Tired of Tragedy: The Reclamation of Star Wars?

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 3 Comments

So I’ve been commenting on some Star Wars news and rumours lately. And it has gotten me to thinking–thinking long and hard–about some issues: specifically about the nature of the Saga as an epic structure, the Expanded Universe, and what I want in the former.

The reason I’ve started writing about Star Wars again–and anyone who knows me is aware that it doesn’t take much to get me to go on about it–is that I became aware of a particular rumour circling around about the existence of Star Wars: Reclamation: essentially what seems to be an animated tie-in into the Episode VII is that is scheduled to happen in 2015. Now, I’m not going to argue whether or not this is legitimate or if it is a hoax, or one of many projects that Disney effectively cancelled by closing down LucasArts not so long ago, but the prospect of it is very fascinating.

Think about it. We have no idea what the next Star Wars film is going to even be like. There are, again, some rumours but nothing definite.

Which brings me to my first point.

Star Wars is a space opera. There is music, there are opening scenes, clearly delineated heroes and villains and all those who fall in-between, epic battles, moments of levity, romance, and tragedy. In fact, most classical operas can–arguably–be divided into the genres of romance and tragedy if you really think about it. Romance in itself is not merely about love, but also the sublime and grandiose in nature. It is a great epic adventure that encompasses many elements: especially the mystery of existence. Tragedy can also arguably have these traits, but there is usually a very clear circular arc in the Classical sense: the hero begins from nothing, becomes great, and through some fatal flaw–hamartia as the Greek word goes–the hero gives into hubris and falls: and falls hard. This is also known as a reversal of fortune.

File:Recoveringvader.png

I would therefore argue that the Star Wars Prequels–in terms of thematic structure–are a great big space tragedy: take from that statement what you will. However I know that when I am watching or reading something and I know that many of the characters I see will eventually die, it is kind of hard to really get attached to them or any of the events that are going on. I mean, that has always been my issue with the Prequels and The Clone Wars cartoons: I just see that every struggle is essentially engineered by Palpatine and it just … cheapened it for me. But if you view these adventures as the ancient Greeks might have known tragedy–because every legend and myth that was adapted into tragedy was already known to the audience and were therefore judged by the skill of the playwright–then I can see the allure.

But I guess it doesn’t help that I: (1) Read the EU books and (2) believe that the plot and some of the characters in the Prequels and Clone Wars were not given as much depth as they deserved: though granted I did not see many of the latter cartoons. Now I want to talk about some other influences on Star Wars with regards to “space” and “opera”: and how this influences what I want to see in the Saga.

When I talk about space operas there is also the science-fiction adventure genre to consider. You know: that Sunday matinee serialization of different episodes that people in the 1950s or so would watch. I always like to bring up the fact that Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers influenced George Lucas a lot in creating Star Wars. You can read the posts, I won’t repeat them. But these particular science fiction adventure stories also leave their mark on Star Wars in another way: one that channels an even older idea.

This idea is that of redemption. It is redemption that really stands out in the Star Wars Saga. If the Prequels were a tragic and angst-filled arc, then the Old Trilogy was arguably an adventurous and redemptive arc.

I can argue that while hubris is more of a human trait, redemption is as mysterious as the Force itself. There is so much of the romantic, the sublime, and the grand adventure in the Old Trilogy–of things we didn’t know–and it just opens a path to seemingly limitless vistas: much akin to that sense of wonder that existed in the science-adventures of George Lucas’ youth and so much more. After all: who could see the villain becoming, for one brief moment, the hero: someone to be both pitied and respected? Yes, it was a twist moment and some people probably predicted something like it, but it was magical: just as what happened afterwards.

Now let me get back to the other matter: the Expanded Universe after the Old Trilogy. I’m not going to lie. I know that many of the stories in the EU–with some exceptions–are pretty inconsistent in themselves and aren’t always on par with what I liked about the Old Trilogy. That much I can personally can let go.

But I’m also going to make another admission. After the publication of Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Duology, I stopped really reading the Star Wars EU. I think the biggest mistake was the fact that instead of continuing with what that galaxy contained–instead of bringing back the Sith or a Dark Side threat after the peace treaty with the Imperial Remnant, the authors introduced the Yuuzhan Vong: some extra-galactic sadomasochistic warriors using bio-technology and hating machines. As far as I am concerned, that was the beginning of the end of the EU for me and it only got worse when they tried to introduce the Dark Side in some of the most plot-contrived ways I’d ever seen it.

In the end, they killed at least two of the most interesting characters in the Expanded Universe–Jacen Solo and Mara Jade–with the former killing the latter and becoming a half-assed Sith Lord–and the series and what came after it became progressively darker. It is like the criticism that some people have for comics nowadays: that writers are just copying the grit and darkness of larger story arcs before them. But instead of it being comics makers of DC and such imitating Alan Moore and Frank Miller without their nuances, it is writers working with LucasBooks who imitated the darkness of the Prequels: pieces that at least had structural nuances. The mysteries just became contrived and it became all about the angst: all about the tragedy and an attempt to make something epic out of nothing.

It seriously made me just want to quote Lando and say, “This deal is getting worse all the time.” To be fair, I know that the Sith were supposed to be incorporated into the EU earlier, but apparently LucasFilms had issue with that: probably because of the development of the Prequels at the time. Also, George Lucas generally did his own thing, didn’t pay much attention to the EU, and many of these writers always had to “tow the line” as it were with regards to what innovation they could bring to the stories set in Lucas’ universe.

