Science fiction is like a shapeshifter with a split personality. Sometimes it's cheap, shiny and energetic -- all the fun you want to have, but can't because it's not physically, technologically or logically possible. Other times, it's a twisted and reconfigured statement about the world outside your window -- or the world that it could become.
But within those two main spheres of the genre, there are almost endless possibilities. Science fiction is both Captain Kirk versus the monster and Kirk versus the problem. It's Superman battling Doomsday over the skies of Metropolis and Batman using high-tech toys to cripple the mob in Gotham City. It's George Lucas' bombastic tales of good versus evil and George Orwell's cold, gritty vision of English socialism.
If it's not been made apparent by the above rant, I've been an avid science fiction fan for as long as I can remember. When I started kindergarten, I was the kid who took Transformers and G.I. Joe a little too seriously. I started reading comic books when I was 8 and quickly figured out I wanted to be Spider-Man -- and have never really grown out of either of those two things. I wrote my first (poorly-typed) science fiction story when I was 9 about NASA going to Mars (I had just gotten back from Space Camp). I can tell you which Star Trek films are worth your time and, unfortunately, which Friday the 13th movies are too. The last two novels I've read are Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and American Gods, and my four favorite authors are Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, Mark Millar and Grant Morrison.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to this class.
But within those two main spheres of the genre, there are almost endless possibilities. Science fiction is both Captain Kirk versus the monster and Kirk versus the problem. It's Superman battling Doomsday over the skies of Metropolis and Batman using high-tech toys to cripple the mob in Gotham City. It's George Lucas' bombastic tales of good versus evil and George Orwell's cold, gritty vision of English socialism.
If it's not been made apparent by the above rant, I've been an avid science fiction fan for as long as I can remember. When I started kindergarten, I was the kid who took Transformers and G.I. Joe a little too seriously. I started reading comic books when I was 8 and quickly figured out I wanted to be Spider-Man -- and have never really grown out of either of those two things. I wrote my first (poorly-typed) science fiction story when I was 9 about NASA going to Mars (I had just gotten back from Space Camp). I can tell you which Star Trek films are worth your time and, unfortunately, which Friday the 13th movies are too. The last two novels I've read are Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and American Gods, and my four favorite authors are Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, Mark Millar and Grant Morrison.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to this class.
posted by Nick Beadle at 8:40 PM
2 Comments:
Nick, I'm interested that your four favorite writers include two known primarily for comics (Millar and Morrison), one who first made his name writing comics (Gaiman), and one who, from early in his career, has been a big influence on comics (Bradbury); 26 of Bradbury's stories were adapted by Al Feldstein for EC Comics in the 1950s. Do you think comics are the ideal format for science fiction, and what what science fiction comics since 2000 would you recommend to us?
Also, are you still writing science fiction stories, however well or poorly typed?
I think I remember seeing some comic dealers trying to push some of the Bradbury comics at his lecture at UNA a few years back.
The format does work exceptionally well for science fiction, if only because it brings out the visual element extremely well so that if the writer and artist really click, or the writer/artist is really good, the reader has a better chance at seeing the imagination behind the story.
And while comics offer that visual element, it allows writers to keep some of the neat storytelling tricks that are sometimes impossible pull off outside of literature that Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman in particular are very good at.
As far as science fiction, some of the better (accessible) works since 2000 I can think of would be Gaiman's Endless Nights (though only of the stories, "The Peninsula," is clear-cut sci-fi) and Grant Morrison's freakily fun We3. Bill Willingham's Fables is also very good, though it leans more toward fantasy.
On the superhero side, Mark Millar's The Ultimates is probably the best, most thought out superhero comics out there and what I've read of Morrison's Seven Soldiers epic has been exceptional.
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