Friday, January 12, 2007

Free Form Comments

Self-promote, anonymously criticize, random thoughts, questions: go.

For my part, I have a question, which you can answer anonymously if you like -- what do people around here do for money? I find many people avoid listing their occupation on their blogs, and it has made me curious.

Oh, and Robert Anton Wilson died.

33 comments:

Anonymous said...

Questions

1) How much influence do you think Bryan Singer's X-MEN movies had on the comics(both 616 and Ultimate)? Namely the Uniforms and costumes.

2) What's your take on the Ultimates line up(all 4 comics and mini-series not just the Ultimates)?

-I personally focus more on the Ultimates line-up more than the regular versions. Mainly because 40 years of continuity is too much. Especially since everyone(cept Punisher) has aged only about 1 year for every 3(judging by Peter) in about 40 plus years time.



3)What do you think of long lasting superheroes having retarded(literally) aging? Example: Peter Parker was 16 in 1963, now he is about 30 right now. I could understand story wise if they had only 12 issues a year(each issue representing about 1 or 2 weeks), but a guys like Spidey appear in about 5 comics per month. According to there rate of aging he'd have no down time. 1 usually usually spans a few days and he'd have about 35 issues in 4 months of his life. Roughly that means he'd never have any down time. Cept' in issues that feature a day when he actually relaxes without a major disaster. Rediculous and unrealistic.

Savage Dragon on the other hand has real time story telling. He's lived 15 years for the past 15 years. a way more reasonable pace.

4) How do you feel about them deciding to make Ultimate Colossus gay?


5)What's your hieght and wieght?

That's all for now.

Anonymous said...

Questions

1) How much influence do you think Bryan Singer's X-MEN movies had on the comics(both 616 and Ultimate)? Namely the Uniforms and costumes.

2) What's your take on the Ultimates line up(all 4 comics and mini-series not just the Ultimates)?

-I personally focus more on the Ultimates line-up more than the regular versions. Mainly because 40 years of continuity is too much. Especially since everyone(cept Punisher) has aged only about 1 year for every 3(judging by Peter) in about 40 plus years time.



3)What do you think of long lasting superheroes having retarded(literally) aging? Example: Peter Parker was 16 in 1963, now he is about 30 right now. I could understand story wise if they had only 12 issues a year(each issue representing about 1 or 2 weeks), but a guys like Spidey appear in about 5 comics per month. According to there rate of aging he'd have no down time. 1 usually usually spans a few days and he'd have about 35 issues in 4 months of his life. Roughly that means he'd never have any down time. Cept' in issues that feature a day when he actually relaxes without a major disaster. Rediculous and unrealistic.

Savage Dragon on the other hand has real time story telling. He's lived 15 years for the past 15 years. a way more reasonable pace.

4) How do you feel about them deciding to make Ultimate Colossus gay?


5)What's your hieght and wieght?

That's all for now.

Anonymous said...

good it finally published twice. haha That's my post above.

Anonymous said...

I work in theatre management for a Broadway theatre owner. I also write silly theatre reviews and comics articles on the side.

Pat: Height and Weight? Are you wondering if you could take him in a fight? haha

Geoff: What have you gotten up to since coming to NYC? I know you've got the Kill Bill gig at Laguardia, but are you teaching other stuff there too?

Geoff Klock said...

Pat: 1. I covered that in my post on Morrison's Magneto. 2. I follow the good writers and artists wherever they go. 3. I think the lack of logical realism in comics in charming. That kind of logic has very little to do with good storytelling. 4. Haven't kept up with it, but why not? Depends on how it is being written, I figure. 5. 5'3" and while I don't know weight you can see the photo.

Mitch: I have been teaching a few classes at LAGCC, and focusing on some writing projects: I have four essays coming out in four books, and three medium sized proposals in the works. Plus I am supposed to be "on call" to work on drafts of my dissertation and book. For now, that's it, but I will be slowly piling more on in the coming months.

Anonymous said...

Pat Moler,

MITCH: I usually throw a couple of joke question in. Plus, come on. I've tooken on guys 6'5 270 lb.haha

Geoff: Jeez, dude. I wasn't expecting that kinda hieght. I'm pretty short(5'7) but you're a pretty lil' guy. That ever bug you? I mean, having such a small build and all. No offense.

Jonathan as I was told said...

I take out as much student loans as possible and loaf around hoping that one day my debts will disappear.

I spend my whole existance eat at restaurants and in coffee shops.

Geoff Klock said...

