Eight songs here, which should play in random order. The list:
-D’Angelo – How Does It feel – Voodoo
-Big Boi – She Hates Me feat. Kid CuDi – Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors
-Kitty – Smiledog.jpg – haha im sorry
-Iggy Azalea – Down South – Trap Gold
-J Cole – Lights Please – Cole World: The Sideline Story
-Fabolous – Louis Vuitton feat. J Cole – Soul Tape 2
-Jean Grae – Supa Love Acoustic – Dust Ruffle
-The Weeknd – High for This – Trilogy

Iggy Azalea sounds like she’s always one “Yeah~ho!” away from being Gangsta Boo. I think I like her voice over her production (generally Diplo, for the tape I linked), but it’s hard to not hear Chyna White or Diamond or Trina (especially Trina, “Down South” could easily be a Trina joint like “Look Back At Me”, which is as NSFW as it is incredible) when she raps. I got the same problem with A$AP Rocky, but Iggy’s nice enough that I haven’t given up. It’s this weird dissonance, I guess, where I hear one thing and instead of listening to that, I’m remembering something else.

I was talking out loud on Twitter the other day about white girl rappers. It’s real interesting to me, because a few have come up (or come to my attention — same thing) over the past few years. There’s a couple different types of white girl rappers, I feel like. There’s the Kreayshawn/Iggy Azalea route where you rep your whiteness as hard as you can, like a badge of honor or the point of a knife. Hence Kreayshawn repping White Girl Mob as hard as she can, and Iggy rapping about hanging out with “white bitches” and “black bitches” in a very black flow. There’s an “I double dog dare you to say something” in there.

Kitty, fka Kitty Pryde, is the other type. I described it as “Tee hee I’m white” on Twitter, I think, and it’s this self-aware awkwardness where she knows what you’re thinking but don’t really care. “You say, ‘This little white girl is ruinin’ hip hop’/I say, ‘Damn right!’ And take a lick of the Ring Pop,” right? There’s a tease in there. I like Kitty a lot, in part because she’s pretty good at being pretty funny.

White girls in rap is a real interesting subject for me. It’s different than white dudes, but I’m having a hard time finding people talking about why and how. There’s this whole cultural quagmire there, where we’re checking off several boxes and what results is… whatever this is. I’m really interested in the repping part of things, because being white is presumably as awesome as being black is, but racists screwed that up for white people in a big way. Fine lines, right?

“She Hates Me” is my favorite song on that Big Boi album. I love that version of Jean Greasy’s Supa Love.

–I like Tom Spurgeon’s thoughts on working for free. Personally, my “Should I work for free” flowchart goes “Are we related? Did I give you my phone number? Are we friends? Do I like you?” and if the answer to all of those is “no,” then you’re coughing up the cash. If the answer to any of those is “yes,” then I’ll think about how much effort it would take me, what you would get out of it, and how much more money you have than I do before I make a decision. Easy-peasy. (If I don’t like you, the answer’s always “no,” tho. Even if you’re willing to pay double.)

–This joke Sam Humphries found is absolutely savage.

–Chris Randle wrote about issues with the people who use Kickstarter and the culture of Kickstarter itself. It’s good.

-A reader named CC emailed me out of the blue the other day to talk about my review of Moto Hagio’s Heart of Thomas on ComicsAlliance. She said she took issue with it (!) and wrote a paper that in part addresses it (!!) and wanted to give me a headsup (!!!). I really wanted to know what she meant, and she was kind enough to email me back and give me an autopsy. It was really enlightening, and she picked up on my subconscious uncomfortableness with shoujo, which showed up in how I approached writing about the book. Looking at what I wrote and she said, my takeaway is that I made the mistake of approaching the book as an outsider, a looky-loo, instead of digging into what it meant to me, which I do with basically everything else. So I ended up unintentionally giving the book short shrift, something I was consciously trying to avoid. Life is weird. She’s posted the first part of her paper here, with the second to follow soon. I’m looking forward to it. You can find more of her writing here. She’s really smart, and I’m not just saying that because she caught me half-stepping.

–Sean Witzke invited me to take the place of Tucker Stone on the Travis Bickle on the Riviera podcast. I couldn’t make it, but Dr Racism should did. They talked about Out of the Past, Female Prisoner Scorpion 701, The Long Goodbye, and Stray Dog. Pretty good way to kill 90 minutes.

–I wrote about Garth Ennis’s approach to heroism in recent works.

–I watch a lot of Rocky & Bullwinkle. It’s all on Netflix, so you should, too.

NBA 2k13 is, as ever, game of the year.

I watched Children Who Chase Lost Voices this weekend. I liked it. It’s in a Ghibli mode, which is actually pretty distracting. I’m reading Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa right now, and the movie feels incredibly inferior to that. I’m doing a terrible job of why I liked it, huh? I think I liked the overt Miyazakian elements, the fantasy and communing with nature and being friends/family stuff, but the movie ended up being about a boring dude with a boring problem and a boring dead wife. I would’ve liked it more if Asuna was the focus of the end of the movie, instead of just a prop so that some guy can get over his grief. But… it’s still worth watching? The designs are really nice and the animation is pretty. “Watch this! Parts of it suck!” Sorry. Trailer:

Open thread. What’re you reading/watching/hearing/enjoying?

thegreatsubject:

“I’m too cool for you anyway.”
–Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)

This image showed up on The Great Subject, a tumblr I dig. Seeing it reminded me of a few things, #1 of which was that Ellen Wong is amazing.

