drawings of Cyclops letting loose his optic blasts as Leonardo leaps into the fray with both swords drawn. But that felt easy and nondescript. What would really happen if these two stoics met up? What would actually occur? I figured they would plan. They would be planning the night before. So, I gave them a rooftop and let them talk, and I’m sure I may be one of the few that is quite interested in what they’re saying to each other.

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The New Magnificent Seven

Apr28
by on 28 April 2016

For vocational legitimacy, I do feel a strange obligation to keep up-to-date with any westerns that broach the popular market. Films like Bone Tomahawk and Jane’s Got a Gun escaped my viewing (though not my notice), and I have heard good things about both original entries into the genre.

One that kind of blindsided me was an apparent re-make of The Magnificent Seven, originally a 1960 film directed by John Sturges and starring Lee Marvin and Steve McQueen (and Eli Wallach and Yul Brynner).  I’m sure I had heard about the remake at some point, but I dismissed it because, it seems, every cultural tentpole seems to have an announced remake in the works (I’m surprised that a Bullitt remake hasn’t been announced). But an official teaser trailer––or as I like to call it, a trailer, because semantics are exhausting––has been dropped on us that convincingly declares that this remake that is indeed happening.

I must disclose that, in the case of movies, I am not a curmudgeon. Though I have movies that mean a lot to me, I don’t hold them sacred. A remake doesn’t, through some weird retroactive cultural osmosis, “ruin” the original or, at the very least, compromise it. Don’t forget that I am a Transformers fan, and I accept that there exists the Michael Bay movies alongside the original cartoons that I love so much. One has not been erased nor invalidated by the more recent entries (though the definition of Transformers may be changing, which disheartens me). There are the movies as well as the cartoons, and I live happily in the in-between. Such is the case with any adaptation. Especially as a person who identifies as a nerdy individual, I have grown tired of pre-judging––and post-judging––media which has been adapted from previous iterations or other media.

Truth be told, I haven’t seen the original The Magnificent Seven. Perhaps that’s a sin from a guy who is making a western comic. Part of what mediates, perhaps, my aghast heresy of this trailer is that I am quite familiar with the film The Magnificent Seven was adapted from, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai from 1954. Similarly, my declared and subjective “favorite film of all time” is Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, which was, of course, adapted (illegally, as it turns out) into Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars. So, I hold no particular awe nor reverence toward the John Sturges film if only because I have seen the original it was adapted from. Perspective is a key ingredient in the consumption of popular culture and it took me awhile to realize it.

What I do like about the trailer is that it adheres to the spirit of Seven Samurai (which, if you have about three hours to kill, give it a shot––it holds up pretty well for being a black and white samurai film in Japanese) in that the seven are very diverse in terms of character, speciality, and focus. In a way, it feels a little bit like a cartoon or video game where there is no overlap between characters; each one fills a narrative or, at the very least, thematic need as well as having something cool and unique about them. Surely, by the time this movie is released we’ll be talking about the “machine gun guy” or the “indian guy” or the “upstart kid” or the “moral high-ground leader.” It’s what made that original Japanese movie so important in addition to being what makes it most outdated in a modern setting. I’m not saying that it created that idea where each character not only has a unique thematic purpose but also has a unique, marketable quality (in terms of merchandising; a bad but equitable example of this can be seen in the historically atrocious film, King Arthur, led by Clive Owen and Keira Knightley, not that King Arthur has any historical validity in the first place, but still), that makes the group seem less like a gathering of inscrutable gunslingers and more like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There is no doubt that Seven Samurai is, at least, an early example of it.

A drawing I did while re-watching Seven Samurai back in '01 or '02, based on the moral high-ground leader of the group.

A drawing I did while re-watching Seven Samurai back in ’01 or ’02, based on the character, Kambei Shimada, the moral high-ground leader of the group.

No matter what, I’m intrigued. I like Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt and I would like to see them both in a western. Lucky for me, they get to be in the same one––it’s like Silverado all over again. I also like––or would like to like––a number of the other cast in the movie. However, it is a story we’ve seen before, whether in the original context or the dozens of interpretations and dilutions we’ve seen since then. And this will just be another one of them, for better or for worse. At the very least––and this is increasingly become the most important criterion for my movie-going experience––it looks fun.

