Artist(s): Joe Pimienta, Lindsay Hornsby, and Lauren Affe

Writer(s): Joe Pimienta

US Publisher: SLG Plublishing

Synopsis:

It started as a game, something for friends Todd and Kevin do to pass time. Soon Kevin is entangle in Todd’s obsession. Can you say “Psychopath children”?

The Review:

You can google this book all you want and the highlight will be that it came to life as a school project with Pimienta at the helm, enlisting Hornsby.

That’s really cool and well, but does it measure up to profesional standards?

I think it measures and surpasses them.

The book is Black&White and HalfTone. I’ve mentioned in countless blog entries that I love that right? Coloring is used in the industry as “mandatory sweetener”, not  so much as enhancement to the art. The whole point is: Would you (average comicbook reader) would buy your favority superhero Marvel/DC title if it came in black in white tomorrow?

Well, back to A Friendly Game, Pimienta doesn’t fall in any argumentative cliches, the ones needed to tale to hold the story together. Readers will ask “Why does Kevin do that?” but we are not given anymore answers than when we are watching a newsclip on the TV stating that Mr. Menendez killed his parents. Weather after these comercials.

That’s is life, folks, and that is why I respect this story so much.

It assumes the reader will be a grown up. It assumes that the reader will know that bad stuff happen to good people. The book knows that when the drunk driver gets into an accident, he/she is usually the one who comes out alive leaving behind a trail of maimed or dead bodies. Why? Life is a bitch, and it doesn’t have to give you any explanation!

The art in the book is competent, but not ground-breaking. Then again, I don’t think it ever tries to be. You can find some panels where Pimienta tries, and gives you a contrived camera angle, or an ambitious expressive take, but that is not the crux of this book, and you shouldn’t buy it for that. The artists have a great story to tell, and  mature means of telling it, and they do, they move ahead at the right pace, telling it.

The character’s psychological progress and evolution gets marked by the passing of the climatological seasons, and if we are reading this book for the first time, we will be surprises to see characters switch roles, just like in real life kids do as they are growing up and they adjust to group dynamics.

Check out the close up on the first few dozen pages. Pimiento understands the intimacy of these outcasts, and brings you into their world. The reader is given temporary membership into the gang and we are placed very closed to Todd sometimes, others near Kevin, but always at whisper-length.

We shall become voyeuristic accomplices to their deeds. When Todd and Kevin fight, the intimacy breaks and we see longer shots, because now we have to take sides and witness the action unfold without being able to a thing about it.

Here is when the panels get a bit more ambitious but never (in my humble opinion) they become too much for the technical skills of the craftsman. 

The few pages leading to the ending of Act 1 are great, giving you tightly compacted panels that lead to a rewarding splashpage. That’s how I love my Visual Narrative, budding artists!! Not splashpages every other darned page!!!

I Curse the editors who let you get away with that crap at the Big Two, artists!!! You rob us of the meaning of SPLASH PAGE.

At the end, I felt rewarded. I had been given an unapologetic view into some terrible events, and the punches were not spare, the tees were crossed and the i’s were dotted.

Todd visits Kevin at the detention center and if you wanted better endings, more explanations, or cleaner “origin” stories, go and buy a book from the Big Two. Just make sure it is rated PG or something like that, because you, my friend, are not ready for the big leagues.

For taking risks. For doing Black&White. For not having perfect endings for everything. For respecting the reader’s level of sophistication.

It may not give them sales figures like some titles of the BigTwo, but it sure will guarantee them a position in the shelf of discerning critics and mature comic book lovers.

That’s why

In my critic’s rating I give A Friendly Game

8.5 Stars out of 10.

PS. This is the same editorial that gave  us that other wonderful surprise, Strong Man.

I went again through their website and noticed a bunch of newer and yet more awesome titles.

They just moved up on my ranking of favorite publishers, and are right now among my firsts.

Batwoman 4 and 5.

PSSSAA. It has pretty good art, but too much landscape page layout on the page design.

I can’t get into the story.

If i can’t get into the story, is that becuase I am the exception of the audience they(the publishers) are trying to capture, or am I representative of it?

I guess time and sales figures will tell.

Animal Man #5

Still dont get what all the fuss is about.

Really I don’t.

Are audiences loving it becuase it is retelling a different story?

Are critics loving it because it is enhancing the previous incarnation?

Who knows.. but someone cares, or so the media says.

Aquaman #5

I really got behind this book.

Love how the dynamics plays showing this reluctant hero and the world that criticizes  him.Love how low key he is protrayed.

Good Choices, Geof Jones! You keep me buying this floppy that otherwise I would’ve ignored, much like Aquaman has been ignored most of his published existance.

Catwoman #5

Pretty good art. And I am enjoying the story. It may not be anything new, just a plain vigilante story, but the voice that Selina speaks in makes me listen (read). Love the FOR ADULT tone of the book.

Got tired of the talking-heads who keep complaining about the over-sexualization of a street-wise high-class hooker turned vigilante… Why don’t they focus on having the WB channel create a kiddie carton version of it?

I love my adult-themed books when it deals with adult themes.  Go figure!

Crossed Psychopath #7

Holydisappointment! How did it got to this from the Garth Ennis script?

And it is not because Laptham can’t write.

Caligula was pretty decent.

Oh well. Not all can be winners I guess.

That’s it for this week.

What have you been reading?

Artist(s): Terry Moore

Writer(s): Terry Moore

US Publisher: Abstract Studios

The Plot:

Rachel wakes up in a shallow grave. Ergo the name of the title, since she has to get up! But the rest is a realistic and thus terrifying roller-coaster of mirth and mayhem.

The Review:

Did I love Terry Moore in Strangers in Paradise? Mmhh… not sure. I respected him. Not sure I loved it.

