Substitute should only be followed by for. You substitute one thing for another. If you find yourself following the word with by or with or anything else, get another verb.
Successfully often creeps unnecessarily into sentences, for example "scientists have successfully developed a semi-conductor chip small enough to fit in an iPod." They could hardly have unsuccessfully developed one.
Thinking to himself. You cannot think to anyone else, so you should just write thinking. Also redundant is the phrase "in my mind" when you use it in a sentence like "I could picture in my mind where it was."
At this moment in time. Replace with now.
To all intents and purposes is a tautology. Use to all intents.
Total. Two things to note here. 1. Total is often used redundantly to qualify something already total, such as total annihilation. 2. Total of is common but often useless: a total of six houses should just be six houses.
Translucent is often wrongly used as a synonym for transparent. Translucent material is one through which light passes but images cannot be clearly seen, as with frosted glass.
True facts. Redundant.
Turbid, turgid. Turgid means inflated, grandiloquent, bombastic. It does not mean muddy or impenetrable, which meanings are covered by turbid.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Monday, June 04, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 150
[This post is part of a series of posts looking at Grant Morrison's New X-Men run issue by issue. For more posts like this click the new X-Men label at the bottom of this post.]
"Have your eyes grown back yet" is a great first line for any comic book; you knew Wolverine and Jean were not dead, but this is such a cool way to announce it.
Meanwhile, the Beast and Emma's ship, after it blew up in mid-air, crashed in the ocean and floated; the Beast and Emma survived somehow and have been sitting on it for three days. The combination of a lack of imagination and missing information here is maddening. Emma's response to Jean's dramatic rescue on the other hand -- "Bloody Jean showing off again" -- is wonderful.
Some nice foreshadowing: Magneto says he always suspected there was more to Ernst than meets the eye, and Esme knows who Weapon 13 is -- both of these details will lead into the true identity of these characters in the next four issues.
Fantomex's "You and whose knees" is a great little quip, and his retort "is everything you say a cliche" is great -- that actually makes Morrison's theme here fun.
Scott gets genuinely angry at Xorn for not being Xorn -- he is the voice of the reader here, angry that Xorn was never real -- but then lamely backs off after blasting him in the face: "I didn't mean to...". He almost changed, but Morrison's unpleasant little point here comes back and comes back -- he will always be weak and stifled because the X-Men, like Magneto, are in a repetitive cycle, a metaphor for the franchise (Morrison makes this point explicitly in a popimage interview a while back). That is why Morrison has Hank attack Magneto just like Hank attacked Nova, jumping on him with needles. We are already cycling back, and Morrison is not even done yet.
In "E for Extinction" Morrison introduced the idea that humanity is going to die out because of a genetic trigger. Hank has solved it in this issue, scratching on the wing of the plane. So there ends that little plot, which started the book off with so much edge. Morrison is angrily ending the things he introduced because he is finished writing this book, not because the story itself demands that they end here. It works with his theme, but it makes him a bad storyteller in these issues.
Magneto just kills Jean with an electromagnetic pulse, giving her a stroke. Again, not great storytelling, but Morrison is just fucking done here, and so he ends it. Wolverine cuts Magneto's head off; no more of the mutant justice Morrison introduced in his early issues, in which a genocidal maniac gets rehabilitated in the robot body of an alien. Heads roll like the French Revolution.
The issue, against all odds, ends beautifully, hauntingly. It is a wonderful end to a pitiful story, which is such a strange thing. Morrison can tell a story, he just does not want to in much of "Planet X" because his theme is that these repetitive superhero stories suck. As Jean dies a crack in the universe is created -- Jimenez just draws a simple tear in the page and zooms in on it, rather than do some cosmic shot of the multiverse or something more inhuman and Crisis-like. Scott in tears calls for Xorn failing to remember Xorn is not real until he says the name out lout, which is heartbreaking. The panels shrink into nothingness and break apart, and Jean calls Scott her best friend, tells him (in the voice of the Phoenix) to Live, and then (back to Jean's voice) says in small letters "All I ever did was die on you." Morrison can do wonders, when he wants to.
"Have your eyes grown back yet" is a great first line for any comic book; you knew Wolverine and Jean were not dead, but this is such a cool way to announce it.