I liked the movie version of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim comics, but I loved Ellen Wong as Knives Chau. I liked her so much that I wish the end of the movie featured Scott trying to get back with Knives and getting totally dissed when she’s like “Nah… I’m good.” I wanted more of the movie to be about her, basically? That’s how much I liked how she portrayed that character.

What really struck me was that Wong totally sold her role. She lived in it. She was incredibly energetic and so into it that I couldn’t help but be warmed. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie, but I remember a shot of her peeking in a window and flopping on a bed as being the most Knives Chau-iest things ever. They were amazing little bits of acting, perfectly pitched for the heightened reality of Scott Pilgrim. Hey look, I found it on youtube:

That flop onto the bed is real I Love Lucy. I can’t help but love it.

I liked Knives in the book — I liked pretty much everyone in the book — but she wasn’t one of my favorite characters. After Wong portrayed her in the film, I became a really big fan of both the character and the actress. It clicked.

Wong regularly appears on Carrie Diaries, which I guess is Batman Year One for Sex & the City. (“Yes. Mother. I shall become something something.” I don’t know enough about SATC to make this joke work. Sorry.) She was on Combat Hospital, as well, which I haven’t seen. I’m sorely tempted.

Man, you know what it is? I think her approach to Knives reminds me of the extreme physical and emotional drama that Rumiko Takahashi employed in Ranma 1/2. I look at Wong-as-Chau and I see Akane or Shampoo going ham on Happosai or Ranma or each other or any of the Kunos. Every new event is the end of the world or the birth of a glorious new one. She’s in a near constant state of devastation or ecstasy.

Ellen Wong. She’s the real deal.

If you somehow missed it the first time, you can buy Scott Pilgrim Color Hardcover Volume 1: Precious Little Life, a new version of O’Malley’s original series with colors by Nathan Fairbairn. I don’t own any of these (I still have the old trades), but I want them, especially the con-only Evil Ex editions. The movie is over here, too.

Here’s a new thing. Let’s do it:

monday mixtape alpha from brothers on 8tracks Radio.

Eight songs here, which should play in random order. The list:
-Kendrick Lamar – Poetic Justice feat. Drake – good kid, m.A.A.d city
-D’Angelo – Devil’s Pie – Voodoo
-Blur – Pressure on Julian – Modern Life Is Rubbish
-Gucci Mane – Walking Lick feat. Waka Flocka Flame – Trap Back
-Cool Breeze – We Get It Crunk feat. Kurupt – East Point’s Greatest Hit
-Kilo Kish – creepwave – k+
-Notorious BIG – Niggas Bleed – Life After Death
-Curren$y – Jet Life feat. Big KRIT, Wiz Khalifa – The Stoned Immaculate

It’s hard to explain my rationale with regards to picking these songs. They’re all tracks that made some sort of an impression over the past seven days — technically ten, if you include my trip to Emerald City Comicon, where I had this idea. Some songs I played repeatedly, like “Jet Life” and “We Get It Crunk.” Others just leapt out at me as being particularly apropos, or significant, or something.

I’m still figuring out what this is, and what it’s going to be next week and the week after and so on. This is a weird mix. It’s not meant to flow in a certain order, and it’s stripped almost entirely of context, but hopefully you still dig it. Different songs next week. Maybe talking about those songs, too? I dunno. We’ll get there.

–Michael Peterson wrote a really good essay on the Beauty & The Beast Unit from Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid 4. If you don’t know the B&B Corps, picture a small group of beautiful women being forced into action on the front lines of war as a special operations group. They’re cyborgs, they’re completely under someone else’s control, and they’re victims. Michael does a great job pointing out why their story is so sad and interesting. I’m a big fan of that game and that group in particular. Even if you aren’t familiar, give it a read. Read Project Ballad, a webcomic he writes and Kevin Czap draws, too. Chapter one is wrapping up, so now’s probably a good time to start binging. They’ve got 80-some free pages up there.

–I like this thing, too, by someone I know on Twitter. I just realized I don’t know her real name, but her twitter name is Twerksten Lapid, and that’s pretty cool. It’s about… everything? Nothing? It’s sorta high and low, here and there. I really like the part about suddenly becoming one with the world and marveling at nature and whoops there’s a coyote, poopin’. I also dig “This morning, I am disguised by a pretty dress and a blazer.” It’s a great turn of phrase, very evocative.

–This one’s NSFW for nudity, but you should still sneak and read it. This one’s another friend of mine, and she’s writing about a lot of things, too. The lure of objectification, body image… it’s pretty bracingly honest, and it’s about something where there aren’t really right answers (or any answers?), so much as the ways we figure out to survive. I dig this piece a lot. I read it on my phone in Seattle and it stuck with me. Maybe it’ll do the same to you.