I found the merit and the value on a male artist (and supposedly “straight” male artist, I read at the time) giving such depth and verisimilitude to a couple of female characters with all their character flaws and charms.

The art was not groundbreaking but got the job done efficiently. I loved how expressive his drawings were, that’s for sure.

And it was independent, so… yes, I admired it, although I wasn’t a fan.

Then came Echo. That blew me out of the water, cause it showed that Terry could take sci-fi genre and give it his Terry Moore take, his intimate twist… and make it work. I loved it.

And I was afraid he would then go back to his “two chicks and lots of dialogue” roots on his next work, but no. He went the other way.

He went the “Two Chicks and very little dialogue between them route” on Rachel Rising.

Rachel Rising is a pleasure to read, from the standpoint of the comic aficionado. Terry Moore is one of those few and rare western (as in “not from the East”, not “Western” as John Wayne) authors who is able to render onto the pages of his work the intimacy and self-assured pacing of manga. The good manga, mind you.

I can state in no uncertain terms that anyone can enjoy this series. You don’t need to be a fan of Terry Moore, although if you have been exposed to his previous works, you will be in a better position to appreciate more his evolution and changes, his progression and the pliability of his art, how he adapts and succeeds at adjusting so well to a genre so far away from his roots in the buddy-buddy comic.

If your taste lays exclusively in capes, guys running around with their underwear outside thier pants and lots of POW BLAM ZOOOEY, you may be a bit at lost here, albeit I still think you may enjoy it.

Terry Moore tells stories using the pacing to a degree that I have only seen in a few masters in modern western comic book tradition.  He may be a bit of an unknown in the circles of the Big Two, but let me assured you, he has put out the books, he has paid his dues, and I don’t mean only the copious and meritorious novels, such as Strangers in Paradise and Echo. I am also referring the teaching art books

like the wonderful Terry Moore How To Draw Women, that has such a plethora of expressions and poses that it should be a must for any budding artists.

Back to Rachel Rising, the pacing is superb. The vignettes fall into place with the cadence that a music would’ve provided had we been watching a Motion Picture, instead of reading a fine comic.

The characters, once again, are rich and new, and exciting, because when you read about them, you reach a nirvana-like balance between verisimilitude and fantastic story telling. And this is something that every writer should strive to master: how to depict realistic characters in fantastic settings.

Terry also achieves something that has become a staple of his all through his career in comics: makes women balanced leading characters.

These ladies get angry, get soft, get feisty and sexy, but they never ever get cheesy or uni-dimensional. Her characters are such a window into a woman’s life and psyche the I’ve seen very few authors achieve in comics, and more writers should try to emulate.

Not everything have to be over the top praises for Mr. Moore. I noticed that in his story to achieved some inconsistency between his script and his art, and it was a pretty flagrant one.

SPOILER ALERT: (You may skip till the header END OF SPOILER)

When Rachel rises from her grave, we can see inside the niche and see dirt. Later, in issue 3 or 4, she is conversing with a friend and brings up the fact that she felt in the grave that she was propped against another corpse. I researched interviews and Terry Moore stated he started the script with her raising from a grave while on top of anther body. But in the art we see no other body. Now that may be intentional but so far, I am alarmed at the inconsistency, and I already read issue 5)

END OF SPOILER

But I can’t say that something like that turns me off from the whole series. I have no problem forgiving it, if it is a case of artist’s slip. Who know? Maybe it is a deliberated choice and in later chapters he will explian why did this happen?

The whole composition of the story is the equivalent of “the thinking man’s horror”. The subplots are intertwined with the main narrative in a perfect measure that never lets your attention and grasp for the story drop. Every switch of characters is justified and rewarding, and these are people you enjoy hearing talk and converse.

Again, perfect blend of story, character building, art, and sequential story telling.

Terry Moore also plays with the page composition, by playfully placing white spaces behind the black backdrop of the ink, and he has no rhyme nor reason for it, but it works. It works in equal measure in the way he makes the town in which the story is set as a creepy part of the narrative. Living in the North East US, and being an avid traveler, I have been to Massachusetts and Maine, and those Autumn woods are as creepy in real life as Terry is depicting it in these pages.  I have a sense he is going to bring the surrounding into play in the story much in the similar way Junji Ito made the town part of the horror of Uzumaki.

I just can’t wait to get my hands on the next, and I will be picking up the first TPB that is announced for March.

In the meanwhile, Decapitated Dan (whose blot I read/listen all the time) did a great interview with Terry Moore

http://decapitateddan.blogspot.com/2012/02/discussions-with-decapitated-dan-78.html

Go and take a listen. Very insightful on how tough it is to be a self-published comic book artist.

In you like black and white comics, and you miss some subtle horror ala’ Omen there is one pleasent surprise waiting in the pages of this book for you!

In my critic’s rating I give Rachel Rising 9 out of 10 stars.

You can get to Terry Moore’s websites by browsing to

http://www.strangersinparadise.com

or

http://www.terrymooreart.com/

Welcome to a new type of blog entry that I am going to be testing, to see how it works. It is a quick way of adding a blog entry, and in it i will try to review a couple or three of floppies, and such.

That way, if you have doubts about picking up a floppy, you can always check me out and see if I am reading it, and what my first impression is, not that first impressions matter that much.

So lets get started.

What am I reading now? Action Comics #6.

Grant Morrison kinda lost me here. I don’t mean that I can’t follow the story, I mean that midway through… I stopped caring. Gone was the social angle that hooked me in the first two issues, and the human factor, and we are back to superheroics, and guys with their underwears outside their pants.

Kubert’s art is, as usual, a saving grace! Love the guy.

But then DC also give me some filler story at the end, and I felt kinda cheated. I like my floppies to have a theme, and one set of artists, unless I am buying a compendium, or something like that.