Really, here is what I want to say as succinctly as possible. If there is something like Star Wars: Reclamation–and that title is fitting on so many different levels–then so be it. I wouldn’t mind seeing most of the Expanded Universe rebooted: or at least given an alternative series of stories as they are doing with The Star Wars comic based on the rough draft of the original film script.

Really, the only elements I would miss about the EU as it is now would be the Legacy comics, Mara Jade, the Solo children, Republic Commando, X-Wing, Wraith Squadron and Grand Admiral Thrawn and friends. The rest of it was pretty mediocre in retrospect. I also really don’t like how Luke settled to be another Old Guard when he had so much potential to become something more.

In some ways, the fact that Disney stopped production of Clone Wars and many of the video games–which I feel are rehashings of old ideas and cycles–may be one of its best decisions yet. Even Star Wars 1313, for all of its excellent graphics and the idea that you are not playing as a Force-user, looked like it was just going to be a shooter game set in the Star Wars Universe: and there are so many shooter games out there already.

It all kind of reminds me of how, when something doesn’t work for me anymore, I just destroy it and start from scratch. I am that scarily absolutist when I am driven to that point. My only regret is, aside from potentially losing some characters I did grow attached to, that this is the closest we will ever get to seeing a Star Wars reboot: the best being a silence about the Prequels or anything to do with them after this.

But I am also skeptical about what might be going on. Even if you look at that Reclamation script excerpt you will notice that certain species from the Expanded Universe still exist. This is also assuming the script is legitimate and will survive the light of day. I am however really leery of the fact that Disney closed LucasArts down and and laid off many of their employees: whatever Kotaku and other sources might be saying about its productivity level. It could be that they are, as they say, focusing all of their talent on the future of Star Wars–which theoretically sounds ideal–but I have to wonder about that.

In fact, the very title of this article is a misnomer on my part. I mean, how can any outside party “reclaim” something that wasn’t originally even theirs?

I know it seems like I am saying a lot of things at the same time. And I am. But here is what it comes down to me for me: I am willing to see a lot of the EU disappear–or be placed into an “Old Expanded Universe”–so that something can be created that will need to something potentially new and good. Ideally, I would like to see the Prequels and Clone Wars disappear or change too: leaving only Legacy, The Old Republic, and Tales of the Jedi and other such more “ancient” stories in the Star Wars EU intact. But that is too idealistic for my own good.

I also realize I have gotten a lot more cynical in my old-age of thirty-one. Once, I would never have even considered wanting the EU to be gone or changed. I was just as much into continuity as anyone. To an extent I still am. Tragedy and angst have their place, but I want to see so much more now. I am not completely all Crisis on Infinite Earths DC where I want to see it all burn–much–but just like the viewers of the old days and their adventure serials I do want to anticipate what will happen next as opposed to the minutiae of what is already going to happen. I want to see alternate avenues, new mysteries, and characters that could go anywhere and whose futures are not seen as written yet: new adventures with depth, romance, and wonder.

That is ultimately what “Long, long ago in a Galaxy far, far away” means to me.

I want wonder, and something to look forward to.

File:Spirits copy1.jpg

ETA: Disney has very recently announced that they plan to release a Star Wars film every summer after the release of Episode VII. Now, the idea is that each film will be a spin-off movie aside from the main Episodes. These are more in line in some ways with the old science-adventure serials of the 50s: in that there are more of them. Now whether they will incorporate some of the EU into their creation, or make a whole other alternate story with them from the books and literature that exist is another matter entirely. And really interesting for it. Limitless horizons indeed.

ETA: According to a LucasFilm spokesperson, Star Wars: Reclamation is not real. This does not surprise me, but at least it made for a good title to my post.

Necromancer

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 8 Comments

I catch them in a pool
of ruby libation
leisurely prepared
though they try to repent
in haste.

The spirits that always followed
in the grey charnel fields
and faded Edens that trail behind me,
and the ones always loomed ahead
in the spires that haven’t crumbled
and the blankness that is always there
across the furtive lake:
they find the liquid feast
to tide them over before
they return to the repast
of my own mind …

Only to be captured by their hunger.

They scream and cry
as the words come back to them
and they tell me the things
clearly that they hissed
and whispered in the slips
between my vigilance
and the terrible question:

How many red? How many red?
How many … red?

I do not answer what the dead
and the not gone yet already know.

Trapped in silken streams
I take them into my hands
rolling them into my palms
and savour the burning muck
as it finally stains my skin
and self honestly.

I make the pain into a chord
and begin to spread their blended whiteness,
hammering their grey cold feelings,
burning their secrets,
distilling the vapours into an old formula …
until I have all the substance.

Folded edges fold again
upon themselves and each layer,
each wire moulds them
and the sweetness and pleasure
replaces the churning depths of Agon.

For weaving the ghost-metal
into legions of origami weapons:
their stories now my own
to unleash on the planes
of hindsight:
they are perfection every time.

Becoming a Gateway: Or What Anna Anthropy Twines Together

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

I will say here, off the bat, that there are some video game and article links below that can be construed as Not Safe For Work. Player’s discretion is advised, though enthusiasm is also encouraged. I am also hoping that I can communicate and do justice to these ideas and some of my own creative license as best I can.

I’m not sure how I first met Anna Anthropy. Actually, that is not entirely true. I do remember first being introduced to her when I discovered Rise of the Video Game Zinesters: though how I came across that book to begin with is a memory now lost to time.