–I like the look of this Freakestate Kickstarter by Gerald Forton and Drew Ford. Sounds like it’s right up my alley.

–Ann Nocenti speaks to Louise Simonson, moderated by Josie Campbell. This is a good interview. I love Nocenti and Simonson, and seeing them rap about the old days is neat.

–I wrote a piece on Spider-Man for The Atlantic. I’m playing it off like it’s not a big deal, but it’s kind of a big deal for me?

–I wrote about Mark Andrew Smith’s shady behavior on the Sullivan’s Sluggers kickstarter.

–I wrote about Yuuki Kodama’s Blood Lad and Kitty Pryde, a combo sure to bore ComicsAlliance readers to death.

–I wrote about Jimmie Robinson’s Five Weapons, a pretty good start to an adventure tale.

Y’all see Justified last week? Hooo-wheee. That was an episode.

Open thread. What’re you reading/watching/hearing/enjoying? I thought about doing a Justified discussion thread and I still might maybe, but I think having a weekly open thread would be fun, if y’all are into it.

Personal anecdotes first, talking about blackface later. Chronological order right here:

In kindergarten, this kid I was friends with sang a song to or at me. It went “Jingle bells/Batman smells/Robin laid an egg/Grandma pulled the trigger/and shot a nigger/and Joker got away!” I joked on tumblr that it was the first mash-up because it combined two different songs with the same melody, but in real life I went and got a teacher, who reprimanded him in the limpest way possible.

A few years later, I don’t remember exactly when but young enough for “playing games in the car” to be a thing I still thought was cool, me and my cousin played a game. It went “Chinese mother,” and you pull the corners of your eyelids up. “Japanese father,” and you pull the corners of your eyelids down. “Mixed kid,” and you do one up, and one down. I was in the car with my cousin and grandparents, with my grandfather driving and my grandmother passenger seat driving. And my grandmother, she turned around, right, and she didn’t say anything, but she laid that Look on us. You know the one. It’s kind of looking down the nose with your eyebrows narrowed and your mouth tight. That “I raised you better than that” look, the one that makes you stop what you’re doing cold, apologize, and then never do it again. I’m from a Christian family, and we were raised to do unto others. Be fair, be loving, be honest, be genuine, be right in your life. That stupid joke I picked up from somewhere? Anti-Christian. Full stop. I knew better in the abstract. But not in the specific. I didn’t think it through.

Twenty years later (a complicated and fancy way of saying “a few days ago at Emerald City Comicon”), I found out about a blackface Geordi LaForge cosplayer. I don’t know who he is, and I don’t particularly care, but I did make a joke about it:

And that was it, I think? Maybe an RT somewhere. I had a couple conversations over the weekend about that guy, of the “Did you see him? Can you beLIEVE him?” variety. On Sunday, a couple friends told me there were a blackface Walking Dead troupe, only I was so exhausted I was utterly incapable of figuring out what that meant. I got stuck on “There are black zombies in Walking Dead? What a weird costume, blackface aside,” and sort of forgot about it.

Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool posted about it, and my tweet (proving even my so-so jokes are pretty funny!!!!), and the message board dudes got MAD that I would threaten VIOLENCE against someone who was just trying to have some FUN and show his RESPECT and all types of other all-caps offended-you’re-offended let-me-tell-you-what-racism-really-is internet fedora dude nonsense. So:

I could never figure out a good one, I guess because high concept jokes about the US Marshal Service in film are difficult, but this led to some comic book dudes tweeting at me about it anyway. They had a few points, but I’d heard all of them before, ad nauseam. I’m breaking it up into three sections — intent, offense, and education — which I think covers the spectrum.

Intent: When people bring up intent, they’re talking about what someone meant to do, rather than what they did. And that’s cool, I get it. I didn’t mean to be a dick to Asian peoples when I was a kid. I thought I was just having fun with my cousin. My grandmom knew better and put me in my place.

People intend a lot of things, but the only thing that matters is what they actually do. If what you intended to do is show your respect for someone, and you do it by replicating an incredibly dehumanizing practice, guess what! You’re a jerk. You can be a jerk through ignorance as well as malice. And blackface? Kind of a jerk move.

So no, intent doesn’t matter in this situation. It would be one thing if they were challenging or exploring some idea, as Garth Ennis did in Hellblazer, but they aren’t. They’re dressing up to impress their friends, not comment on our world today.

Shorter version: nobody taking part in that stupid Harlem Shake fad means any harm, but they’re still disrespecting and obscuring the long history of the actual Harlem Shake.

Offense: I’ve had people telling me how offended I get to be when people do offensive things since I was a kid. “It’s just a joke!” is a good one, “they didn’t know any better!” is another. “I hate everyone equally!” is a good’un. But what it comes down to is this: how much something gets to hurt me? That’s an internal process that I honestly don’t have a lot of control over. I can say “I don’t let things bother me,” but that’s a toughguy way of saying “I try to ignore these things that really hurt me inside.” There are some things I don’t care about that are offensive, some I do care about, and that balance isn’t something where I pick and choose. Some jabs hit my kidneys, others my forearms.