The reason why I bought this, besides cause I though Morrison was going to give me the same wow factor as in the beginning, and had to deal with the disappointment, was because I wanted to test the Digital Offering that you can find in the back cover. I tested it, and love it.

Seriously, $4 for a floppy is a bit too much, even more so for a floppy i didn’t love. I would feel better paying $1.5 for the digital version, and in this case I would’ve just deleted it after reading it, and wouldn’t cry about it too much.

What else am I reading now? Vampirella Vol.1 #13 Dynamite

I am really trying, trying hard, to like this title, on account of the great legacy that I remember from Jose (Pepe) Fernandez doing the Warren Vampirella…

I admit that is too much of a legacy to live up to… not easy…

The story on this is not bad. Seriously… I find it a bit formulaic… but readable. The art is good, but I repeat that I have the bias of expecting Vampi to wow me the same way that Jose Fernandez did it in the 70′s, and that is not happening.

For readers who are not familiar with the Warren, I think they will find this revision of Vampirella fun and entertaining, following the cliche of the “empowerd vixen” image and such.

I need something new, that I haven’t read before and this is not it for me.

The cover is gorgeous, though.

What else am I reading now? Red Hood and the Outlaws #5

And that is it for this series. I swear. I am glad it was a handmedown. Not because I hate it. I don’t. It is just that it started mediocre, and it remain mediocre, and it has one of those pet peeves of mine, which is lots of unwarranted splash pages .

So, I am actually giving up on this.

Does it have an audience?

I guess. I suppose so. It does have some interesting dynamic typical of the buddy-movies of Hollywood… Tango and Cash style… somehwere…

But it makes me feel cheated when I close the final page. And this decision has nothing to do with Starfire and her “pseudo” controversy.

That was a non-issue blown out of proportion by all means and standards.

Sad that the rest of the book is so …irrelevant.

I am reading more stuff, and some things are warranting a full review, so there is some good stuff coming down the pike.

But in the meanwhile, don’t forget to tell us WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN READING!!

Writer(s):

Artist(s James W. O’Barr   

US Publisher: Calibre Press.

The Plot:

A young couple is murdered by thugs one night while they take a car ride. The young male’s grief is bigger than death, and thus refuses to die till he avenges his lost love.

The Review:

This book holds another special spot in my heart due to the fact that I bought and loved this graphic novel before it become a cult classic or a movie. I even have the individual floppies that were initially sold. This graphic novel marks the origin of teen angst in comics, in modern day America.

Unfortunately, James O’Barr had a hard time following on his magnum opus. It was one of those cases (and we all know one) where a band’s debut music album is amazing but never follows up with anything similar again. In the case of O’Barr, he has dabbled in some comics, collaborating with other publishers but mainly staying with Caliber Press. He even contributed a noteworthy chapter to DEADWORLD (something we shall try to cover soon also) but mainly you will have to hit Wikipedia to get a full listing of his contributions, and then hunt them down on e-bay, or ask your LCS to get them for you.

So, why, oh why, should we consider The Crow a comic Masterpiece?

Well, let’s clarify that I expect to be writing this review for people unfamiliar with The Crow, and with that in mind lets review the reasons:

1. Independent work, independent publisher, independent artists/creator, in a market (1990’s) saturated by SuperHeroes in underwear.  It takes guts to dare, but James O’Barr dared and Calibre Press dared and together they found something that appealed to an wide audience who were looking for something more edgy and mature. And this in a decade where the internet barely existed!!! Lots of KUDOS for being ahead of its time, and daring to take risks, and doing it well.
2. Black and White and Grey goodness! Lots of iconic splashpages. James manages to incorporate onto this masterpiece imagery on an oneiric nature in a way that linger in our minds long after we closed the book.
3. One of the few comics in modern times where the main character gets to speak in poetry, and we stay with him. Yes. “Mother is the word for God on the hearts and lips of all little children.” You see? James O’Barr dishes us William Thackeray and we eat it up! But the real artform resides in something that I absolutely revere and seldom find: James O’Barr constructs a world of dreams and poetry using the foundations of a ghetto, of a slum, and from the nastiness it raises his hero like a phoenix.
4.  It is unapologetic pretentious. So much that it becomes good! Heck, the opening page of the first book opens with a poem by Rimbaud. But it remains constant with its angst, it escalates on the lyricism, and maintains pace with all the “Emo” and deeply brooding, and hands-on-your-hair deep looks that all the teens (and some older than teens i’m sure) can relate to. It makes it work.

But Barr had occasions to sell out his creation, and when the movie version of his graphic novel was green-lit, he remained faithful to his vision, and so did Alex Proyas (the director) and Brandon Lee, hte main actor.

The good news is that The Crow can still be found in graphic novel format, and I hear that in June 2011 a hard cover and TPB was released, called the Special Edition

In one hand one should be glad that you can still find masterpieces in print. On the other hand I am not sure how I feel about recycling the same material over and over for a couple of decades.

The good news is that it seems that O’Barr has been working on a lengthy project in the last few years.

The name is SUNDOWN and it is scheduled to be released late February 2012.

It will also be released digitally for the Ipad and Iphone.

Go to this website to take a look at a preview.

http://jamesobarr.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/02/preview-of-sundown-available.html

On the  bad news side, although James retains the rights to his creation, he did sell the movie rights to it, and it seems that a remake of the cult movie is in the making, starring Bradley Cooper.

The fans are not thrilled ( I should say “a lot of them are not thrilled”).

So, on my Critic’s rating,   The Crow by James O’Barr     gets

9 STARS

Anyone is welcome to repost and quote paragraphs of this blog entry without requesting permission. I would appreciate quoting the source and referring your audience to the blog.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Every other week I engage in a discussion pertaining internet piracy and the effect of piracy on different industries.

This blog entry is aimed at stating the ComicWatcher’s stance on this issue, and explain why we take this stance. The explanation should demonstrate that we have considered many sides of the argument and we have not arrived at our consensus lightly.

