Alan Moore on Celebrity Culture/Post-Civilization/DIY in Wired

Scott Thill did a nice interview with Alan Moore over at Wired, in which he discusses a number of things, primarily his Zine, Dodgem Logic. Mr. Moore seems to be melding the “global/local” movement, into something he calls lobel– basically, producing his ‘zine, marketing it globally (via Mr. Moore’s already considerable fame and interest in his “brand”), then taking the profits and donating proceeds to local charities. Pretty cool.

The following observation was what struck me:

…I would like to see a situation where people finally got fed up with celebrity culture. Where people started this great democratic process in the arts where more and more people were just producing individually according to their own wants or needs.

It is possible in this day and age to make very low-budget films, using technology that the pioneers of cinema would have killed for that is relatively cheaply available down at your local electronics store. The means of making music or art are more in the hands of the people than they ever have been before. I think it would be great to see an end to the big entertainment companies in whatever industry, whether it be music, cinema or comic books.

I’d like to see people actually get angry about the quality of the material that they are having shoved down their throats. It can’t be good for us. And I would like to see people responding to that by basically following the old maxim that if you want a job done right you do it yourself.

This, to me, is what’s terrifying Hollywood (and rightfully so)- why watch King of Queens (I realize the pointedness of that question) when that kid with the weekly hilarious show he shoots in his garage in Iowa has another episode up? And he’s sponsored by his local bike shop? And it’s funnier (albeit not as nicely lit) than any clunky sitcom on tv?

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How People Like Brian Eno Come Into Existence

Wired has a great little article from March about Brian Eno’s art school days here. A couple of things struck me about the article:

• The deliberate introduction of randomness in Brian Eno’s life, and the idea of changing artistic and social roles to facilitate new and interesting art. Eno’s art professors would have the students assume characters that were out of their comfort zone, to elicit reactions that were of them “playing a role.” Much like the old Oscar Wilde quote (“Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth”), if you give students a mask or role to play, they’ll create new, “true” art, that is, true to the role they’re playing.
  Reminds me of Prince and Tom Waits adopting characters to get themselves out of their rote songwriting modes. Also reminds me of long-form improv training, of getting yourself “out of your head” and comfort zone to spur yourself to new risk taking.

• How much this pointed Eno in the direction of Oblique Strategies, which is a great tool for breaking yourself out of artistic ruts. (Great PDF of printable cards here.)

I had a great instructor in art school (“You want fries with that?”) who used to tell us, “You’re only doing your job as a creative if you are constantly on the verge of getting fired.” Which seemed imminently true to me at the time- the profs who were safe, and needed their jobs had the worst work. The ones who were devil-make-care were actually  selling work and working at ad agencies, rather than writing bullshit artspeak proposals for federal grants.

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What’s Unfilmable?

Wired has a nice little article about what’s unfilmable in Hollywood- which books or comics cannot be done correctly? The Neil Gaiman quote slaps you right on the face:

“It’s not film-shaped,” Gaiman said. “I went out to Hollywood with beautiful artwork and toys and did a presentation…. I got to the end, very proud of myself for encapsulating 2,000 pages of comics into a giant visual pitch, and what I got was, ‘Does The Sandman have a clearly defined bad guy?’ I said, ‘No it doesn’t,’ and they said, ‘Thanks for coming!’”

Trust me, I’m going through this slog in meetings right now. There’s a reason all films feel vaguely the same: they’re designed that way. It’s actually a miracle that both Stardust and Coraline got even past the pitch stage.

[Fan-art illustration of Death and the Sandman by UMINGA. Art here]

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J.J. Abrams on the Magic of Mystery

Nice little article by Abrams in Wired. His point about discovering music is spot on:

But wait, you say, iTunes gives you the chance to browse! To that I nod, concede the point, and say, “Bullshit.” Those little icons you scroll past mean almost nothing to most of us. Why? Because we didn’t get on the train, brave the weather, bump into strangers, and hear music we didn’t choose. In other words, we didn’t earn the right to casually scan those wooden bins. Lately I go to Amoeba Music in Hollywood just to watch people flip through albums. It’s a lost art.

Still not feeling the new Star Trek, though. It just looks so… exxxtreme, brah. Like it was a retrofitted Chronicles of Riddick script. And Kirk just looks so…pretty.

I’m being hideously unfair, but isn’t that what blogs are for? Snarky, uninformed opinions, with no regard for fairness whatsoever?

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