I did plan to buy that book eventually, but then life got in the way. One day, after a series of insane events, I found myself brought to the 2012 CanZine Toronto Event by some friends who thought I needed to see it: and I did. What I didn’t know, or what didn’t really bridge the cognitive dissonance in my head was that Anna Anthropy was there with her partner Daphny David and that they were selling the very book that I had been so interested in.

I’m going to admit that I felt sad, but I was still getting used to that endless process of being social again that I tend to find myself in and by the time I realized that they had been there, it was too late. So I bought the book for myself later instead.

There are many very good reviews that detail what the contents of the book were about: how it worked, how it possibly didn’t, and all of those various details. But there were a few things that stuck out at me. The main message that I got from Rise of the Video Game Zinesters was that Anna Anthropy wants there to be more accessible technology and means for anyone to create a video game. My younger self, the boy that really wanted to make games, would have totally agreed with this concept: even if he didn’t have the knowledge at the time to understand many of the other details surrounding it.

Essentially, Anna Anthropy wants there to be a means for a game-making technology or software–a manifestation of communication and language–that is easily accessible for anyone to use for the purpose of, well, making games and creating ideas. Or taking names and kicking ass: whichever definition you prefer. Of course, there is more than that. The idea is that by having different people of different backgrounds, social classes, career-paths, sexual and gender orientations, queerness, life practices, and a wide gamut of humanity that does not necessarily understand coding you can vary up the content and the gaming experience of a game without an industry-ruled homogeneity: where plots and stereotypes are recycled to keep a sure profit.

It is a very seductive idea. Anthropy compares this “much needed” product and the mindset behind it to the creation of the printing press in Renaissance Europe: thus freeing the production of literary articles from the Catholic Church’s scribes and making them accessible to everyone. The fact that the printing press allowed for religious texts to be made with vernacular language–the words of the everyday layperson–instead of a Latin known only to nobles, priests, and scholars is probably an analogy not lost on Anthropy when she brought up the image to begin with when you consider that she looks at games as a language that all men, women, humans, and other sentient beings should be able to relate and have access to.

She also briefly looks at the history of game-making itself and equates video game development with the earliest forms of games: with symbolic piece and board games, carnival games, arcades, all the way to modern board games and more miniaturized computer games. In addition, Anthropy makes a very compelling case as to how video games were and are in the providence of an elite minority: that it was male computer programmer students and the academy that developed code and the games that came from it. Yet it is also clear that there are changes that are–and have been–in the works to that regard.

I’ll tell right off, as some other reviewers of Anna Anthropy’s work have mentioned, I don’t always agree with what she says but she makes some very intriguing observations. There is one point in particular that sticks out at me. Anthropy writes that a single game creator in sole control of their project can make a much more focused and more personal form of art–a game–than a large team of staff members can. I don’t know if I am articulating that thought as thoroughly as I should, but that is what I got from that. What I find really interesting is that Will Eisner, in his book Comics and Sequential Art, also makes a very similar statement with regards to the development of the comics medium and storytelling within it. These are two different mediums, both of which had to fight to gain recognition as a legitimate medium, yet it is really fascinating how two of their advocates come to similar conclusions.

Eisner did mention, however, that there was nothing wrong with a collaboration between two or more artists on a work. Indeed, in his book Graphic Storytelling he goes into a lot more detail with regards to that. And even Anna Anthropy, in her book, mentions that she is writing the book not merely for game creators but for anyone: writer or scholar that is fascinated with her topic. It should also be noted that Anna Anthropy has collaborated with a few other artists in her own works: such as the fun and frustrating Lesbian Spider-Queens From Mars, the very personal and visceral Dys4ia, and the thought provoking puzzle game Triad. While much of this collaboration has been in the form of graphics and sound, even programming for the latter game, it is still a form of collaboration: though obviously not an industry-mandated one. Rather, these are the product of an agreement between artists that respect one another and actually work together to make something cohesive while still keeping the personal element of Anthropy’s own vision.

Now, to get beyond the book and go a bit into Anna Anthropy’s games. I like them. I like the concept behind them: of taking a video game form and using it to communicate a personal experience. There is something really beautiful about that. I know that Anthropy may not be the only person who does this–and I suspect she hopes she isn’t in the only one either–but she is the one that really introduced this to me on more than a cursory level. I think she is one of those who reinforced for me that the games of my youth–that inspired me as a creator–are more than just frivolity or an inferior art-form. Some have said the same thing about comics, about film, and–back in the day–even theatre and other forms of painting and art.

Some people have been giving Anthropy flak about her games: about how they all tend to follow a very similar pattern or themes of lesbianism, BDSM, and transgender issues. The thing is, well there are two things. The first is that all of the above things are not mainstream in video games: at least not from someone who has all of those elements in their own life. The second is the age-old adage: write about what you know. And Anna Anthropy knows about all of this. She writes about and makes what she knows. Her viewpoint is just as valid as anyone else’s and it is more than okay for her to make games about what interests her: because there are others out there who will relate to it.

The fact that she uses similar themes in her work, and I would say never quite in the same way with regards to game play mechanics, is irrelevant to me: because the industry does the same thing for the most part with many mainstream themes and even the best creators make what they know.

I think what I admire about Anna Anthropy and others like her is that although I can’t always agree with them, they do something that is remarkable. Sometimes the people in charge of publishing or video game industries and coding are called “the gatekeepers.” And what Anthropy and others are doing is they are becoming gateways: gateways and fiery Bodhisattvas into alternate perspectives and the potential for the creation and expression of new game experiences.