But in this case? I keep saying it, but the sum total of me acting on my offense was making jokes about US Marshals. I didn’t go off, I didn’t write an 1655 word essay about blackface, and I still got called upset and condescended to about reactions to offense! YOWZA. It’s “u mad” disguised as “I’m very cool and progressive and positive and you aren’t!”

You can disagree with my response. That’s totally cool. I’ve done/will do that. But c’mon son.

(Another dude said I lost the conversation because I used disrespecting as a verb, and well… if that’s what you say, bruh.)

Education: A different guy, not the condescending guy but another one, said that it was a teaching moment for the lady cosplaying Walking Dead. She’s a good lil gal, never meanin’ no harm. She means well, so why not educate her instead of zinging her to literal death?

That’s a good point, and he’s right. I honestly believe that education is crucial to fixing racism. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t spend Februaries pulling teeth and talking about this stuff with regards to comics until my eyes bleed.

I could have sought out Blackface Geordi or the Alexandra Jolson Walking Dead Trio. I could have explained to them how blackface has been used to lock black entertainers out of the entertainment business. I could have talked about how blackface has been used to dehumanize black people, which in turns makes it easier to think of them as being different and weird and so on. I could talk to them about the utter savagery that America, and the colonies before it, and Europe in general has forced upon the black race, whether African or American or some combo of the two. I could do that in my sleep at this point.

But why does it fall to me to do that? Why does the butt of the joke, the guy who looks at someone “having some innocent fun” that is explicitly something that has been used to destroy and degrade people who look like me? “Listen, maybe if you just told this guy punching you in your guts that it hurts, he’d stop? Maybe he doesn’t know?”

“Boy, if only someone told those colonists that maybe they shouldn’t slaughter native peoples…”

Nah, son. People are going to do what they want to do. Somebody should tell them what’s up. But that ain’t on me. It’s their mess, and I’m expected to clean it up? No. They’ve got parents. They’ve got teachers. They’ve got friends. They’ve got people who love them. Somebody should have told ’em, but expecting me to do it? To always be on call? That requires a retainer, and you can’t afford me.

You don’t have to know the history of race relations to not be a dick about race. That’s this weird reductio ab absurdum argument, where you have to be an expert to know things. You don’t. You just need a friend, or the internet, or to simply think about what you’re doing beyond “is this fun.”

Blackface isn’t obscure. There’s controversy every year about it, whether in movies like Cloud Atlas or some dumb party in some dumb college in some dumb state. It’s not like I’m getting mad (getting “mad”) about somebody not knowing that… I’m trying to think of a really deep cut bit of savagery here… I dunno, it’s not like I’m expecting people to know that Tommy Hilfiger hates blacks (he doesn’t, but for a while we were sure he did) or that there’s ground up glass in Kool cigarettes (ditto). This is basic. It’s in the news. It was in the news the week of the con!

People know about blackface. And if you don’t know, I guarantee somebody you know knows. If you think, even just a little, you’ll figure this stuff out before you step out of your house in a bad makeup job.

The burden of explaining why it’s offensive? That isn’t on me. If I choose to do it, and I have hundreds of time at this point, I’ll do it. But if I choose to make the joke? I’m going to make the joke. And if you choose to tell me that I was wrong for being offended and making that joke? Son, you are turning a corner that you can’t walk back around.

dr racism out.

I like this Big Sean song “Sellin Dreams,” with a hook by Chris Brown. It’s about breaking up with your side girl so you can be faithful to your main girl, but I appreciate the wordplay, how Sean tells the story, than the subject of the story itself. At this point, this is my favorite joint on Big Sean’s Detroit, though maybe “I’m Gonna Be” with Jhene Aiko is a better song overall. The chorus on that one is stellar, but I like the wordplay in “Sellin Dreams” more.

“Sellin Dreams” starts off pretty wack, honestly. Hell’s paradise/pair of dice is a soft rhyme, like Maybach/laid back. No effort, right? But Sean manages to smoothly slide from punchlines to content:

Welcome to Hell’s paradise
I always heard life was a pair of dice
Seven, eleven, or a pair of eyes
As I’m looking at her smearing eyes
She yelling, “Take them glasses off
“Your eyes are the only thing that’s not lying”

pair of dice to snake eyes to crying eyes to hidden and lying eyes. That transition really works for me, and he doesn’t telegraph it at all.

One of the things I love the most about rap is how you can get away with things like this, hiding depth in simple punchlines. The style is the substance, right? The style builds up an image, and that image is what you pull apart to understand the song. He compares snake eyes, a losing throw, with crying eyes at the end of a relationship. It’s the kind of thing that isn’t immediately obvious, but you feel it in your gut.