THE CONCEPT OF PIRACY AND PUBLIC DOMAIN.

The ComicWatcher defines “Piracy” as “The action that takes place when someone appropriating someone else’s intellectual property for the sake of profiting from it, and in the process, denying the creator of the opportunity of profiting from it.”

Re-read the loaded phrase above again carefully and think about the implications.

What is now commonly referred to as “Piracy” in the US is a misnomer used by some monopolies to perpetuate their flawed business model and purport legitimacy to their immoral and/or unethical business practices.

Piracy, and the piracy that we are against (and everyone should be against), involves Company A producing a product (be it song, comic, movie) and then another company (Company B) makes, distributes and sales unauthorized copies of that product. Company B doesn’t have to be a incorporated entity. It could be a member of the local mafia running a knock-off factory from the basement of his grandma’s house. THE MAIN MOTIF HERE IS PROFIT.

A few things take place here:

1) An unauthorized product gets reproduced, and floods the market. That denies the original product and creator to get its fair market share from selling said product in that market.

2) There is an illegitimate manufacturer who “Pirates” the product and creates a tangible product that may disrupt the distribution chain, and arrives at the consumers hands posing  as tangible original product.

3) By manufacturing a product outside the channels the creator intended, you are risking reputation of the creator, whose name is associated with the product, and you are denied control of the creation you conceived. Those are your rights as a creator.

Items copied and distributed around the internet for free do not fall in this category, no matter how much politicians and lobbying groups would love them to fall into.

When someone appropriates an idea or a product and copies or distributes them while charging for it, then it does fall into the category of loss of revenue.

Why the distinction of distribution with the intent of profit?

Well, the difference affects what is called Public Domain.

There are a bunch of cute graphics that explain the principle very well.

Public Domain is you and I and uncle Tom, and everyone who has been born onto this earth. Public Domain is not limited to a country. It is human society as a whole.

All companies rely on the Public Domain to sell their wares and most companies rely on the public to make profits. Even companies that sell directly to other companies end up relying to some degree on the Public Domain, because their customer’s financial well-being relies ultimately on the Public Domain. 

But when it pertains to intellectual property (IP) we have to understand that the right of a single individual or company to make a profit takes second place to humanity as a whole benefiting from that IP.

You may disagree with this. You may think that profits and ownership of IP trumps all. You are entitled to your opinion. I am just following the logic of the maximum benefit for the maximum of individuals.

I do agree that a company has a right to make a profit out of its product. But I also recognize and believe that once I bought said product and rendered some profits to the before-mentioned company, I have a right to treat that product as my property, and resell it, trade it, or lend it if I so want.

Wether you agree with the two previous statements or not, the fact is the product slowly becomes part of the Public Domain, by affecting our lives and changing how we live. The rate of how quick or slow becomes part of the public domain is something up for debate (and should be) but the inevitable consequence should be that the product becomes part of the capital of humanity as a whole.

Such is the case with the works of Dickens, Shakespeare, the Mona Lisa, and the Pieta.

BUT WHAT ABOUT COPYRIGHT LAW?

Laws are not good nor bad.

They are artificial constrains we (as a society) create in order to maintain order in society.

Sometimes we try to give legitimazy to our laws by stating that the laws reflect justice. But that is not the case in recent decades, and justice has become a very subjective term. In the US it was a Law until the 1960′s in most states to practice segregation. I can’t think that as being just, but it had laws protecting that practice.

In Germany in the 1930′s Laws were passed to aid in the prosecution of poeple based on their race and religions. IT WAS A LAW, but I think very few will deem them representations justice. A similar thing is happening nowadays with Copyright Laws. They are being passed only to protect a couple of industries, even if those laws curtail notions of Public Domain and Fair Use.

Copyright Law came into being to regulate the rate into which any given creation would join the Public Domain, and to provide the creator a window of opportunity into which, by granting the creator special TEMPORARY benefits, he/she could profit from the creation he/she come up with.

Copyright Law came into being not to insure that someone would create a song, and then get residual income from it as if it was a life-long rent, but TO ENSURE THAT WITHIN AN ADECUATE AMOUNT OF TIME, it would pass onto the Public Domain.

That was the original intent of the law.

If you don’t believe me, look it up.

If you don’t agree, go suck a lemon. This is not up for debate. It is plain History. Verifiable facts.

Now, I am all in favor of companies protecting their IP (intellectual Property), as long as they come up with viable business models that do not infringe on basic human freedoms and they respect the concept of Fair Use and Public Domain.

By the way, I’ve mentioned Fair Use, and you may not know what that is.

Fair Use is a very American concept ( I would say mostly American, and I wish most countries in the world would adopt) by which the special privileges of Copyright Law can be bypassed, as long as it is for use in commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving or scholarship.

OK. So that means that an artist can make a movie, but if you are writing an article about the effect of Cancer, you may use a clip of that movie for your article, because it falls on the grounds of research and teaching.

But since the beginning of the 20th century companies involved in entertainment, spearheaded by the Disney Company, have been lobbying (euphemism for BUYING) politicians to extend the length of the term of those said benefits, and later, with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act the US Congress legitimized their claims.

But they are not fair claims and these have not been fair laws, and the main victim has been The Public Domain, and by extension all of us.

You may argue ad nauseam any point you want to defend these companies. The point that trumps every argument is that THERE ARE NO COMPELLING REASONS other than safeguarding the profits these companies make, FOR INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF TIME THE PEOPLE HAVE TO WAIT BEFORE AN IP JOINS THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Every half-brained (and some of the full-brained too)politician wants to get into the pocket of the entertainment industry by sponsoring draconian measures of how to deal with what they have termed Piracy.

