http://driftlessareareview.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/the-art-of-reviewing-special-case-file-1-the-movie-300/

“Warriors come out and play!”

Even the Wu Tang Clan are more in touch with the Western Canon than your usual Extruded Fanboy Product(TM). I’ve wasted too much time playing the contrarian to the Gaimanites who gushed over that “Beowulf” movie (featuring Angelina Jolie’s jubblies in CGI) and how it offered the audience a hike through the Uncanny Valley. When I want to see “The Polar Express” with tits and swords, I’ll let you know. For now, I’ll reserve that for my nightmares and when “Eraserhead” isn’t enough for me.

Then again, debating aesthetics and taste with a fanboy is like playing blackjack with a meth-addled squirrel. (No offense to squirrels or the meth-addled.)

Fanboy, synonymous with the term: Fucktard.

I am a reader. I prefer the images a book conjures in my head to that of movies most of the time. Pans Labyrinth is the last film that I watched that sent my mind racing with creative ideas as well as thought provoking ones, and encouraged my imagination to play in its fields of cinematic imagery long after my eyes had taken it in. It is the first movie in a long time to evoke such. And I will admit upfront that I was and am a fan of LOTR. Including its CGI.

My husband and best friend are artists, both of them prefering the cartooning world of art to that of traditional. I am the writer of the group. We have long collaborated together on creating comic books, an art form near and dear to our hearts. Yes, I said art form. I agree that there are many comics out there, especially the over production of classics into fifteen hundred series running all at the same time in the hope to catch some sort of audience with one of them, that has helped to deepen the cheapening of comic books as an art. Manga has gone the way of many imports into the U.S. and that is “spoon-fed” which irritates me to NO END. But I have always believed that great writing can be combined with great art. I personally prefer collaborating my writings with my husband’s and best friend’s art into series of large graphic novels, while my best friend prefers writing shorts and publishing them into streaming pages within collections of “books.” I whole heartedly believe that it is corporate America that cheapens the art that comics used to be and can be. This in no way means that I believe that comics are equal too or should replace novels, quite the contrary in fact. I am a writer of novels. Always have been, always will be. But I believe that there is a whole other level of freedom that I can play with when producing these graphic novel collaborations that I don’t have with simply writing a novel.

I agree that the film industry is just buying out one comic book story after another and turning them into crap adaptations. Everybody is out to make a buck and unfortunately the generations coming up don’t know that they are being fed crap because they never read the original.

I also believe CGI can be the way to another form of art–true art. My husband–a fabulous artist–was in a car accident right out of graduating high school and computers have allowed him to continue art when for all other intents and purposes would not be available to him otherwise. He is able to create three-D renderings and characters that require more hands-on than he is able to physically do without the aid of computers and computer programs such as Maya. Unfortunately, industry greed and accessibilty to these programs to any hack with enough cash and no morals has perpetuated the low standards of CGI and CGI art as well as given it the reputation you so rightfully point out, as being an overused, over hacked, and uncredible art form.

Hulot and bewilderment: Thanks for the tip and I will be seeking out that series. Personally I’ve always envisioned you as more of a Chauncey Gardiner (aka Chance) character from Kosinski’s novel and the excellent film version starring Peter Sellers… But while in some ways you are benignly ‘oblivious’, you are also possessed of an acute awareness to your inner and outer world that is manifested in your writing and your personality.