He does a few other things I think are pretty clever. “Not caring to the point that I stopped lying” is pretty deep, if only because it suggests that his idea of caring is lying, right? What’s that say about their relationship? When my little brother played me this song, “I broke the levee to your eyes, that “I don’t give a damn” shit” was the killer line, the thing that caught my attention and made me sit up. Dam/damn isn’t worth much of nothing, but the addition of levees and the context of the song made it really work. I like “We had that independent love, you tried to bring a label in” too, though that’s a little more obvious.

This’ll make sense tomorrow, I promise. But for now, enjoy (and feel free to discuss) this exchange from the letters page of Black Panther #4, which was written by Reggie Hudlin, drawn by John Romita Jr, and collected as Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther?. It’s a good comic, but I needed to excerpt this for another piece I’m working on elsewhere.

I typed all this out myself, so the errors are my own. Here’s the original joint:

Tomorrow: I’m throwing molotov cocktails at the precinct. We can discuss it rightchea if the comment thread on another site (I don’t know why I’m being secretive, it’s not like I write for anyone besides ComicsAlliance) isn’t to your flavor.

I read the Black Panther #1 relaunch with an open mind. I love the character and loved Priest’s run. Honestly, I haven’t liked much of the usual Marvel hype surrounding this new series (obviously aimed at Marvel’s perceived core audience of backwards-hat-wearing skateboarders), but I am totally willing to give the new writer a chance. The result was mixed feelings.

First, it seems that Reginald Hudlin can write comics. Marvel feels that only Hollywood writers can write decent comics; the truth is usually the opposite. I’m always wary of a new Hollywood writer, mostly because the aforementioned hype machine has wildly overrated their talents. But Mr Hudlin can visualize and write a coherent script. So far, so good. The penciling was fine. I did not care for how emaciated and anemic-looking John Romita Jr’s Spider-Man was, but he doesn’t make the same mistake with these characters.

The scripting started to break down about halfway through. Specifically, the meeting in the White House. The suggestion that a top military White House official would call blacks “jungle bunnies” is ridiculous and speaks to Mr Hudlin’s hatred of Bush more than his writing abilities. Really, President Bush has a much more diverse staff than any of his predecessors and the most diverse Cabinet that has ever existed. Is this President really going to tolerate racism in his staff, General or not? This scene did not ring true.

The white industrialists attacking Wakanda in the 19th century were a little more believable. This reflects the gree and racism of the time and besides, black tribes were also showing attacking. Wakanda is a rich nation, and as such is subject to attack throughout history by all sorts of forces. I bought this.

Then there was the Cap thing. I suppose there was a chance that on a really good day T’Chaka could take Captain America, but the scene just reeked of the “all black people are good, all white people are bad” attitude that permeated the story. And of course, our racist white General ferociously denies that such an event actually took place. I suppose this is Mr Hudlin’s way of telling fans like me that if we question that the great Captain America can be beaten (by a black man), we’re just as racist as the General. Sorry, not true. It’s just that it’s hard to beat Cap, period, regardless of the race of the protagonist. I’m still not sure if I buy that, but I suppose it’s possible. Then there was the fact that Cap’s shield was the wrong one for 1944. Of course it’s minor, and no, it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story, but it’s just another way that NuMarvel in general, and the editor specifically, ignore any comic printed before 2000.

It’s too early to tell if Black Panther is going to be a good adventure comic or a soapbox screaming that every white person (and super hero) is, knowingly or not, a racist. Take a note from Priest on this; his run occasionally touched on racism, but he was never heavy-handed about it. I was impressed when Priest, a self-admitted liberal, depicted President Bush as a savvy leader during his original BP run. Priest managed to tell a story first, and stick in his personal agenda mostly not at all. Can this team do the same?

Again, because of my love for the character, I’ll stick around for the first storyline. I’ll never forget how cool I thought the Panther was in FF during the ’60s. And even cooler when he took off his mask and revealed that he was black (as you well know, black heroes were almost nonexistent at the time). So to the entire creative team, especially the writer and editor: story first, personal agenda nowhere.

——-

Ho-kay, Jerry. You grind quite a few axes with that letter — we lost count by the third paragraph, in fact. We think it’s only fair to let Reggie respond for the record. Reg’?

I respectfully disagree with you about JR Jr’s Spider-Man — you wanna see scrawny? See Ditko’s Spidey — and I love Ditko’s work! There is no doubt John is doing a great job on this book. That said:

Regarding your point that the White House sequence “is ridiculous and speaks to [my] hatred of Bush more than [my] writing abilities”: Whoah. I’ve been black for a very long time and I’ve met prejudiced people in every walk of life — regardless of race, creed, social position, or political affiliation. Acknowledging their existence does not imply that whatever group they belong to automatically shares their beliefs. As for whether such talk could occur in such rarefied circles, plenty of Presidents, from Woodrow Wilson to Lyndon Johnson to Richard Nixon, have been documented saying racist remarks. Do I think it’s in the realm of possibility that a White House staffer from either the Clinton or Bush administrations (remember, the story does not specify who is President) might make a racist comment? Yes. Would such a remark be tolerated? Well, in my story, the black woman who is running the meeting — Dondi Reese — summarily dismisses the idiot without breaking a sweat.

