Just saw Scott McCloud speak.
Went with the Cinnamon Girl & our hot buddy L (y'know you're way past the geek limit when you take a break in the middle of a fiery, long-anticipated 3-way play date to go see a stranger discuss comics). We devoured great sushi afterward and babbled about the deluge of inspiration & information. He talked (by his kid's calculation) about two and a half hours nonstop. If the dude's not as A.D.D. as me I'll eat my hat & his glasses, but it's no wonder the place was packed. Gifted speaker with a super-tight onscreen/spoken presentation and a whole lotta very astute observations. The whole event was wall-to-wall product placement for Apple (hope they're paying his way), but it also illustrated a really sharp teacher/creator in his prime. Great at thinking on his feet; humble, engaged,very clear language around categories of media types. Better yet, he takes (astute, clear & funny) input from his teenage daughter while on stage. (Her own slideshow presentation was as crafted as his, but had the additional merit of brevity. Well done.)
He made some off-the-cuff remark about tunneling through a small topic until one emerges through the black hole of obsession & sees the entire world (awkward paraphrasing mine, idea his). Seemed to describe his approach well, though I don't know if he was intentionally pointing at his own process.
One other neat observation he made was about characters in N. American comix tending to play to the audience; facing front in a more theatrical style than characters in many products from elsewhere. Made me wonder if that's equally true of N. American erotic representation, and if smut from elsewhere has different emphasis; different placement of the camera. Whaddya think?
I twigged to a bunch of realizations about projects I'm working on AND kinda scorched my eyes on a gorgeous comic geek a couple seats away from us... Note to self: attend more comix events.
Off to the rest of my life.
Went with the Cinnamon Girl & our hot buddy L (y'know you're way past the geek limit when you take a break in the middle of a fiery, long-anticipated 3-way play date to go see a stranger discuss comics). We devoured great sushi afterward and babbled about the deluge of inspiration & information. He talked (by his kid's calculation) about two and a half hours nonstop. If the dude's not as A.D.D. as me I'll eat my hat & his glasses, but it's no wonder the place was packed. Gifted speaker with a super-tight onscreen/spoken presentation and a whole lotta very astute observations. The whole event was wall-to-wall product placement for Apple (hope they're paying his way), but it also illustrated a really sharp teacher/creator in his prime. Great at thinking on his feet; humble, engaged,very clear language around categories of media types. Better yet, he takes (astute, clear & funny) input from his teenage daughter while on stage. (Her own slideshow presentation was as crafted as his, but had the additional merit of brevity. Well done.)
He made some off-the-cuff remark about tunneling through a small topic until one emerges through the black hole of obsession & sees the entire world (awkward paraphrasing mine, idea his). Seemed to describe his approach well, though I don't know if he was intentionally pointing at his own process.
One other neat observation he made was about characters in N. American comix tending to play to the audience; facing front in a more theatrical style than characters in many products from elsewhere. Made me wonder if that's equally true of N. American erotic representation, and if smut from elsewhere has different emphasis; different placement of the camera. Whaddya think?
I twigged to a bunch of realizations about projects I'm working on AND kinda scorched my eyes on a gorgeous comic geek a couple seats away from us... Note to self: attend more comix events.
Off to the rest of my life.
I'm a huge fan of black box spaces and theatre in the round or alley seating. I've decided that the proscenium arch (that picture frame thing that the actors spend most of their time behind in conventional theatre) is what's wrong with our audience; separating them from the action that way just encourages them to watch theatre the same way they watch television. Disengaged from their comfy chairs.