This is something that I deeply respect and it is a thing that greatly motivates me now. There is one thing I have mentioned before in this Blog: that I am looking into Twine game-making because of Anthropy’s mention and use of it. Twine is a software that lets you create a “choose your own adventure” style text game without a knowledge of coding, or with enough video tutorials to get into it. I want to do the same thing that she and others are doing now. I want to make a game that can communicate my own–albeit different-experiences: ones I’m not sure even Anthropy will always agree with. I want to have the ability to put someone else into my own shoes: as it were. Or use my experience to make something else entirely and let people make their own choices.

So Anna Anthropy won with regards to me: because she has influenced me to make a game. But I think what is also remarkable is how she even affects her reviewers and critics. Take Jenn Frank’s Rise of the Existential Crisis: How One Woman Nearly Never Finished a Book Review, or Cara Ellison’s Choose Your Own Anna Anthropy Interview.

Frank’s article adopts Anna Anthropy’s writing style from Rise of the Video Game Zinesters: emulating Anthropy’s own combination of history and criticism and inter-dispersing it with her own personal experiences in a seemingly scattered narrative but ultimately bridging the gap between the reviewer and the creator of personal expression while Cara Ellison actually makes a Choose Your Own Adventure Game using Twine–Twine–in order to bring her interaction with Anthropy across. Just looking at the styles and mediums used by these two women is utterly fascinating: Frank does not necessarily agree with Anthropy’s statement that everyone should make a game–though she wishes on some level that she had–while Ellison flat out makes a game to express her interaction and her influence from Anthropy’s philosophy in a very demonstrative manner.

I will also say right now that this article was a long time coming. I just didn’t have the words then. But if Ellison’s Twine article further influenced me to make my own game (and I didn’t even realize she was using Twine to do it at the time, another example of my cognitive dissonance), Frank’s article actually encouraged me to write this. And I have been influenced by Anthropy in other ways as well: you will probably see relatively soon outside of this article.

But if I had to sum up everything I have written here, I will say this: that in terms of video-game storytelling, its potential as a medium, and her own potential influence on its future, Anna Anthropy is immensely important.

P.S. My favourite Anna Anthropy Twine game is this one: Hunt for the Gay Planet. There is a story behind its creation that she can explain far better than I, but what really inspires me is the story of a person who tries to find other people like her and goes on a long well-written intergalactic journey. This piece inspired me so much that I bought the Choose Your Own Adventure book from Anthropy’s own site: which is coincidentally on my Blogroll as well.

Participant in One Marathon, A Spectator at Another

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 3 Comments

Originally this weekend I was going to participate in the 12-Hour Comic Book Marathon at the Comics Lounge and Gallery. I didn’t end up writing anything or collaborating with any artists there. If my experience at the Global Game Jam taught me anything it was that most people there probably already knew each other and either way they would have come in some pre-made teams: those that needed them anyway.

As I’ve said before, I am not much of a graphic artist.

Really, I didn’t want to potentially take up someone’s space on the possibility that I couldn’t find a partner and–to be perfectly honest–I didn’t want to be the odd one out: feeling painfully self-conscious.

Later on, I found out that there were still a few writers and artists who cancelled or were actually still looking for a partner, but by then it was too late. However, it was just as well that I decided not to do it because my brain is full with all the work I’ve been doing and I had never actually been to the Lounge before. I would most likely have gotten lost trying to find it.

Essentially: I wanted to get there, get a feel for the space, meet some of the people there, talk a bit with them, maybe make some connections so that I could participate in a later event, or–really–just get to know people who have similar interests to my own.

I still felt bad, though, that I hadn’t participated as I intended and looked forward to doing. Keiran Templeton–who I saw in her tiara as she held court over an assortment of writers and artists–not only organized the entire event, she also had time to go face book and ask if there were any people that wanted to work with others, and she even told me by email that she would keep my name on a list to let me know about next time.

As it was, I made it up to myself by punching some of my procrastination out and starting to really script out my own collaboration with Angela O’Hara: you know, the comic I keep saying that I am working on. In my defence, I have been working on it on and off with little tidbits of notes here and there: much like every other long-standing story I’ve been dealing with. In fact, for The Project I actually made a rough outline of everything that I want to happen in our first issue.

The key of course was actually beginning to flesh it out. I’m beginning to realize that in industry terms, I work entirely too slow on comics scripts. Even from my limited understanding I can see that they take time and a lot of concentration. But the day before the Marathon, I decided to get into the spirit of it and expand on the very first part: to actually take one segment and go wild with some descriptions and leave room to artistic interpretation in others.

And that Friday before the Marathon, I sent something to Angela via inline text and–if it’s not perfect–it is at least something to start from and a good subject for us to discuss. I look forward to talking with her about it when we find the time and see what she will make of it.

So I had this little bit of positive energy to tide me over as I finally did leave to find the Comics Gallery and Lounge I’d been hearing about for so long. The journey was ironic for me. It seems like so long ago that I used to live on the Bloor-Danforth line: specifically close to Woodbine Station. Even before that, when I was at York, I always found that energy to take various transit to get to find my away to College and Clinton: where the Lounge actually is. It’s only now that I’m in Thornhill–in York Region–again that I decided to go somewhere cool that I’d been putting off for so long.