Pat: I am exactly as tall as Wolverine, so I am not really worried about it.

Jonathan: what are you studying and at what level? English Majors Unite, if you are one.

brad said...

By day I'm the assitant to an exec producer - By night I direct for itsallinyourhands and clearwater st

Patrick Sanders said...

I am an academic librarian currently looking for work.

Geoff, have you ever thought of doing a full-length critical study on the X-Men? I know you've given me new love for these characters after reading your analysis.

Anonymous said...

Pat Moler;

Geoff: haha. But Wolverine is 195 lb., 300 lb. with the adamantium. I think you're best compared to the Riddler. haha..eh..Just jokin' you're a good man.

What do you think about the Silver Surfer, and the new F4/Silver Surfer movie? The trailer looks wicked cool.

Anonymous said...

I'm a full-time copy-editor. Part-time, on the side, I get some side-money from writing theatre reviews (and the all too rare comic book review) for a local newspaper (I live in Milwaukee). I also occasionally get paid as a stage actor.

Cool comic-book-related thing: I once interviewed Milwaukee-dwelling actor Cotter Smith, who played the president of the United States in X-Men 2.

Geoff Klock said...

Patrick: Well, if these blog posts keep going this will be a full length study of New X-Men. I would love to write it as a book but there are two problems. 1. If it is an academic book it is going to either have to lack pictures or claim pictures under academic fair use: either way there is no money in it, and I can't afford spend years on a project if there is no money in it -- how will I pay bills? 2. If it is a book published by Marvel it will look beautiful, but they are not going to let me say anything negative (and there goes a big part of the interest). This is why the blog has become my writing method of choice -- it does not pay but I can write serially.

What I need to figure out is how to get someone to pay, even a little bit, for me to blog. Then I can do things like the X-Men posts more often and with more attention. I don't know if Newsarama pays, but I could totally do these NXM posts serialized on Newsarama once or twice a week or whatever.

Good luck looking for work. As a fellow academic I know how hard it is out there.

Ping33 said...

I just started a new job this week hence the lack of time for comments. I still have to read the last two New Xmen Posts...
I provide application support to an institutional equities brokerage.

Ping33 said...

Just caught up on the comments...

6'1" 225lbs

Unknown said...

I work doing computer-type stuff for a chain of US retail stores. Boring, I know, but ya gotta make money somehow.

As for the usual self-promotion that I do in these free-form comments, I have what I think is an interesting examination of the horror manga Octopus Girl up on my blog:

http://warren-peace.blogspot.com/2007/01/time-to-calibrate-your-weird-shit-o.html

Check it out if you think it might interest you. And leave comments, please! Even if it's just to say you followed my link; I'm curious if anybody ever actually does.

Unknown said...

Oh, and if anybody cares, I'm 6'2" and around 200 pounds.

Geoff Klock said...

Pat: I'm working my way up to 195 pounds and adamantium. Give me a minute will ya?

Jason: that's awesome.

Ping: "application support to an institutional equities brokerage"? This is like the answer I get when I ask my father what he does. I just can't makes those words compute.

Matt Brady: forgive me for asking, Matt, and ignore me if you like, but aren't you also the head editor of Newsarama? Or do you guys just have the same name?

Jonathan as I was told said...

You know me, Geoff (on myspace).
MFA Creative Writing: Poetry. Texas State University (two of the profs won the William Carlos Williams Award. One of them was nominated for the Pulitzer a few years ago. Great teachers).

As we're also on builds for some reason, 6'4" 180lbs. I doubt any comic character has that Lincolnesque build.

Geoff Klock said...

Matt: your blog has been added to my Blog roll (though it may take a little while to come up as making template changes has been wonkey and sometimes don't take effect until a new post is up on some browsers).

Kyle Hadley said...

I am an English major at USCS and I work at an automotive paint store part time.

Ping33 said...

Geoff: I work in a small office which is largely made up of stock brokers (about 20 of them) they trade for institutional clients (banks, hedge funds, governments) using software that another branch of the company makes in-house. I configure and support their computer systems. Working with the guys who write the programs as well as the brokers. It's kind of a big-picture thing requiring both an understanding of computers and knowledge about markets and how equities (stocks) are traded. I backed into it. I graduated university with a degree in Communications because I was too chicken to go to film school. My best friend got a job with a company which provided computer support to people in the Chicago Board of Trade just as I finished up my last-ditch-need-to-make-something-of-my-life Microsoft course and since then it's just flowed.
I never really thought that I would have a big person's job... but there you go.

Anonymous said...