Meanwhile, the Beast and Emma's ship, after it blew up in mid-air, crashed in the ocean and floated; the Beast and Emma survived somehow and have been sitting on it for three days. The combination of a lack of imagination and missing information here is maddening. Emma's response to Jean's dramatic rescue on the other hand -- "Bloody Jean showing off again" -- is wonderful.
Some nice foreshadowing: Magneto says he always suspected there was more to Ernst than meets the eye, and Esme knows who Weapon 13 is -- both of these details will lead into the true identity of these characters in the next four issues.
Fantomex's "You and whose knees" is a great little quip, and his retort "is everything you say a cliche" is great -- that actually makes Morrison's theme here fun.
Scott gets genuinely angry at Xorn for not being Xorn -- he is the voice of the reader here, angry that Xorn was never real -- but then lamely backs off after blasting him in the face: "I didn't mean to...". He almost changed, but Morrison's unpleasant little point here comes back and comes back -- he will always be weak and stifled because the X-Men, like Magneto, are in a repetitive cycle, a metaphor for the franchise (Morrison makes this point explicitly in a popimage interview a while back). That is why Morrison has Hank attack Magneto just like Hank attacked Nova, jumping on him with needles. We are already cycling back, and Morrison is not even done yet.
In "E for Extinction" Morrison introduced the idea that humanity is going to die out because of a genetic trigger. Hank has solved it in this issue, scratching on the wing of the plane. So there ends that little plot, which started the book off with so much edge. Morrison is angrily ending the things he introduced because he is finished writing this book, not because the story itself demands that they end here. It works with his theme, but it makes him a bad storyteller in these issues.
Magneto just kills Jean with an electromagnetic pulse, giving her a stroke. Again, not great storytelling, but Morrison is just fucking done here, and so he ends it. Wolverine cuts Magneto's head off; no more of the mutant justice Morrison introduced in his early issues, in which a genocidal maniac gets rehabilitated in the robot body of an alien. Heads roll like the French Revolution.
The issue, against all odds, ends beautifully, hauntingly. It is a wonderful end to a pitiful story, which is such a strange thing. Morrison can tell a story, he just does not want to in much of "Planet X" because his theme is that these repetitive superhero stories suck. As Jean dies a crack in the universe is created -- Jimenez just draws a simple tear in the page and zooms in on it, rather than do some cosmic shot of the multiverse or something more inhuman and Crisis-like. Scott in tears calls for Xorn failing to remember Xorn is not real until he says the name out lout, which is heartbreaking. The panels shrink into nothingness and break apart, and Jean calls Scott her best friend, tells him (in the voice of the Phoenix) to Live, and then (back to Jean's voice) says in small letters "All I ever did was die on you." Morrison can do wonders, when he wants to.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
TV Week in Review
In free form comments, Mitch made a good point -- maybe it is unfair of me to stop running my weekly TV in Review post just because the only new show that I watch is done until January. If you want to talk about TV this week -- and let's make it anything you watched this week, including movies and re-runs and DVDs -- do it here. If people use this space, I will keep putting it up; if not, not. Review, recommend, discuss.
For me I watched all of Frisky Dingo on youtube. If you do not know it, it is an Adult Swim cartoon in 15 minutes blocks about a supervillain (Killface) and a superhero (Awesome X) From the people who brought you Sealab, it is a good version of the standard Adult Swim logic in which the plot is driven by more and more surreal diversions, although instead of one-off bytes, there is continuity between episodes -- a girl reporter is introduced in one episode, as are computer keyboards that are also ant farms; later she falls into tanks of radioactive waste used to destroy the keyboards and radioactive ants infect her brain; she becomes an evil ant queen supervillain (Ant-igone), who robs banks; later we just drop this whole plot and the girl reporter gets rid of the ants by eating ant poison.
What really makes the show fun is the jokes on pacing. When Killface gets wounded he spends a good deal of time on a hospital payphone trying to get through to his insurance company -- who re-direct him through New Delhi -- before discovering that the company is owned by his billionaire nemesis, Awesome X.