When I found myself outside the shop, I paced around a bit: suddenly really feeling the nervousness. It was strange: being back downtown on the streets again after basically huddling away in Thornhill. And here I was outside a place with people who obviously loved comics and other Geekery and I was hesitating. It would be helpful to mention that I’ve developed some very crippling social anxiety over the years. It probably has roots to older sources, but after so long dealing with Grad School and being by myself a lot I kind of really retreated into myself. It also doesn’t help that I was shy to begin with and … it’s hard for me to put myself out there.

I also was thinking to myself: what if I go in there and no one likes me? I know: it’s a pretty irrational series of thoughts and I have gotten better at dealing with them. I knew that if I needed to, I could leave at any time I wanted and–it being a Lounge–I brought some work to do as well. My plan was to stay there for the party that was going to happen after 11 pm–when the Marathon was officially over–talk with some people and then leave.

So I walked up the stairs and everyone was friendly. I had to get used to, well, being in a new place and around people I didn’t know but I browsed around the shop and entertained myself looking at comics. There was a very comfortable black couch–most of the inner room was set up with benches so people could work–and I sat down to write. I actually started to feel a lot more comfortable writing and having something to do.

It was strange at first. I’d seen a lot of the people around me on Facebook or the Internet when I was finding out more about the Lounge, but actually being around them in person was just different and cool. It turns out some people were late for the Marathon anyway and, really, they just seemed to have a whole lot of fun doing what they did, browsing comics, and just socializing. I didn’t talk with as many people as I wanted to, but my cousin Shane Kirshenblatt–who made such awesome comics as Dorothy Gale: Journey to Oz–and his wife Sari came in and we talked for a while about comfortable things like comics and writing and creation and all that fun stuff.

Coincidentally, I wrote my first Conference paper partially on Shane’s Oz comic and he inspired me through a conversation to write my first ever science-fiction story in ages: one that didn’t win the Friends of the Merrill Short Story Contest granted, but I am still proud of it to this day. He actually talked with me about looking at a script of his to see what I could do with it: something that really intrigues me.

I even briefly talked with Keiran as she was managing her Empire of comics creators and there was a dog or two, and some cheering, and various geeky discussions. I ended up having a really good conversation that night with Debra Jane Shelly. I had seen her before, like many of the other denizens of the Lounge, on their Blog and Facebook. She really stuck out at me the first I saw her and I knew before I ever talked with her that she was a hard-core comics geek. But it is one thing to know that intellectually, but experience it first-hand in a conversation was entirely different and enjoyable. I barely got a word in edge-wise, but I enjoyed listening to what she had to say and I learned a few things.

For instance: I never thought about the first-impression that people got of Watchmen when it came out in the 1980s. As Debra pondered this, I remember thinking that it was true: it was during this time period that meta-narrative and pastiching were being implemented into comics narrative along with a certain more blatant kind of adult irony.

When you think about the comics that came before, during the heyday of the Comics Code–of comics industry self-censorship–and then you look at something like Watchmen you can definitely imagine a kind of “culture shock” for some readers. But, as Debra put it, we will never really know that feeling ourselves: you know, aside from reading about it through secondary sources. It’s like those accounts you hear about from famous writers and comics creators about growing up with the old Pre-Code Horror Comics: with EC Comics’ Tales from the Crypt, Creepshow, and all of that really fun and twisted stuff. But even though we can read a lot of those twistedly ironic and morbid goodies now, the spirit of Zeitgeist of the times where they were written are not really as accessible to us or perceived the same as someone who was there.

I think it was good to talk with someone who knew as much–if not more–about comics: someone who had read some really good and memorable works. It was sort of humbling, to be honest: to know that wasn’t the only one as insane about this stuff as I sometimes delude myself into thinking. There was a whole room of them. :). I did talk with some more people and then I took my leave as it was about that time. Debra actually made me pose for a picture where I am holding Alan Moore’s Nemo: Heart of Ice: a book I actually got there. As for the reason that she took it, if one is needed, she told me that she likes to take pictures of people having found their favourite books: or something to that effect.

It occurred to me–or I remembered–as I smiled at the camera that I rarely ever smile when I’m in public: especially in Toronto. Sometimes the exhaustion, and anger, and sadness ingrains itself in you so bone-deep that it’s difficult to even smile for real. I thought about just how sad that fact really was.

In any case, I said some goodbyes and then I left to find the streetcar back to Bathurst Station. I missed the car, so I decided: “Screw it! I’m going to walk the fucker!” So I walked by myself all the way from Clinton and College to Bathurst Station. I hadn’t walked that long or been in this area in ages. And as I did so, with my travel bag on my shoulder and my black winter coat covering me I felt more alive than I have in a really long time.

Coincidentally, it took me 16 minutes and there was no other streetcar during that entire time.

I know when I wake up tomorrow, or later, I’m going to be very embarrassed by some of the sentimentality and haphazard writing I’ve left here. It’s no new thing, to be fair. Actually, I’m surprised I wrote so much about–well–doing so little: by my standards anyway. However, I really felt the need to write this out while it is still fresh.

I am definitely going to check out the Lounge again. Here is the Toronto Comics Lounge and Gallery Blog in case you are interested and you didn’t see it on my Blogroll section. Thank you for reading this and, next time, I do plan to make something.

Excelsior, ladies and gentlemen.

Before the Empire, There Was Something Else

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 5 Comments

This wasn’t a planned post of mine, but it’s amazing how Star Wars makes me do that. Not too long ago, I heard that Disney is shutting LucasArts down. I did grow up with the games that this company made tangentially and it does make me wonder exactly what it is that Disney is planning to do with the Star Wars franchise.