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Sketch Fridays #22 – Photoshop Madness

Apr15
by on 15 April 2016
Sketch Fridays #22 - Photoshop Madness

Sketch Fridays #22 – Photoshop Madness.

Language is a clever creature. First, we must recognize that language is alive; a thing that eats and sleeps, makes refuse and narrows decisions wholly on its own logic for survival. I’m not versed enough in other languages to make bold declarations about English within that scope, but it is definitely known for being amorphous and progressive, especially at times when it needs to be the inverse of both.

One major tick English has is the ability to transpose––like the philosopher’s stone––words from one state into another. I wanted to write “to verbize,” which is an example of what I’m talking about, where I shifted a word from a noun to a verb. The users of English are like scavengers in a post-civilized wasteland, scrounging out artifacts and assigning new tasks to them. The thing with English is that such a trick can be done. There are few single-use words in English, which makes it fascinating and dangerous.

I speak a lot about this type of jargonistic behavior in my writing classes, but, as people working together to accomplish shared goals as efficiently and effectively as possible, finding ways to say and write things in fewer words is a key component of a community working well. To illustrate, we created the verb, “to google.” The lineage of the word is pretty obvious, but linguistically it is simply jargon on a large scale (rather than being jargon used by a very select few). We have boiled down to a single verb what used to be said as “look something up on the internet.” Efficiency. Efficacy. We happened to borrow the skin from a major corporate entity.

This isn’t new in the English-speaking world. We did the same with Xerox, Kleenex, Aspirin, Laundromat, Band-Aid, Frisbee, Tupperware and many others. One such frequently used neologism in the world of popular media and art (such as webcomics) is Photoshop.

“To Photoshop” is (according to Merriam-Webster) “to alter (a digital image) with Photoshop software or other image-editing software especially in a way that distorts reality (as for deliberately deceptive purposes).” I think the last part is a little harsh, but I would agree with it being the shorthand for saying we want an image digitally altered.

The problem with this word is that to make a word into a verb makes it into, ostensibly, a singular action. However, to alter images in image-editing software is a process (something else I talk a lot about in my classes) that can often take hours and a plethora of tools, techniques, and talent. However, as popular culture likes to point out––and digital artists as well––there is no “photoshop button” that instantly figures out what you want to do to an image and does it for you (though, admittedly, Photoshop does give users the ability to program automated processes––called “Actions”––that allow you to do a series of steps with the press of a single button, but they are more for time saving than producing finished works).

Despite the growing roster of competent and advanced photo-editing/digital art programs available now, I use Photoshop because it’s what I learned back in 1999. Over that time, and iterations of the software, I have garnered my share of aptitude within the program (though I’m sure I am using a way over-powered program for the actual stuff I do), the least of which is photo editing.

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Where it all started. Photos by Anita Scharf

Where it all started. Photos by Anita Scarf.

At CSU, Sacramento, I share my office with three lecturers who are all wonderfully creative people. Catherine Fraga is a poet, Shelley Blanton-Stroud is a writer, and Anita Scharf is a photographer.

One recent weekend, Anita brought her cats into the office as important things were happening toward the sale of her house. Her cats are problematically photogenic and, being a photographer, Anita eases their burden by taking their photographs often. Such was the case that weekend. One of her creatures, Fabiana, was looking out the window at birds flying between the trees whose leaves shuddered with the warming breeze that’s blowing this time of year. She propped herself on to the esoteric lounge we have in the office, creating yet another perfect photographic opportunity, as is her wont, to improve her field of view.

Anita captured the moment and distributed it around social media and we were all aghast at yet another perfect picture of Fabiana (when will the terror of her beauty be granted repose?!). When I arrived to the office on Monday, I greeted Anita by replicating the pose, citing that I wanted to approximate what being beautiful felt like. My attempt must have been evocative because it compelled her to photograph the moment.

To prove that I nearly touched the sublime, I put the two photographs side by side since I had my wife’s laptop with me that day. I shared it around and we laughed for a good long while.

But something twisted in my creative recesses, a compulsion similar to the one Anita must feel when her cats hit those perfect poses.

Anita left to make copies and I hit my Photoshop button––focusing and cutting and pasting and slyly erasing and committing every idea to trial and error, resulting in what could best be described as an abomination. But I was proud of my work. In hindsight, I had effectively rendered into imagery not only a good joke, but exactly what the nebulous English language amalgam looks like: a little weird and uncomfortable, but worth it.

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