For me I watched all of Frisky Dingo on youtube. If you do not know it, it is an Adult Swim cartoon in 15 minutes blocks about a supervillain (Killface) and a superhero (Awesome X) From the people who brought you Sealab, it is a good version of the standard Adult Swim logic in which the plot is driven by more and more surreal diversions, although instead of one-off bytes, there is continuity between episodes -- a girl reporter is introduced in one episode, as are computer keyboards that are also ant farms; later she falls into tanks of radioactive waste used to destroy the keyboards and radioactive ants infect her brain; she becomes an evil ant queen supervillain (Ant-igone), who robs banks; later we just drop this whole plot and the girl reporter gets rid of the ants by eating ant poison.
What really makes the show fun is the jokes on pacing. When Killface gets wounded he spends a good deal of time on a hospital payphone trying to get through to his insurance company -- who re-direct him through New Delhi -- before discovering that the company is owned by his billionaire nemesis, Awesome X.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Free Form Comments (For Real This Time)
I put up the call yesterday for free form comments, but the topic that was on my mind took over, generating 38 (often massive) comments so far. That has been great fun to read, but it also discouraged anyone from posting the random thoughts Free Form Comments is supposed to be home to. So here are the actual free form comments for the week.
Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, personal news, self-promotion, and so on.
For my part, thanks for making yesterday's post the most interesting thread we have had here in a while.
Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, personal news, self-promotion, and so on.
For my part, thanks for making yesterday's post the most interesting thread we have had here in a while.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Free Form Comments (Growing Up and Art)
Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, personal news, self-promotion, and so on.
For my part I want to talk about this blog post, which I found this week through doublearticulation, about falling out of love with art. (You should be warned that this guy wrote a post about how great X3 was and how bad Lost Season 3 was -- [though some of his smaller points about Lost do make a landing]). He says this:
"Once you can no longer use loans from Mom and the Government as a crutch without loosing your dignity? What then? Suddenly making sure you don't have holes in your run of whatever comic, or making sure that you tape every-single-episode of every-single-show you that like, it starts to loose its importance. It starts to seem utterly trivial. It is replaced by things like acquiring food, shelter, and a job." He concludes with "Growing up is just as horrible as I always thought it would be."
It reminded me of something I read on Slate about Watchmen -- the author said that "No adult has time for aesthetic 'difficulty' or 'self-consciousness'". Then in response to my Matt Fraction Geek Speak appearance a guy on the CGS forum had this to say:
"This episode was torture. I've never enjoyed Fractions work, including Five Fists of Science, Punisher War Journal and Casinova [sic], and listening to the discussion with Klock was like going to Design & Film school all over again. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's people that are full of themselves."
"Was I supposed to be impressed by the amount of pop culture they have taken notes on? I'm sorry that these pretentious blow hards would consider me a philistine, but between fixing my gutters, working master control at a TV station, freelancing my Photoshop skills, and changing my sons [sic] poopy diapers, I just don't have the time to care about unsung action movies from the 70's."
This subject is now officially bothering me, and I would like to hear some chatter about it.
For my part I want to talk about this blog post, which I found this week through doublearticulation, about falling out of love with art. (You should be warned that this guy wrote a post about how great X3 was and how bad Lost Season 3 was -- [though some of his smaller points about Lost do make a landing]). He says this:
"Once you can no longer use loans from Mom and the Government as a crutch without loosing your dignity? What then? Suddenly making sure you don't have holes in your run of whatever comic, or making sure that you tape every-single-episode of every-single-show you that like, it starts to loose its importance. It starts to seem utterly trivial. It is replaced by things like acquiring food, shelter, and a job." He concludes with "Growing up is just as horrible as I always thought it would be."
It reminded me of something I read on Slate about Watchmen -- the author said that "No adult has time for aesthetic 'difficulty' or 'self-consciousness'". Then in response to my Matt Fraction Geek Speak appearance a guy on the CGS forum had this to say:
"This episode was torture. I've never enjoyed Fractions work, including Five Fists of Science, Punisher War Journal and Casinova [sic], and listening to the discussion with Klock was like going to Design & Film school all over again. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's people that are full of themselves."
"Was I supposed to be impressed by the amount of pop culture they have taken notes on? I'm sorry that these pretentious blow hards would consider me a philistine, but between fixing my gutters, working master control at a TV station, freelancing my Photoshop skills, and changing my sons [sic] poopy diapers, I just don't have the time to care about unsung action movies from the 70's."
This subject is now officially bothering me, and I would like to hear some chatter about it.
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