Sarah Glidden's How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less

Recently, I dropped into a comic book store that specialized in indie comics. I felt bad about spending so much time in there and not buying anything, so I picked up Sarah Glidden's How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less. It's about a young Jewish woman going on the Birthright tour to Israel. The tour is meant to expose expat Jews to their homeland and culture.

I enjoyed it for its thoughtfulness and the personal nature of the work. One of the best graphic novels I've read in a long time. There is a similar tour sponsored by the Taiwanese government, nicknamed "The Love Boat." Surprisingly, I found a lot to relate to in Glidden's novel despite not knowing much about Jewish culture. I identified strongly with the struggle to decide "what side you're on", whether or not to agree with the politics of your homeland. Maybe it's not surprising. One of my family friends said that there's a lot of similarity between Chinese and Jewish culture, which is why many Chinese-Americans and Jewish-Americans marry.

Link of the day: Scott McCloud on understanding comics

While watching a different TED talk, I came across a talk by Scott McCloud called "Understanding Comics." McCloud is an advocate of comics as a legitimate art form. The first part of the talk connects his experiences growing up with a blind father and the idea of creative vision.

According to McCloud, the principles of creative vision are

• Learn from everyone
  
• Follow no one
  
• Watch for patterns
  
• Work like hell

In the world of art, he divides creative approach roughly into

• Formalist (thinking, form)
  
• Classicist (sensation, beauty)
  
• Animist (intuition, content)
  
• Iconoclast (feeling, truth)

The second half focuses on comics in the past and future. McCloud doesn't bother talking about comics in the present, assuming that the audience is already familiar with it. The presentation makes the first and second halves feel disconnected; maybe he was cramming too much into the short time frame. The brevity of the talk (17 minutes) made it difficult for him to delve deeply into his topic. I need to go read McCloud's book, also called Understanding Comics.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog review

Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog is an independently produced musical film project originated by Joss Whedon, who created the famous Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS), Angel and Firefly TV shows. Joss and his half-brother Jed co-wrote the music and lyrics. What makes the project unusual is that the film was self-funded without the involvement of a studio and that the film was released via internet channels (iTunes, Hulu). The cast was unpaid, though the production and crew casts were recouped via iTunes and DVD sales.

I am a huge fan of musicals and also a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After watching "Once More With Feeling" (the BtVS musical episode), I was compelled to watch Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog on Hulu [1].

The story is basically a satire on the comic book superhero stereotype, with a few twists thrown in. I'm not a huge fan of superheros or most comedy, so I wasn't really entertained. I'm not the person to ask though.

Neil Patrick Harris (Dr. Horrible) and Nathan Fillion (Captain Hammer) were very good. I expected no less from Harris, who in addition to being an actor, has sung professionally in Sondheim's Sweeney Todd and Assassins. Harris sings very well, with nice expression in his voice. In contrast, I'm not aware of Fillion having any musical experience. I was pleasantly surprised with singing. He acts very well through his singing. Fillion steals the show as a swaggering Captain Hammer. Felicia Day (who plays Penny, the love interest) has a weak voice and not much expression in it. It was weird to have a love interest played by an alto. Her vocal range overlapped pretty heavily with Harris's tenor. This is definitely not typical in most Broadway musicals.

The music and lyrics were decent (worse things have been put on in multi-million dollar Broadway productions), but not as good as "Once More With Feeling." I enjoyed "My Freeze Ray", "Brand New Day," "So They Say", and "Slipping." A few songs seemed repetitive. I didn't like any of Penny's songs. Fortunately, there weren't too many obviously pastiche numbers besides the Bad Horse songs (where pastiche was done for the comic effect). I would have liked some ensemble songs (think "Into the Woods" or "A Weekend in the Country") and there just weren't any in this musical. I realize that wasn't possible with the small-scale production values and the brevity of the work. The lyrics were good, but nothing remarkable except for Captain's Hammer's amusing posturing.

I don't understand all the internet hype about this musical. It's a decent musical and impressive for the small cast/crew/budget, but who are all these people -- Whedonites? I suspect that Dr. Horrible is a romp for comic book fans (in the same way The Guild is for MMORPG diehards). Maybe that's what I'm missing.

I do appreciate Joss Whedon's efforts to bring musicals and small, independent projects to a wider audience. It's sad but musicals are a dying interest in the US. Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog is a good introduction to musicals for the superhero nerd but non-musical nerd in your life.

[1] The free Hulu viewings expire in two days.

Link of the day: humble comics

I found out about Gene Yang, who writes Asian American comics! He has a website called Humble Comics [1]. I love his drawings of Monkey King. I used to read Monkey King picture books when I was a kid and my mom has a marker drawing I made of Monkey King hanging in her office.

I was fortunate enough to find a copy of Yang's American Born Chinese comic book at the local library. It's a nice book with a clever twist. I think the target audience was "young adult" (ages 10-14?), so I wouldn't re-read it myself. But American Born Chinese could make a good gift to a young "ABC" [2].

[1] Monkey King is a fictional character from the famous Chinese novel Journey to the West.
[2] ABC = American Born Chinese (popular slang)