To be fair, NOT ALL politicians want to back up Draconian control policies on the digital media just because their campaign donors tell them to… some actually believe in what they are proposing.

And there are even a few (not many, unfortunately) that oppose these measures, and want the Public Domain to trump above all interests, as it is supposed to.

RECAPING: Are we against companies making profits? No. We want creator, inventors and artists to make money, and we want their works to join the public domain in a REASONABLE amount of time. We think also that those reasonable spans of times should have contracted and not expanded, because technology has created better business opportunities in the last 100 years than there ever were when Copyright law was conceived.

LET’S COMPLICATE THE ALREADY COMPLICATED TOPIC EVEN FURTHER

Enter the internet and the PC.

Now, in our homes we have a device that can do whatever we learn to program it to do. You want to create programs? Learn programming and go at it! You want to mix music? Learn to use the software and knock yourself out!

We now could do videos at home, we could exchange letters with friends, books, novels, we could print our own manuscripts and record and mix our own music.

At the onset of the PC (Personal Computer), in the 1980’s you could do all these things, only if you bothered on learning how and the learning curve was usually steep.

At the onset of the Personal Computer era each person was responsible for learning everything there was to learn in order to keep the PC humming. The analogy was like if you bought your own car and you also had to learn to became your own mechanic.

But the market introduced an answer to that quantity of users who didn’t want to become PC experts in order to just be productive with the device.

It was called a Mac!

These amazing consumer oriented computing devices were well constructed and had a great operating system that required a small learning curve, and seldom broke down!

And after 1995 The Internet made influxes in our homes. What we consider The Internet was brought at one time into our homes thanks to phone lines, modems and companies like AOL or Compuserve, that gave you a portal for your web browsing and your e-mail.

That was (and still is) what the majority of the consumers wanted out of the Internet. The guys (and gals) who had invested time learning all they could about PC’s usually wouldn’t settle for these services and would instead would find an Internet Service Provider (ISP) who would just give them access to the internet and they would ran their own tools.

The corporate world also introduced a response to the Wild World of the Internet: They created Intranets, (Internal Private Networks), and set up buffer zones (DMZ’s) and then loaded layers of security (Firewalls, Spam Filters, Content Filters, etc) and created pretty secured environments for their companies.

Enough PC history and now back to the article: Somewhere in the late 1990’s the users of the internet discovered they could exchange large and small files using different protocols. The practice came to be known as File Sharing.

Here comes the conflict: Immediately the companies that were making a killing with monopolistic business models, or with old and questionable business practices (The music industry first, and then the movie industry) started clamoring against the practice and got the courts to erect artificially high protections so they could continue living off their OLD business models.

These industries embraces the term PIRACY, which until then had been used and designated to call the high end, luxury items that were being replicated and sold off cheaper, for example, Gucci handbags, or Rolex Watches.  HERE the term made sense. Some manufacturer were hijacking a brand, a product and a design, and were making phisical copies, and selling them as ORIGINALS. The original creator was having their name and reputation placed in danger, and were loosing business oportunities in a market they were working hard to compete in.

Well, the entertainment industries took this concept and applied it to their products and started a disinformation campaign trying to make the public and the lawmakers believe that these a user sharing a song with another user USING HIS OWN HARDWARE AND HIS OWN BANDWIDTH, was the same as some fly-by-night company making lesser quality Handbags and selling them on the corner. All in the name of perpetuating their obsolete  business models.

Having the money accumulated after a century of massive profit making behind them, they financed lobbying organizations that put pressure on the politicians. Disney did this with their extension of the Copyright Act, first in 1976, and then again in 1998.

The politicians (if the political system worked as designed) should’ve taken into consideration the welfare of the Public Domain first, and the interest of a corporation second, instead of, as they did in fact, vice versa.

Other attempts were made form different fronts in order to create a hostile environment to users File-Sharing. It happened with the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) of 1998. Clearly drafted to continue protecting the business models of the large recording industries it completely ignored the right of the public to put works on the Public Domain. The largest problem you may encounter with it, is that it’s language criminalized all activity pertaining circumventing protection, even though some of that activity may occur in settings that SHOULD not criminalized, such as in my home, with my equipment and when I do it NOT FOR PROFIT.

RECAPPING:

A PC is a Personal Computing device. These devices are not devices subsidized by government grants and there is no other single standard pertaining PC’s other than what the IEEE suggests. Consequently there is no legitimate reason nor right to legislate what goes on in someone’s PC’s.

If I buy a digital device, (PC) and then use it to make copies of movies, music, comics, books, or porn, that is still my prerogative, as long as I don’t commercialize it, sell it, or infringe in their business model in any shape or form.

Because when it comes to what now is considered “Piracy” through the internet and the Personal Computer (PC) we are criminalizing private citizens who are buying their own equipment and using it for any private purpose they wish.

Making a copy of any IP for personal use IS NOT A CRIME.

MAKING IT A CRIME IS A CRIME.

But that is exactly what happened when Roger Clinton, the brother of President Bill Clinton convinced his brother to sign the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).

Our politicians seem more concerned with listening to the recording industry and the movie industry on their concerns about extending the years of copyright law protection, and prosecuting private citizens for what they do WITH THEIR EQUIPMENT IN THE PRIVACY OF THEIR HOMES, rather than making sure these companies contribute to the Public Domain in a timely manner, something that would benefit the most people.

When I discuss these points with defenders of the existing models, they call me “Supporter of pirates” or even weird thing like “Socialist” or “Communist”.

I believe that for someone to be considered a pirate the accuser has to demonstrate “REAL LOST OF REVENUE” and “REAL THEFT” .

This addresses the case of someone having written a book, say, 5 years ago. The book is out of print. No one can find a copy. But the publisher doesn’t deem it profitable to get a second print out.

The author right now is not making any profit from the book, since the publisher decided not to print any more.