But I don’t really feel like I have much to say on this matter. Yet while LucasArts is currently being dissolved, there is another–perhaps more understated–Star Wars event happening as well. I’m talking about the comics adaptation of George Lucas’ Star Wars film script.

The original draft.

If we go by the theory that the original that a character is based off of has a considerable amount of resonance and power, then these figures will definitely stick to whomever will read this limited edition series.

I won’t go too much into the details of the thing. In fact, if you’d like, you can read some news accounts here or here on the matter. This is not the first time I have heard about or read anything about Lucas’ original script draft. In fact, I’ve seen one or two fanfics take these Star Wars proto-characters and their prototypical universe and make some really interesting things out of them.

But they are, however the writing may be, the root of many of the elements of Star Wars that we recognize today: in the Old Trilogy, in the New, and in a lot of the Expanded Universe.

What we are seeing, in comics form, is an alternate universe in a galaxy far, far away and what was once the providence of fanfiction is now–to some degree–being created and sanctioned by LucasBooks such as it is. It is like finding out that the new J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek alternate universe films were being created in a smaller comics form: save that his alternate universes are his own and not Gene Roddenbery’s.

But what really gets me is looking back on two posts I made on Mythic Bios about Star Wars. I wasn’t really satisfied with Star Wars: Back to the Basics, to be honest, though I do think that my post When You Wish Upon a Star, Far, Far Away does have some merit apart from its rather witty title. I think my issues with the first post were that I had a lot of supposition and hearsay, but not a lot of proof. I wanted to compare Star Wars to Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon: to show that the latter really affected the former from Lucas’ own formative years and that the Prequels were a hearkening back to that original source material. I even had trouble trying to find pictures to make nice parallels: save that at least the “opening crawl” receding into the distance in both the Old and New Trilogies had a parallel with the old Buck Rogers serial introductions.

File:Flash Gordon (1940) - Opening Crawl.jpg

But if you look at the links to the news pages that I attached above with regards to the comics being made from the old script draft, just read how the characters are described and look at the accompanying art work that is being made currently. In my second article, I went into some brief speculation about a Star Wars reboot: much in the way of Star Trek. I doubt this is going to be wide spread and I certainly don’t think the next Episodes will be reboots, but it is worth looking at the fact that in some medium this creator-made “pre-boot?” is being made.

The way this script is described, it not only seems to be closer to the film materials that Lucas was inspired by and are mentioned in the linked articles, but there is something very … Princess of Mars about their aesthetics and attitudes.

If you want to talk about prototypes or preceding archetypes, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ world of Barsoom really influenced a lot of science-fiction: with almost archaic looking costumes, vintage laser weapons, and a lot of emphasis on royalty and nobility even beyond the usual Star Wars: or at least the Star Wars of the Old Trilogy. You can also argue that some of the images in the articles I linked to also look a lot like Buck Rogers aesthetics as well. And Star Wars, while it is epic fantasy, borrows and wears enough of the science-fiction aesthetic to be examined in this manner. I would say that this is an attempt to hearken readers back to a retro-Star Wars, but this “predates” and pre-exists that vintage. A Pre-Boot Pre-Retro? Now, that just sounds bulky to say and I am sure there is a better way to say it.

I think that, in the end, what I find really fascinating about this–in this really simple overview of the matter on my part–is that we are in a time now which is really interested in the retroactive: in Retro itself. For many of us born and grown up in the 70s and 80s, perhaps even the 90s, the present has become the past. I go into it a lot here, but this decision on LucasBooks’ part seems to really feed into that growing niche in popular and geek culture now.

Or this is just a very strange and fascinating look into an experiment that could have been and admittedly has a very limited lifespan: an oddity that has existed for years collecting dust on the shelf and in the recesses of Internet chatrooms and forums which is now really getting acknowledged.

I would never have known about any of this as a child and–indeed–if I had known about either LucasArts’ end and the Original Draft comic coming out a few days ago–on April 1–I would not have believed it. As it was, I read about the Original Draft being adapted to a comic during April Fool’s and didn’t know what to even think about that!

But I like oddities and strange things. I make them all the time. I am making them right now. I thought that the Star Wars Prequels were a hearkening to older space opera shows of the 50s or so, but maybe they were also referencing this older, weirder, prototypical universe: an elder reality. I want to see what will come of this. They would at least make for some interesting toys.

And I don’t know about you, but I want to know if the reptilian Han Solo still shoots first. I’m messed up like that. 😉

Imagination Is Thicker Than Blood

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 7 Comments

In a post that Vampire Maman wrote, You Transfix Me Quite, she talks about how the character of Jane Eyre would have made an excellent vampire. Vampire Maman has a lot of very interesting and entertaining creative writing, but it reminded me of something I bring up from time to time out of a sense of sheer silliness.

I never played the Old World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade role-playing game, but I heard people talk about it and I researched as much about it as I could online. And I always wondered what kind of vampire I would be in that world.

There are many different Clans and, more specifically, Bloodlines in Vampire: The Masquerade. As a result, each vampire belonging to a particular line had different attributes than his or her fellow. Originally I toyed with being part of Clan Tremere because of their knowledge of blood magic and the fact that they seized their vampirism: they weren’t–at least knowingly–turned by another vampire, but rather they were mages that took blood from a captured vampire to make themselves powerful and immortal … though they didn’t count on the fact that they would still possess the inherent weaknesses of the Kindred.