Regarding the Cap thing: I don’t engage in Hulk vs Thing debates, and I won’t engage in Cap vs Panther debates either. I am in the fortunate position of writing Black Panther, and the Panther beat Cap. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love me some Captain America — I spent 200 bucks on one of those fancy shield replicas on eBay — but Panther beat Cap, baby. Live with it.

Regarding your assertion that the whole story was saying “all black people are good, all white people are bad,” all I can say is, this remark says more about you than the comic I wrote. Aren’t the first “bad guys” in the book black invaders with body part trophies from previous raids? If you think I’m vilifying the administration, isn’t that a black woman in charge? Clearly, all black people aren’t “good” in this issue. So maybe the problem, in your eyes, is that there aren’t enough “good” white people? Why? Captain America may have lost the fight with the Panther, but he certainly doesn’t say or do anything to betray the principles he stands for. And when one guy in the meeting says something stupid, everyone looks at him like the fool he is, and once he is dragged away, intelligent conversation resumes — so why brand the entire room as racist because of one guy’s comments? I wouldn’t presume that about them, so why would you?

Finally, regarding your concern that this book will become a “soapbox screaming that every white person (and super hero) is, knowingly or not, a racist,” let me say this: By necessity, many black people spend long hours analyzing the complex permutations of racism, while some of their white brothers and sisters have a harder time discussing the awkward and painful feelings the topic evokes. But sticking our heads in the sand only makes the problem worse. Until we develop a common language and a shared understand of each other’s experiences, these conversations will generate more heat than light. I don’t want to preach to the converted. I don’t want to preach at all. But I do want to challenge readers of every political stripe. I appreciate the fact that you’re willing to stick around. The more you read, the more you’ll see I’m an equal opportunity offender. The more you read, the more you’ll see I’m all about kick-@$$ action and heroics. And if you think Stan and Jack didn’t have a personal agenda, you’re wrong. Like The Beatles, they used their artistic genius to make the world a better place — and they succeeded.
–Reggie

It turns out that what I grew up thinking were pull-ups are actually chin-ups, and real pull-ups are harder to do than chin-ups. When my friend Larry (of Move, Damn You! and mercilessly making fun of me every chance he gets fame) asked me if I had any fitness goals for the year, the first thing that came to mind was working on my pull-ups. I spent a lot of time playing with my little brother and sister over Christmas break, and they both enjoyed doing pull-ups on the bar in our grandfolks’ house. I used the time to figure out how many I could do and was pretty dissatisfied with my performance, so it was on my mind.

I figured that going with a flexible training regimen would be easier to manage and allow me adjust what I was working and how hard I was working it. The only things I made it a point to do every day was doing thirty pushups after rolling out of bed, doing thirty pushups before crawling into bed, and doing as many matched sets of pull-ups and chin-ups as I could manage several times a day.

I matched my pull-ups to my chin-ups for simplicity’s sake. In terms of effort, I focused on doing what I knew I was capable of plus at least one. When I could do four pull-ups, I pushed for five and sometimes managed six. When I could do five, I aimed for six and struggled toward seven. At six, I winced my way to eight.

In terms of schedule, I did at least two sets of pull-ups and chin-ups in the morning for a minimum total of 8 and 8, and often threw in a third on my way out of the door to be late for the bus to make it 12 and 12. When I got off work, I would come home, sit down for a minute, and then do at least two more sets, and sometimes a third (or fourth, or fifth, depending) before bed. I’d stretch before and after each set, too.

Around a month and a half after choosing a goal, on 2/18 to be specific, I beat ten pull-ups for the first time in my entire life.

It turns out if you do thirty pull-ups & chin-ups a day, and eventually graduate to something horrible-sounding like sixty to seventy pull-ups & chin-ups a day and more on Saturdays because there’s nothing else to do besides video games and naps, it’s easy to hit ten. Well, not “easy,” that’s not right — I mean to say that it’s doable. It’s reasonable. Feasible. With every pull-up I added to my tally, the better I felt and the more I felt I could do.

I focused my aggression this time, instead of just trying to go hard like I usually do and I hit this goal much sooner than I expected. I overreach a lot, honestly. I overestimate my abilities and then I get frustrated when I miss the mark. This time, I planned it differently. I chose a reasonable goal — double what I was capable of, plus two for a nice milestone number — and then I thought about what I was capable of doing at that point in time. After that, I just focused on consistently aiming at a level that was slightly better than my then-potential and trust that, in working those muscles, I would gradually increase that potential. That’s how muscles work, right? Science!

-I’m doing a weekly column for ComicsAlliance. There’s not a category for it yet, but you can see everything I write for CA here and the latest piece here. I’m talking about Paul Tobin and Juan Ferrerya’s solidly creepy comic Colder. Cop it here.

-I’m doing a two-part piece for Kotaku, in concert with Evan Narcisse. We’re talking about the general state of black folks and video games, basically. Read part one here. Part two hits next week, presumably around this time. If the comments over there make you uncomfortable and you wanna discuss it here, feel free to get it in in the comments.

