Tag: Rambling

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In the past seven months, GoldieBlox has raised more than $285,000 on Kickstarter, garnered millions of views for a video about its toys (thanks in part to a brilliant re-imagining of the Beastie Boys’ song “Girls”), pre-sold more than a million dollars’ worth of products, and parlayed that groundswell of support into winning a contest for a Super Bowl commercial slot.

Somewhat related to my earlier commentary about ownership of Intellectual Property in the modern Internet era, there’s something about the way that Laura’s story at Wired glosses over the unauthorized use of the Beastie Boys’ music – and the kerfuffle that followed – that sticks in my head. Elsewhere in the same piece, it’s referred to as an “incident,” which strikes me as… I don’t know. An overly polite way to refer to it, I guess?

I don’t mean that as a slam on Laura, because (a) I think she’s more in tune with the prevailing culture about this than I am, and (b) to go into more detail would entirely derail her Wired piece, which is about something else entirely.

We’re in a strange point of time when intent can override condemnation for particular sins, in terms of content, I think. Like, Goldieblox can be forgiven for (at best) misunderstanding the legalities around using copyrighted music in commercials because the overall aim of the company is something that we support. Or something like Something Terrible, which features appropriations of characters and concepts owned by plenty of other people – sold for profit as a print and Kickstartered as a graphic novel, so it’s something other than simple fan-fic like JL8 or Jean & Scott – is allowed because… fair use? Maybe?

I’m not really talking about legalities (although I remain curious whether or not Something Terrible’s use of Batman means that it could never be properly published by anyone other than Warners), but… the fan community’s response, perhaps? The way that the Internet moves the goalposts of what is justifiable in terms of IP theft and what isn’t, I guess.

We’ve seen arguments that information wants to be free, man, and counter-arguments that all work should be credited and creators properly rewarded for their work. We’ve got a culture that’s constantly contradicting itself over piracy and finding new justifications for downloading Game of Thrones instead of paying for an HBO subscription or whatever, even as it complains about a t-shirt company stealing an image from an artist. The obvious inference to be drawn is some kind of it’s okay to do it to a corporation but not to the little guy, but it’s something else, something both simpler and more complex: it’s okay to do it when I think it’s okay to do it.

Or maybe not. This is less a statement than a ramble about a topic that I’m thinking about and haven’t come to terms with yet. There’re probably many places where I’m wrong and/or will change my mind. Right now, I’m in a mindset of “theft of content is theft of content,” regardless of whether or not the thieves are good guys or not. But maybe I’m wrong?

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Random Thoughts on DC’s Earth 2

Meanwhile, over in a part of Big Two comics that it seems no-one’s paying attention to – or, at least, not those in the parts of the Internet I tend to frequent – DC’s Earth 2 series is turning out to be this strange, slightly confounding thing.

It feels, in some way, as if it’s a comic that’s taking its lead from online fandom, even as it’s also being ignored by that same fandom. For those who haven’t been paying attention, since new writer Tom Taylor came onboard three issues ago, the following things have happened:

  • Lois Lane has been resurrected (kind of) as the new Red Tornado (It’s actually a robot with Lois’ thought patterns, because comics).
  • We’ve met the Earth 2 Aquaman, who is actually Aquawoman, Queen of the Seas.
  • Jimmy Olsen has been reintroduced as an Anonymous-style “hacktivist” – I genuinely hate that word, but everyone knows what it means as shorthand – who can telepathically interact with computers.
  • We’ve met a character who just might be a new Superman (The old Superman having turned evil and started serving Darkseid because, again, comics), who – somewhere, someone got annoyed by this – is black.

(Taylor has also seemingly abandoned both Hawkgirl and Green Lantern, although the end of the most recent issue suggests that that latter won’t be true for much longer.)

The changes/new characters, being introduced so quickly can’t help but be read as Taylor reshaping the book from what Robinson was intending to whatever he wants it to be. But what is that?

There’s something about the broadened demographics of the new cast and fan service of bring back Lois and Jimmy that feels very… I don’t know, unusually self-aware for a DC book. I keep coming back to a comparison with Marvel’s Young Avengers – specifically, Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s Young Avengers – which doesn’t serve Earth 2 very well at all.

YA spoke to/was aware of/played up to and against the expectations of its audiences, both the “mainstream superhero” and “online fandom” groups (which are very different in terms of demographics and expectations of the genre) in a way that was far more organic and invisible than Earth 2 is doing – if that’s what Earth 2 is actually doing, of course.

Earth 2 is an oddly (and, for me, charmingly) clumsy book, and one that is undergoing a very public, very obvious makeover right now. I can’t help but feel as if its intentions are good, even if its purpose seems to be slightly obscure currently. It’s something worth keeping an eye on, if only to see where it ends up at the end of this transition – but not something where I can confidently recommend that everyone involved will enjoy either the transition or its eventual destination.

Like I said, it’s a confounding book.