But the Public is being denied the right to have access to that work. That eventuality has to be addressed, because there is no reason to forego the greater good of making the work available to the public for the eventuality that “someone” may want to publish later on, or eventually do something profitable with it.

Now, in the case of software, I completely understand that is not viable for a company to produce software and then let users copy it without paying for it. But then, it should be left up to the company to find ways of creating a VIABLE business model, not penalizing the user’s best interests in order to support companies broken business models.

People seem to think that Capitalism implies letting companies do whatever they want. That is more like a Plutocracy. In a good capitalistic system where the market sets the tone and prices WITHOUT GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION, the software companies that can’t come up with a viable business model would sink and the business would close.

Period.

But as it stands, the entertainment industry and the software industry  are the ones behaving like wards of the state, THEY ARE THE SOCIALISTS, using government to protect their interests and coercing congress to set up laws that favor their flawed business models.

IT IS CALLED PROTECTIONISM and it is not how CAPITALISM is supposed to work.

I would like to see a society find a balanced middle ground. For starters, I would rescind al the extensions we have given to IP copyrights, and set the timeframe when a work goes into public domain to something like 10 years. Not 30 and certainly not 50.

SOME FALLACIES THAT PERPETUATE UNJUST LAWS

ONE ARGUMENT: I hear the argument that by shortening the period and bringing works into public domain quickly, you are taking away the incentive to be creative.

Well, I counter-argue that statement by stating that by extending the copyright life of any work to beyond the half-life of the life expectancy of any human, you are promoting people to be complacent and NOT innovate.

DID you Make 1 popular song a long time ago? Well! Lay back and live off it for the rest of your natural life, without creating anything else, because copyright law now allows you to have a monopolistic control to it for more than 50 years!!!!. What kind of business lets you do that? Is that how society should work? Is that competitive? Come up with ONE thing and be set for life? Doesn’t this go against all the arguments the conservative political pundits make, about incentivizing workers, and giving incentive also to the job creators?

So let artists and companies commercialize in their innovative success for a finite amount of time, say 5, maybe 10 years and then bring the work onto the public domain, and thus let the creator or company come up with something else that will provide income for the next 5 or 10 years.

I also want to make a distinction between cultural creations and inventions.

Cultural creations CAN make a profit, but they don’t have to make profit in order to exist and proliferate. Cultural creations SOMETIMES are a byproduct of commerce, but most of the time (do the numbers, quantify it, to make sure) they are created for culture’s sake.

DID YOU KNOW THAT THE SONG HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU is copyrighted?

And it is currently owned by Time Warner?

http://www.unhappybirthday.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You

And you can be sued for singing it in public, and lots of documentaries and other means of information have run into trouble because of their use of the song?

FREAKING RIDICULOUS.

Inventions are usually applied to commerce and progress and thus profit has more often been tied to commercial applications and industry. Inventions can SOMETIMES be a byproduct of Cultural Creations, but empirically speaking the majority of them are done for commercial reasons, for profit.

So, when it comes to the time table that protect intellectual property, we should make two distinctive groups with different timeframes:A cultural creation will join the public domain in 5 years, while an invention will join the public domain in 10, for example.

What happens after the creation joins the public domain?

Currently, when a work joins the public domain, any publisher can launch and bring it to the public. That’s how Barnes and Noble,( For example) is able to release a collection of hardcover with classics (Little Women, Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde, Moby Dick, etc) at such affordable prices. Because it only has to cover printing and distribution costs.

I would like to make a clause to this: When a work enters the public domain, AND THE ARTIST IS STILL ALIVE,  the publishing entity would still have to give them a nominal amount for the work. The amount should be something standard and small, just so we won’t reward individuals who are non-productivity, but still have the artist/creator share in the profiting that is taking place on account of his/her work.

I want artists to thrive. I want artists and content creators to continue creating, and I want them to rip as much fruit of their labors as possible.

I don’t want artists to HAVE to rely on distribution houses, just because the business was setup that way long time ago, built upon a house of errors, misjudgments and corruption, and now it is deemed that is too late to change.

There is enough information and articles on the internet describing the business models of the music and movie industry to keep you reading for a long time, and let you quickly get the impression that these industries were based on monopolistic practices that usually were not very artists-friendly. The tales of musicians, writers, and other creative types getting screwed by the industries they tried to work for are countless, starting from Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster (Superman Creator’s), a long list of Jazz and Blues players, ending in script writers, composers and such on the movie industry.

Middle-men and distribution companies have to offer something more than a quasi-monopolistic grip on the industry they dominate. For example, in comics distributions it is Diamond, or good luck, chuck!

With music it used to be one of the three large labels, or you are really doomed to be touring in buses, paying for your own gas, and playing at roadhouses in the ass of the world till you get enough exposure to command your own deals.

This has little to do with the creation process, and a lot to do with monopolistic practices that affect the business case, and finally defines the industry.

Again, this is government putting the interest of the companies in front of the interest of the American people. Instead of creating good legislation that would protect CREATORS, they focus on passing legislation that protect those large industries.

I REPEAT, (and I can not emphasize this enough): I want artists and inventors to make money off their work.

I do not want nor find it acceptable that laws are passed to outlaw the practices of private citizens in the privacy of their homes, with their own means, without intention of profiteering, to preserve the well being of corporate entities and their obsolete business models.

Companies have to find other ways of monetizing on the content they decide to represent. Artists and inventors who want to make profits not only have to come up with good ideas (that is the creative part) but they also have to commercialize them in viable business models.

I do condemn groups of people selling illegally the IP of others for profit.

But the right of me to make a copy of a song, and give it to a friend, by any private/personal means that I see fit, shouldn’t be interfered by government law .

Also, the government shouldn’t regulate, interfere or intervene in ANY dealings occurring on the internet.

