Diamonds are forever. Hold one up and then caress it, touch it, stroke it and undress it. I can see every part. Nothing hides in the heart to hurt me. “Diamonds Are Forever,” written by John Barry and Don Black.
Generally speaking, I’m not interested in “reality” television. It’s not really reality, and when I want reality from my ol’ cathode ray tube I’ll watch the news until I decide what I really should be doing is updating my will.
There are exceptions. A thousand years ago, I watched Ice Road Truckers because the contestants were as ludicrous as the concept of hauling many tons of stuff across frozen-over lakes that, under the weight of same, could kill the aspirants and — more important — destroy their swag. Much more recently, I’ve been enjoying the challenges of James May, of car wrecking fame, as he ridicules modern manhood by attempting even more ludicrous but somewhat more useful DIY projects. However, these shows (Man Lab is the best, Toy Stories and The Reassembler are almost as entertaining) are built, by James May, to revolve around James May, who is clever, honest, committed and wonderfully sardonic. He’s a mere 60 years old, but probably looks a bit older because he’s spent decades working next to Jeremy Clarkson. He’s also done a number of food-oriented shows and has lunched with Gordon Ramsay, consuming bull penis and rotten shark. Funny stuff. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: A Million Pounds of Bond”
Most likely you have noticed the shift from static broadcast and cable television and movies to streaming services such as Netflix and DC Universe… to name but two. This stuff is growing like amoebas on steroids. In the relatively few years since this all began, it has knocked the poo out of the free media industries.
The American comic book industry jumped on this concept out of the same cultural-shift that affected these other entertainment industries. Peculiarly, American comic book publishers have not shown much in the way of innovation over the past 86 years; the last huge improvement came when Major Wheeler-Nicholson decided to commission new work instead of relying upon newspaper strip reprints. That happened a mere 84 years ago.
That’s cool. Technology marches on, and the side benefit is that we’re saving a lot of trees, creating more oxygen and using fewer fossil fuels to distribute pretty colors printed on the corpses of saplings. Some people, not all of whom are nostalgia-soaked geriatrics, don’t like this and that is completely understandable. Just wait until they must move their comic book collection to a new abode. With two-terabyte thumb-drives available and heading towards affordability, you can put a copy of every comic book ever published in America on maybe four such drives and drop them in your purse or pocket.
Immediately and quite predictably, the naysayers started screaming nay. “This will kill magazines and newspapers,” they say. Oh, yeah? If you live within a convenient walk of a retailer who offers more than 240 magazines and newspapers, consider yourself very lucky. Most people do not. If you want to choose from a variety of publications, you better be ready to drive out to one of the rapidly-dwindling big box stores such as Barnes and Noble and then pray for the best. This distribution method, pioneered by Apple with iTunes, saved the music industry. Is FYI still around? How about Borders? Ya wanna get this stuff somewhere.