-I mentioned it already, but I’m doing two panels at ECCC the weekend after next. Here’s the details:

PARKER / BROTHERS: LIFE IN AND AROUND COMICS
Friday
Room: 3AB
Start: 7:00PM
End: 7:55PM

Jeff Parker, writer of fan-favorite comics like Red She-Hulk and Agents of Atlas, sits down with David Brothers to have a frank and funny conversation about what working on comics is really like, where inspiration actually comes from, and why if you want to be a pro you need to stop being a fan. Do you have preconceptions of what the comics industry is like? Come through and watch this tag team destroy them with jokes, opinions, and hard facts.

LOOKING PAST THE TARGET AUDIENCE
Sunday
Room: 2AB
Start: 1:00PM
End: 1:55PM

This year, the geek community’s strained relationship with diversity came to a head. Conflicts over exclusion, and identity politics, and what makes a “real” geek have exploded into the mainstream media. Creators, curators, community leaders, and critics on the front lines examine the fight over geek identity and barriers to diversity in geek communities and media; and propose concrete steps toward a diverse and inclusive geek culture. Join industry leaders Rachel Edidin, David Brothers, Andy Khouri, Regina Buenaobra, Sarah Kuhn, Cheryl Lynn Eaton and Kate Welch as they discuss this hot button issue.

I’m pretty flattered that Rachel asked me to be on her panel, especially on a subject as… not complicated, not nuanced, but kind of those things. Sensitive? Something. Hopefully I can stick the landing, but if not, everyone else on the panel is pretty bomb.

I’m really into this Parker/Brothers panel. It started as a dumb joke borne from me cooking dinner at midnight and Jeff staying up late working/goofing off on Twitter, and now it’s a whole thing where we get to sit in front of people and talk about things. If you’re at ECCC, come through and laugh at our jokes, if that’s your thing. I don’t want to make any promises about the panel, but I think it’ll be time well spent. At the very least, we’re gonna make you smile. It ends just before eight, so come through for a belly full of laughs and then jet to go get food/alcohol/whatever after.

-I tend to run long when I write, so I’m going to try and bust out more short pieces here on 4l!. The long stuff will still show up (please believe) but I’d like to get more regular here soon. This isn’t a promise. It’s just a hope. Trying to figure out where I’m at with regard to writing and blogging and such, and that means experimenting and erasing my comfort zones. Bear with me.

An ongoing series about my time playing Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked, divided up according to the stages of the game. Once a week, I think, I’m going to hit a few big topics that have stuck in my head and then a lot of little ones. Fridays.

This is like a Let’s Play, but only I get to play and you’re required by law to read it and like it.

Story So Far: I forget.

Right now: There’s demons, there’s kids, and the demons want to eat the kids? I don’t remember exactly.

black power Status:
Level: 20
HP: 162
MP: 64
St: 12
Ma: 8
Vi: 7
Ag: 9
Move: 4
Speed: 50
Skills: Agi, Zan, Hero Aid, Counter, Leader Soul, Marksman

Demon 1: Lilim (Femme)
Level: 18
HP: 137
MP: 79
St: 7
Ma: 11
Vi: 8
Ag: 8
Skills: Mute Eyes, Elec Dance, Zio, Mana Bonus, Anti-Elec, Devotion

Demon 2: Thor (Deity)
Level: 18
HP: 195
MP: 28
St: 19
Ma: 4
Vi: 12
Ag: 2
Skills: Elec Dance, Anger Hit, Agi, Counter, Knight Soul, Awakening

Voice Acting: I really dig the voice acting in this game, particularly the way they update a few specifically Japanese things. I mean, surely they didn’t call Atsuro Atsuwrong in the Japanese dub, you know? That’s the kind of thing I like to see in translated media. If you can’t directly translate the joke, go with something close and still funny. Don’t just leave it there like a fat dollop of “This would be funny if you spoke Japanese.”

Grinding: I barely play traditional RPGs any more. Not because I hate them, but more because the ratio of time played vs rewards received is so low. NBA 2k13‘s My Player is essentially an RPG, right? You create a character, you name him, and you take him on a quest to the Hall of Fame. You’re rewarded for your time and effort on a regular basis, whether via earning experience points to level up your guy, new endorsements, or being able to have an incredible game and feeling the warm glow of having accomplished something. I had a bad stretch of games and got demoted from starter to sixth man, but I’ve been focusing on improving the weak parts of my game and I’m playing better than ever. That feedback loop works and works really well. I had to take a break from playing it, honestly, because I was getting too into it.

It’s tougher in RPGs. Most of the rewards in RPGs are story-based. You find out what happens next as you complete things, but the work you put in to be able to complete those things usually isn’t rewarded very well. That’s why they call it “grinding.” You gotta do it to get the reward.

It’s a pacing problem. If a game is properly paced, you should be able to progress through a game without having to grind. Each accomplishment gives you the tools you need to complete the next accomplishment, on through to the end of the game. When improperly paced, you have to kill hours doing repetitive and boring tasks just to barely squeak by.