Government and law enforcement should use what happens on the Internet and prosecute people commiting crimes.  But The Internet SHOULD NOT BE REGULATED.

The internet was created as a set of protocols for communication purposes. NO ONE ASKS YOU TO JOIN THE INTERNET. You don’t want to send e-mail? Mail a letter! It is government created and regulated and safer. You don’t want to find porn when you are researching a topic. WALK YOUR ASS TO LIBRARY AND OPEN A BOOK. Libraries are government subsidized, (In their majority) and have regulations and safeguards.

The internet, as it was designed, was a method of exchanging information. It can be exchanged anonymously, and it doesn’t facilitate regulation or monitoring. THAT’S THE WAY THE INTERNET SHOULD REMAIN.

If someone wants to publish hate speech, it should be allowed. If someone wants to exchange recipes for cooking meth at home, they should be allowed. If someone wants to use it for a crime, they should be allowed. WHY?

Because this form of Internet was designed as a set of loose protocols designed to exchange information without passing judgment on said information.

I do believe that if someone commits a crime (cooking meth, or acts of pedophilia) thanks to the internet, they should be prosecuted and sentenced based on the crimes they committed. But not because they exchange information on the internet to commits those actions.

And before you ask me “But ComicWatcher! Then you are OK with terrorists exchanging information on dirty bombs to attack innocent Americans?”

I will respond: “I am OK with us prosecuting and stopping the terrorist from committing any acts of terror. I want the world to stop committing acts of terror. But I don’t want the Internet censored or manipulated with the premise that we are avoiding terrorism.”

And as a proof of what I am saying I present to you the TSA. The agency in the ports and airports in charge of making sure you don’t bring any dangerous materials on board, and all they have managed is their almost 10 years of existence is to allow one underwear bomber and one shoe bomber onto planes, while patting down children and old ladies, and annoying everyone else’s existence to no end.

The Internet is a tool that reveals a symptom. The internet is not the problem. The people misusing the internet is the problem. The moment you allow governments to regulate the internet you have given up one of the best tools available to exchange information. And no promise of security is worth the freedoms we are foregoing.

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

The same applies to file-sharing and copyright protection. The right of the individual to do what they want, with the equipment they own legally, trumps the interest of any mickeymouse corporation.

IN CONCLUSION

Some businesses and industries have built their profit models using flawed models and misusing legal precedent.

We need to reestablish the trumping power of Public Domain, and let the industries build their models AROUND Public Domain.

We can’t curtail neither the length of the copyright protections, (Should reset them back to something like 5 years) nor the power of Personal Fair Use or Public Domain

The Internet is not a tool for everyone, since it requires knowledge and training on the technologies it uses.

The Internet and the File Sharing Technologies it implies should never be touched, never be interfered with, never regulated, because it is our only safeguard to insure that that the common citizen can exchange information freely, now that the printed and televised media has been bought by private corporate interests, and can’t be expected to impartially report on the status quo nor be a tool for criticism and improvement.

The industries that are clamoring for more copyright protection (Movie, Music) have to find way of monetize on digital offerings, but know that the Internet and exchanges that take place on it via private citizens exchanging files is off limits. It occurs within their houses, it happens with equipment they purchased, and with bandwidth they are paying for. It is only those industries fault that they don’t know how to monetize on the new opportunities presented.

Piracy only occurs with the demonstrable loss of profit/revenue. A company CAN NOT supposes that an item copied is an item they lost on selling. The burden of proof is on the company making the claim, not the defendant.

How does this affect the comic industry?

I am proud to say that the comic book industry seem to have taken the high and smart ground, adopting a wait and see attitude, and embracing digital distribution when possible. I’ve seen lots and lots of comics being shared  via different sources. And I had many comics passed onto me in digital form, and all it has done to us is incresed our desired to purchase the real deal. Most of the comic collectors that I know of, have use digital copies of comics (that some may deem illegal copies) as screening process to be able to ascertain better what series they want to pursue and what comics they want to buy.

I would like to say that the comic industry has understood that they had to improve the quality of their producst and diversify, instead of fighting the trend, like the movie and music industry have been doing.

I would like to, albeit I am not sure that’s the reasons behind their attitudes.

So far the industry has adopted many services like Comixology for digital distribution, and is experimenting with digital same day releases, and that tells me that the industry believes on its own strengths and correcting its own weaknesses, without feeling the need to treat their customers like criminals.

Publishers are sending reviewers digital copies of their comics; lots of groups have been formed of fans sharing scanned copies of a comic, and all it serves is to steer the consumers towards the offering that would suit them bests and to avoid moments of anger and disappointment. It also lets the comic industry know it should be more diligent avoiding the fiasco of the 1990′s when they published CRAP for the sake of a quick buck, and that almost sunk the industry.

++++++++++++++++++

As always all comments are welcome.

Some of the collaborators of the blog were out of the country, while I was busy helping a creative friend with a project that needed polishing and also supporting a couple of couses against Internet Censoring.

I will resume new blog posts shortly, stay tuned!!

Tim Vigil, Circa 2008

Few artists command my respect as much as Tim Vigil does, and not all the reasons for my respect are based on his amazing art.

Back in the mid 80’s, when every collector and fan where trying to make a profit out of the comic book bubble (speculatoin), I discovered a very underground series by a then quasi unknown artists that signed his work under the name of Tim Vigil. That work was Faust, Love of the Damned, published by Rebel studios.

Tim Vigil also shares credits with David Quinn on this gory master piece, a master piece that dabbles in demonic deals, loss of loved ones, psychosis and any sexual and violent deviant fantasy you want to dwell on.

We may create a blog entry on this amazing underground series, Faust, Love of the Damnedat a later time, but lets focus on the creator now.