But I abandoned that idea because they are too stratified in social structure and limited in numbers. So I thought I might have been a Ventrue. And indeed, some people believe that I am a very calm, detached, and dispassionate being whenever they meet me offline. I can be calculating and organizational like this Clan tends to be portrayed but this is not my major strong point and not even a fraction of the personality I really have. Still, I can appreciate the Blood Discipline of Dominate: you know, that stereotypical ability to hypnotize or mesmerize another being.

My girlfriend once said that I would make an excellent member of the Toreadors. A Toreador is either a very beautiful vampire that creates a series of social networks and supports various kinds of art, or they are artists themselves that spend their immortality oftentimes secluded and making new things, or they are both. Generally, they are closest to humanity as they like to watch and support their artistic endeavours and fads. Aside from the compliment of being compared to something beautiful and creative, I also share their obsession with a particular object: such as art. Yet they can also be very vain and fickle, and while I have some of those traits, they are not paramount in who I am.

Which brings me to the final Clan I was told about. One day, my girlfriend changed her mind about something. She thought that I could also be a Brujah. Now, I had heard about this Clan. In the Modern Nights era of that world, they were generally characterized as passionate, frenzied vampires that were usually punks, brawlers, and anarchists. However, in ancient times they were known as disciplined warriors and philosophers that embraced a particular ideal: honing body, mind, soul, and altered power to fight for what they believed in. They were not merely turned from fighters, but also lawmakers, orators, and thinkers. I can also see them having turned some artists along the way as well: much like the Toreador.

I would not be a typical Brujah of the modern period, I would imagine and I would probably seem more like a Toreador on the surface with some Ventrue discipline and calculation. At the same time, I would definitely be a fighter and a defiant force: through the imagery of my words.

But all these distinctions aside, would I make a good vampire? The answer is that I probably would in a very reluctant sort of way. I already have difficulty with a mortal life, and immortality would just be inconceivable with my range of emotions. On the other hand, a lot of physical burdens would no longer be an issue and perhaps–just like in this real world–I would have phases of activity and dormancy. Maybe with time I would surpass many mental challenges and blocks as well. It is hard to say what it would like in a hypothetical and fictional situation but, like I said, it is definitely fun to think about.

Berserker

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 5 Comments

Unhappiness grows within me,
deep inside until, in the end
it becomes mine.

Unfurling through my being,
it ingrains itself deep into the bone
and the still lips of my mouth.

My face unlined, unsmiling
it hollows out the bore
within the centre of my chest:
leaving only emptiness.

But it is not nothing,
for the blackhole is the prelude to an
exploding star.

Anger turned inward
by powder-pegs of savoury bitterness
and the elegant fabric of contempt stretched thin
rips inside out into the red light
of vital defiance.

I taste it on my tongue
and my faceless mask twists
into a quirk of disdain
and then a tight, tight grin.
And I laugh.

The sound is high and cold, encompassing,
and all inclusive.
For the wound-womb of my soul,
shaped by my unhappiness,
is filled again
with the culmination of all these things.

With bloody glee.

With fire.

With power.

It is perfect symmetry
this force that I use,
that uses me,
that I let use me,
to smash the faces of cowardice,
and treachery, of hypocrisy
and promises never made.
And I enjoy their pain.

Especially my own.

Each blow I make is hard
and potent beyond endurance.
It strains and snaps a part of me,
burning edges of myself away,
as I dance.

But I do not care as I am too caught
in the moment to feel the pain
save for how it adds nuance
to the beauty of my rage.

The shadow of me quickly
becomes the dancer of obliteration.

Then all that is left is destruction:
immune to appearance, to sentiment, to reason,
to responsibility, and to conscience.
And I laugh, and laugh, and laugh
gloriously: because it is good …

Because it is freedom.

My hatred is pure,
purging and scouring fire
leaving no mistakes, no good memories,
nothing behind as it starts from
Before: from Ground Zero.

And the small part that wants
someone to stop me only adds
to the meaning of what I do.
Because finally,
when the world matches the darkness
inside of me,
and hatred finally dies,
perhaps then all that will be left
to fill it is love
and compassion.

If not from me,
then from someone better.

Exhaustion takes me:
and the spot made from my unhappiness
lets me come into itself,
as I curl into the warmth of its comforting shadows.

For Red

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 5 Comments

Her first eye is Gaia and her second is Oceanus.

This, above all else, is the gaze I recollect underneath the plumage of the firebird and the lash of the Eumenides that occasionally comes out from her generous mouth. Yet the red also reminds me of Prometheus: of audacity and the cackling thievery of fire. However, even the Titan himself was punished by the slow, cyclical eating of his liver … save that her fate is more arbitrary than the whims of gods and her own body is not as infinite. I always fear for the day when Medusa might catch her chimeric gaze and the reversal of Galatea might come fully upon her.

Yet even the Gorgon cannot fully meet the eyes that mirror the ancient and glorious horrors of the Bacchanalia. For she who drinks the wine of blood and bathes in its ochre depths dances around the whole of humanity as though skipping through a grove of statues.

So full of utter gall and mocking bile from her revels, she grins at the carnal carnage before her and the perfect white sickle of her smile becomes the blade that castrates her own fear.

I Am Made of Words

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 1 Comment

About five or six years ago in Niagara Falls, I received a Tarot reading from a lover of mine: the first person I ever went to visit on my own. There aren’t many details I remember from the time except for one thing: the majority of the cards that she drew from her deck–a deck that she ultimately gave to me–had a Sword aspect.