I haven’t had a reason to grind in Deandre’s Silly Overworld yet, but I have done half a dozen or so of those free battles. I’m wondering if this is me preparing for later grinding by trying to get a leg up. I know these games, and I basically play them on instinct at this point.

Shomonkai: They’re a weird cult and I don’t trust them at all. The girl I met is maybe reliable, but the rest seem like the type of dudes who would engineer a demon apocalypse to bring their undoubtedly Lovecraftian god to Earth.

I Quit: I wrote the above bits like… in December? Mid/late December, shortly before the holidays. I was doing a consulting gig that required an hour-long commute by train and then taxi, so why not play an RPG? So I wrote, took notes, and played for a few days in a row.

At some point in Day Two, I forget when exactly, I hit the exact point where I needed to grind. And wow was it a pain. I think it was the battle just before the battle where you have to start protecting humans, so maybe it was in the early afternoon? I don’t remember. I don’t care at this point.

I grinded. I ground it out. I leveled up, I beat the stages that were giving me trouble, and I haven’t touched the game since. I haven’t even really touched my 3DS, in fact, barring playing the Fire Emblem demo.

Grinding sucks. It sapped my enjoyment of the game. I’m grinding in Ni No Kuni right now, but that game at least hides the grind behind a mission-based questing system, so it never feels like a grind, even when you’re killing 10 bone dudes for some weird lady in Al Mamoon. In DSO, you grind and it’s blatant grinding. YUCK. Life’s too short.

Anyway, I quit. I’ll find some other game to blog about that isn’t Dumb Stupid Obnoxious. I was expecting to really dig it, but I didn’t, and when it started bugging me, I decided to bail out. Sorry 🙂

Unprocessed Notes:
2nd day:
-The team system is an interesting way to do things, and I like that you can swap them around pretty easily during a battle.
-Haru seems cool, but ha ha ha her top is constantly falling off. I like that she uses a musical instrument instead of a DS. Curious to see where her story goes, though I think that someone already spoiled that for me.
-It’s kinda crazy that you have to fight gangsters as well as monsters, but I’m glad it happened. It also explains why Race-O and Race-D (which decrease damage done by your race) are available for humans to equip.
-so far, it seems like the government knew this was coming, the gangsters have chosen to take advantage, and someone has seeded the Yamanote Circle with monsters for whatever reason. Where is this going? The gov’t has written off the circle and is going to purge everything when the situation goes fully south?
-Gin seems kinda dumb, though I like his name.
-grinding
-voice acting is actually pretty good? i like how they don’t say the protagonist’s name, too, though that’s a series staple

つづく: “NEXT TIME, on Devil Survivor Overblogged: David has to find another 3DS game to play! On top of that, he has several dozen joke titles for Devil Survivor Overclocked he has to figure out how to use!”

All jokes aside, I do need a new 3DS game, and I don’t want it to be Fire Emblem. I’m open to trying new things: what do you like and why? I’m tempted by MGS3 but I definitely own that on PS3 as well. Is it worth the purchase on 3DS?

There’s two things about Wiz Khalifa’s “Good Dank” off his Kush & OJ mixtape that I’d excitedly refer to as my favorite (or the best, or the superior, or…) thing about Wiz Khalifa (or rap, or music, or jokes, or puns, or…) should you make the fatal mistake of asking me about pretty much anything.

The first is this line:

“Louies cover my eyes… not them hundred dollar Ray-Bans, fam — these six seventy-five”

Rappers do this thing where they brag about having expensive stuff, right? Everybody that ever rhymed Maybach with laid back, everyone who ever said the word “beamer,” everyone who said “Cristahl.” But what they don’t do too often is brag about having the expensiver version of expensive stuff. Who does that, right?

But here’s Young Wizdom. He knows Ray-Bans are expensive. (I myself managed to talk myself into a pair in the 10th grade, which I promptly lost. A year later, I lost my first cell phone.) So he wants to make it clear that even though some of us can scrimp and save and wheedle our way into some expensive sunglasses, there is a tier of sunglass above even that lofty tier, a tier that we are not welcome to visit, and it’s silly we even formed our mouths to ask the question.

Cold-blooded.

My other favorite thing about this song is this line:

“Got my paper right, now we like white boy hair the way they… …jealous”

Now, rappers say a lot of dumb things. I listen to a lot of rap, so believe me when I say rappers say a lot of dumb things. Sometimes it’s amazing, other times it’s excruciating, and sometimes it’s this, which is the most beautifullest thing in this world.

The line is amazing because Wiz is looking us dead in our eyes while he delivers it. It’s some type of ultra reverse double dog dare. When he gets to “got my paper right” you’re nodding along. You’re in familiar territory. “We like white boy hair?” Hmm… that’s kinda weird. Where’s he going with this? “The way they…” hits and you think, huh, weird. What’s he gonna say? And the second “…” hits and you get it, and you don’t want it, you’re like, No, no way, this dude isn’t about to do that. Who’d do that? Right?

“Jealllllllllllllous,” Wiz says, and your feel it hit in short sharp shocks to your spinal cord and you’re laughing and you’re amazed that he was so confident when he said it and you’re damned forever.