In the late 80′s Faust broke into the comic scene like a hurricane. All the younger crowds where salivating over the work Miller was doing with Daredevil, while the older crowd were being fascinated by Tim Vigil’s tour de force, or maybe we were also busy hunting down the hard to find issues of Larry Weltz’s Cherry Poptart (another comic that should be covered on another entry).
If you manage to find any of these issues of Faust on eBay or by asking your LCS you will bear witness to a couple of different things, and just so you can be thankful you read my blog and continue to refer your friends to our site, I shall take the time to point some out:
Evolution: From issue 1 through issue 13, we get to witness the maturing process, and see how Tim Vigil’s art mutates from good to amazing, and these changes are such that the likes of which you will rarely be able to witness in the world of comics.

Yes, you may get to see how John Byrne or Frank Cho changes from year to year, but to see the evolution and the brilliance emerge from issue 1 to issue 13 that is something that seldom happens in the last couple of decades of comic book history.

Style: Tim Vigil is a master of detail and baroque art. Wether you enjoy his style or not (which is mainly a very subjective matter) he is a magnificient illustrator, as he proved from the start and continues to show us in his current work.

His attention to detail borders the ODD, and he belongs in the ranks of Berni Wrigthson in that both convert environments and surroundings in unavoidable parts of the complex and beautiful canvas.

His inks paint the vellum taking into account lighting, volume, thickness of lines, and uses the bricks of the cities, the stones of the castles, the wrinkles on the clothes, to convey either eeriness, or dread, or lust.

His female characters arch their backs and stick out their wet tongues when they are getting banged, and we feel the steam coming out the drool, and the sweat glistening on thier skins.

It does help the fact that Tim Vigil professes no small amount of love in his homage to Frank Frazetta with the positioning of the bodies, the contorting of the limbs, and he does this without falling into imitation. He adores Frazetta, builds from him, and using him as a reference in order to grow, and establish his own style.

He is an artist’s artist: I’ve lost count of how many of my artist friends (even those of some degree of fame) I’ve asked how they feel about Tim Vigil’s art and they all tell me “Are you crazy? I love that guy!!”

Then, inevitably, they asked me if he has done anything else after Faust.

I’ve managed to approach Tim in many conventions. Let me just say that if I am not sure that I want to go to a certain convention, and I hear that Tim will be attending, I then make an effort to go.
He always treats all his fans as potential peers. And sometimes that’s an double-edge sword, because he assumes they know as much as he does, and when they don’t he doesn’t have a problem making fun of them, and giving them a good ribbing.

In my book, the man has earn it, so don’t expect me to mark this against him. And some fans I see in the expressions on their faces that they don’t know how to handle it.

He is always direct and to the point. If someone asks his opinion about their artwork he won’t sugarcoat it. When I’m around his table, I end up feeling a bit like a stalker, cause I end up enjoying more hearing Tim talking to other people, rather than actually talking to the master myself. I always leave his table having spent more time than I initially allocated but don’t mind when it balances out with the quantity of amazing good tidbits I get from hearing him talk to other people.

Again bears mentioning that I personally know of a good number of published artists (some currently working for one of the Big Two, for those of you who believe falsely that only Marvel or DC publish comics) who have confided on how many aspects of their art came from emulating Tim Vigil.

And some of them can list the items they have emulated, like for example, how he makes the shinny hairs, the contorted body postures, the dramatic expansions of the fingers, the details of the backgrounds, the sliminess of the monsters… the list goes on and on.

Tim belongs to the rare bread of artists that I consider true artists.
Some people define artists in terms of whether they have been published or not. Some define them by whether they made an impact on the medium or not.

I’ve defined artists as those who would still do the art they do no matter what. No matter whether someone pays them, whether they get published, whether they get the public’s adulation.
The true artist NEEDS to express the work they craft.

It is a sad fact that in this day and age artists (and human beings in general) have to eat, and thus commercial art is born.

I may understand the intricacies of the comic book market more than some and less than most. I am of the strong opinion that all artist should get paid to create, no matter what. But that is not the reality we live in.

Artists who want to try their craft professionally, have to learn and adjust to the needs of the markets of their time.

Tim Vigil has always been to me one of those artists who may be making a lot of money, may be in total obscurity, may be highly regarded or completely ignored, he may work as a day-labor at a construction company to pay the bill or as a toll-collector on a bridge, he will always find time to illustrate and do what his soul screams to do.

No matter what, he will continue to illustrate those amazing journeys into the mouth of madness.

And that is the main reason why I respect him so much and I dedicate him a segment in my blog.

In one of those short conversations I had with him during a convention, (I’m pretty sure it was 2011 NYC Comic Con) I asked him about an omnibus for Faust, and he said he is close to striking a deal.

For more recent works that you may still find at the websites of the publishers you may want to peruse the Avatar’s web site, and look for Webwitch and Faust Hornbook.

I can only wish more success and more public recognition to such a great artist.

You may follow Rebel Studios offerings at http://rebelstudios.proboards.com

or follow Tim’s blog at http://timvigil.blogspot.com/

http://comicbook.com/blog/2012/01/09/printed-comics-nearing-death-as-marvel-strikes-latest-blow/

I actually believe that in the very NEAR future most comics will be purchased in digital format at very affordable prices. THEN the reader will head out to LCS (Local Comic Store) to buy the floppies.

I see a great market of selling digital comics for a dollar or so, and knowing that the true fan will want to have something tangible in his hands then the comic company will rely on the LCS to sell the Trade paper back.

I also predict that in the near future the LCS will shift their business models to carry mainly specialty items and Trade Paper Backs. The store will have more figurines and clocks, tshirts and paraphernalia than comics.

This trend will start in large cities, of course.

Smaller cities and large town, where you only find one LCS for 50 or 100 miles will be safer and be forced to adapt to this trend at a slower pace. Then again, almost everything is done at a slower pace in smaller towns anyway.

Anyway, go and read the article and let me know what your thoughts are!