File:Swords01.jpg

We were sitting on my bed and here I was staring at a hand of Swords in front of me. I know we had theories as to what it might mean in the purely open-ended mode of interpretation that you have to use when examining any kind of symbol. And while we agreed on a few things, in the end it was left to me to link things together and make patterns that were–or were not–there.

During or after the time we met, I began watching this anime at the York Anime and Manga Association (or YAMA) called Fate/Stay Night. In this anime was a character named Archer: a heroic spirit who could project and create bladed weapons. He gained these from a Reality Marble: a small pocket-universe that developed inside of him due to his dedication and sheer strength of will. When he fully summoned this place, a sphere of flame, turning cogs, and blades consumed the area that he and his opponent were fighting in. In other words, Archer took his inner world and imposed it on the external for a brief period of time.

In this world I describe, he has access to every mortal bladed weapon–every sword–that he has examined and ever replicated with his magic. He stores them all in there and either uses them one at a time–knowing what its history is, the thoughts of its owners, and even their secret abilities–or he can summon and throw them at his opponent all at once. I really admired this anime character and when I did further research on him … I realized that I related to him a lot more than I thought.

I still think that Archer could have done a lot more than simply imitate weapons and memorize their patterns. I think that, even modifying some of them into arrows, he could have used his knowledge of them to create new weapons entirely: new tools and devices to accomplish his goals. He even admitted that his weapon was his own imagination and we all know that the imagination is limitless.

You see, I make weapons too. I make weapons and tools. And they are my words. I’ve spent years honing them: making prototypes, re-making others, imitating more, and learning from my mistakes. I seek to bury my demons in a torrent of words. I desire to make an Empire out of them: to expand my own little world into this one in the best way that I know how.

For a really long time, I have been a very passive individual on the surface. But after Niagara Falls I decided to stop ignoring my natural aggression, my dominant side, my ambition, and the fierce defiance that I realized I’ve always had inside of me. I think that sometimes the manner in which I honed and sharpened my words and that ferocity I view the world at times–as though to defend my own childhood awkwardness and lack of social skill years ago–has ingrained itself in me so much that I seem aloof to people and perhaps a little intimidating. Perhaps that is why I might seem so combative towards life at times.

I grew into my own. I began to see that I was physically attractive, intelligent, creative, and I build a whole world that I can sometimes share with other people. I was told by a friend that in some ways it made me dangerous, but in other ways she greatly admired what I was becoming: whatever that is. When I look back, “aggression” might be too strong word. Perhaps what I was really looking for, and what I still have to fight for– is “confidence.”

Not too long ago, Cristian Mihai wrote a post called Art and Life: where he talks the fact that while he may have done many things in his life he might have regretted, he never regretted any of his stories. It’s very close to those moments where I think the best thing I have ever done with this life of mine so far is write.

So I keep building my world, every day, one blade at a time: because underneath this inconstant fleshy matter of mine and to quote a fictional character, “I am made of swords.” And even though I know I’m not made of weapons, even though I’ve suffered defeat and pain, I’m going to keep fighting because–in the end–I know I am going to win.

File:Swords14.jpg

So when you take the “S” away from Swords, that is what I am made of.

It Was My Birthday and What the Hell …

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 12 Comments

I turned thirty-one this weekend.

I’d like to say that it came at me by surprise, but I did manage to see it coming. 🙂 It makes me realize that a lot of things have happened between thirty and thirty-one.

I’ve gone from just talking about sending stories out as magazine submissions to actually doing it. I’ve also went from just talking to actually creating a Writer’s Blog with over a hundred articles that has been Freshly Pressed and I’ve gotten peer Awards from some of my most devoted readers. I made a place to put ideas that I originally had no room for. I participated in my first Game Jam. I wrote two ad hoc mini-operas for a contest that Neil Gaiman was one of the judges for. I also got my Master’s Degree and decided not to go back to University.

I wrote some articles for some really excellent producers and writers and on subjects that deserved more information on them. I helped someone in a contest to achieve their dream and made a new friend in the process. I’ve reconnected with my old friend Angela and I will continue my part in working on our comics collaboration once I’ve done some more of my own work. And there is so much that I still have to do, you know? It’s ridiculous. I know I have made a lot of progress and growth this past year, but I feel like I have to keep at it because sometimes it just doesn’t feel like enough.

I’ll admit: this is not where I thought I would see myself at thirty-one. Sometimes I feel like I didn’t have enough time to experiment with my life and now I somehow have to be an adult and, you know, be more responsible in some way. I don’t have a paying career yet and I live with my parents again. A lot of other things changed during that time as well and I feel like I lost a lot of what I once cared about. I’ve been more anxious and more shut-in these days while also working on my projects, sitting on the Internet, and just enveloping myself into a steadier routine. I know I will be facing some more challenges–some of them uphill battles–and I miss the things, relationships, and people that I did lose along the way. It cost a lot to get to this point in my life: as I suspect it always does and it always will.

But these are the things that happened, the things I did during a year’s time, and what I am thinking about now. Sometimes I think that my options are more limited now that I am older. But let’s face it: I was a grumpy old man even before I had a thirty-one year old body and I am set in my ways about some things … more specifically things that I plan and I want to do. I know I want, and I am going to seek for more. So in conclusion, as if this were some kind of formal essay, all I can add is that I will continue doing what I have to do or, as a character of mine once said, I will do what I feel that I have to.

Thank you for reading me, liking me, and Following me. I hope to continue some good journeys and explorations together. Take care, my friends.

Looking Outward