Okay, I'll play.

5'10", 140 pounds.

I'm the author of two picture books for kids, Perfect Man and Frosty is a Stupid Name. Perfect Man got nominated for some kidlit awards, and got praised by such comics luminaries as Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern, Steven Grant, and Stan Lee. Frosty...er...not so much.

As well, I've written children's fiction for chickaDEE, a popular kids' magazine here in Canada. Since the rights for the chickaDEE stories revert back to me after six months, I should be able to parlay some of them into picture books.

I also write the odd opinion piece, article, etc for adults.

Plus, as published kids' author, I get paid to do presentations and readings at schools, libraries, conferences, and literary festiveals across Canada.

All of which sounds grand (and it is sometimes), but it's very much feast or famine. And, even though Perfect Man is doing quite well, the book royalties are underwhelming.

Currently, I'm gunning for a Lab Assistant position with the media generalist program at my old alma mater. I've got a pretty good shot, but, if I don't get it, you'll be able to hear my anguished wail wherever you happen to be at that moment.

Unknown said...

Hey, thanks for checking out my blog, Geoff. I do get confused with Newsarama's Matt Brady a lot on the comics interweb; maybe I should use a pseudonym, or start going by Matthew J. Brady. By the way, anybody following Geoff's link can check out a comment by comics writer Antony Johnston on my entry about his upcoming book Texas Strangers. Somebody semi-famous read my blog! Sorry, Geoff, I guess you're also semi-famous, being a published author and all.

Oh, and I also got into an interesting conversation with a French guy in the comments of my post about the movie Children of Men, in which he gave links to a French graphic novel called Coraline (apparently with no relation to the children's novel by Neil Gaiman), which is illustrated by Terry Dodson, the current artist on Wonder Woman. It looks interesting; I've only seen superhero art from Dodson, so it's neat to see examples of him doing something different.

Marc Caputo said...

Morning! I'm just doing the Saturday a.m. routine, feeding the 2 girls, looking at Midtown's rollout for next Wed. (not much this week, thank God!) and looking at the Sunday NY Times (subs get the bulk of the ancillary material on Sat.)

On that note, Geoff: This week's NY Times magazine does their "Questions for..." with John Ashbery. Also in the magazine is another installment of Seth's "George Sprott". I don't know how much you know about indie comics, but the guy's an incredible talent and has grown immensely as a cartoonist over the last 15 years. I write a column called "Indie Focus" at Sequart.com (where I first heard about your book) - his was my first piece, with more to come soon. I also have the blog, which I'd love people to visit - it's under Marc Caputo on the blog roll.

Finally, I'm a teacher here in Queens - 7th/8th grade math, heading for administration.

Oh, and I'm 6'3" and two hundred and too many pounds.

Geoff Klock said...

Madd Hadder: English Majors unite!

Ping: thank you. thats much better now.

Troy: good luck.

Matt: How am I going to shed the "semi" in semi-famous.

Marc: Thanks, I will check that out.

Jonathan as I was told said...

You might have to wait posthumously to shed "semi-" from semi-famous. Those it's best not to wait and find out. ;)

Dan said...

Three days a week, I analyse the Australian real estate market. Two days a week I write comedy for Australian magazines (mostly Australian MAD), the occasional newspaper and, if nobody else will publish it, my own site (www.astonishingtales.com). I'm 6'2, 90-odd kg, a Gemini and think 'Walking On Sunshine' is the greatest pop song in history.

jennifert72 said...

ok... you really need some girl action on this post!!

i am an artist (painter) -
5"1' 100something pounds... and beauu tee ful :)

robert anton wilson died!!! geoff!!

geoff is awesome & has awesome guns... just like wolverine... pat!

Unknown said...

I think it's a pretty big leap from "semi-famous" to just "famous." If my mom knows your name, you're probably famous. Actually, that's probably "really famous." ;-)

By the way, Geoff, I have a small request. Could you change the setting in Blogger that shows both the date and time in the comments? With just the time showing, it's hard to tell how long a discussion has gone on. Not that I'm trying to tell you how to run your blog...

Geoff Klock said...

Jen: thank you

Matt: All changed. Thanks for pointing that out; I never noticed it before. I should let you know that my computer for some reason things it is 5 hours off -- something to do with the move from England. So I am not sure if my time stamps will be accurate.

Unknown said...

I think you can set your time zone in Blogger; it should be independent of what your computer says the time is.

Geoff Klock said...

Matt: yes, you can. I fixed it now, I think. Thanks.