Lets talk about SALT, The Oil Gusher In the Gulf, And Bogworld's new direction
This week I review the new movie SALT, talk about whether or not America will learn anything from the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and talk a little about the new direction behind Bogworld.
Welcome to another week at Bogworld. I took a much needed vacation last week. I slept a lot. Did a TV interview promoting my book. Spent a lot of time with my Mom and Dad. And even took in an air show. All things considered it was a pretty damn good break. Thank you for sticking with me while I was away.
The response to the slightly new direction I have taken Bogworld has been well received. For those of you who missed the announcement, basically I am trying to make Bogworld's art more creative and fun. I am, after all, a real commercial illustrator. I've done art pieces in some of the country's biggest museums and publications. When I started drawing Bog and Bogworld, I was influenced by some of the great artists in newspaper cartooning. Pogo from the 60s and Calvin in Hobbes in the 80s. I really do not like the "talking head" kind of comic strips that today's newspapers demand cue to the tiny spaces being allowed for a comic strip in a current newspaper. I hated that Bogworld sort of unintentionally became a talking head cartoon strip. Bogworld doesn't have to be a talking head strip. Bogworld is not confined to the standards of a newspaper. Bogworld is a web toon and has the freedom to really be whatever it wants to be. Well, I am trying to rediscover that freedom.
I want Bogworld to be a visual treat along with being truly funny.
I am no longer forcing myself to draw a cartoon every night. I am trying to be honest with you and honest with myself that if I cannot come up with a good cartoon idea, I am wasting my time and material drawing something mediocre and I am wasting your time by not presenting something great. I've been watching the way people visit this cartoon page. Most of you check in every Monday. Most of you check in one more time later in the week. Noting that took a lot of pressure off me. I would rather do two or three really good well drawn cartoons a week than 5-7 mediocre ones. I think in the long run readers appreciate consistently good cartoons over a lot of ok ones.
So thats what I am trying to do here.
The Gusher Is Capped, Now What Did We Learn?
Without getting too political here, I have my doubts that America is going to learn anything from the Gulf Oil Disaster.
Why?
Because Americans--both Democrats and Republicans-- have the attention span of a jack rabbit on crack. Somewhere along the way most of us have lost the ability to learn from history. We certainly do not seem to learn from our mistakes any more. Thanks to the lack of honest reporting or at least a clarity of news reporting, we can all find the news that makes us feel better rather than news that directly delivers the bare boned honest truth.
So right now BP is reportedly hiring “scientists” who will act as “expert witnesses” to say the oil spill really was not as bad as it might seem. They are spending nearly as much on warm fuzzy television commercials telling us how everything is going to be alright, as they are actually cleaning up the mess they caused. Meaning their media blitz probably will convince lots of folks that things are not so bad.
This environmental disaster should have been a clear message to the whole world that off shore oil drilling is problematic and inherently dangerous. It should remind us that we have to work so hard to find oil because were running out of it. No matter what, eventually we are going to have to find alternatives to using oil generated energy. This should have been the kick in the ass the whole world needs to see that.
But all I see are BP ads telling us everything will be fine and political ads telling us that new clean energy initiatives will somehow mean losses of jobs and more expensive prices at our gas pumps. Someone tell me how creating less demand on gas would drive prices up? Tell me how a space race type project to discover and develop new clean energy alternatives would eliminate jobs? The Apollo program literally created millions of new careers and spun off countless supporting businesses.
While America gets tied up in lies and mixed messages because of the greed of oil companies, China reportedly is taking the lead in developing energy alternatives. Maybe we need to see China as our new rival in an energy race just like we recognized how if Russia was allowed to win the space race, America might be a secondary world power. Maybe we need that sense of competition to drive the whole world towards a better cleaner future.
But for the moment it looks like were going to be lazy and not do much of anything.
SALT- The Movie Review
When I heard Angelina Jolie was going to do a James Bond type action adventure earlier this summer I was really excited. After al, Jolie was the first woman... perhaps the first human... to turn a video game franchise into a watchable movie. Her depiction of video game icon Lara Croft showed that this girl could kick ass just like any of the boys. So I really wanted to see what she could do with a more real type action adventure.
In a nutshell, SALT turned out to be flavorless. So much potential is wasted here that the whole experience was kind of depressing.
Jolie played Evelyn Salt who is an American Agent. Or is she? The movie likes to play on the ambiguity of her alliances. Is she good or is she bad? I should actually care if she is good or bad, right? As a movie, there is an obligation the filmmaker has to give the audience an emotional anchor in the lead characters. One way or another, I should feel something. But I honestly never felt anything for Evelyn Salt or any of her supporting cast. In fact the movie makes it hard to like anyone. And since I did not like anyone I did not really care about what happened to them in the course of the movie. Its such a basic rule in story telling. Yet this experienced actor and the experienced crew that made the film somehow overlooked it completely.
What I found most hard to swallow was the amount of relatively innocent people who get hurt or killed by Salt while we are all trying to figure out who she really is working for. Literally dozens and dozens of security guards and cops and secret service agents and random Russian agents are killed... which begs the question; why is that ok?
The movie has so many gaping flaws like that it makes it hard to enjoy the movie. And so I really did not enjoy this movie.
Maybe if I had not seen the well crafted, well written INCEPTION earlier in the week I would have been more forgiving of SALT, but I really doubt it.
The response to the slightly new direction I have taken Bogworld has been well received. For those of you who missed the announcement, basically I am trying to make Bogworld's art more creative and fun. I am, after all, a real commercial illustrator. I've done art pieces in some of the country's biggest museums and publications. When I started drawing Bog and Bogworld, I was influenced by some of the great artists in newspaper cartooning. Pogo from the 60s and Calvin in Hobbes in the 80s. I really do not like the "talking head" kind of comic strips that today's newspapers demand cue to the tiny spaces being allowed for a comic strip in a current newspaper. I hated that Bogworld sort of unintentionally became a talking head cartoon strip. Bogworld doesn't have to be a talking head strip. Bogworld is not confined to the standards of a newspaper. Bogworld is a web toon and has the freedom to really be whatever it wants to be. Well, I am trying to rediscover that freedom.
I want Bogworld to be a visual treat along with being truly funny.
I am no longer forcing myself to draw a cartoon every night. I am trying to be honest with you and honest with myself that if I cannot come up with a good cartoon idea, I am wasting my time and material drawing something mediocre and I am wasting your time by not presenting something great. I've been watching the way people visit this cartoon page. Most of you check in every Monday. Most of you check in one more time later in the week. Noting that took a lot of pressure off me. I would rather do two or three really good well drawn cartoons a week than 5-7 mediocre ones. I think in the long run readers appreciate consistently good cartoons over a lot of ok ones.
So thats what I am trying to do here.
The Gusher Is Capped, Now What Did We Learn?
Without getting too political here, I have my doubts that America is going to learn anything from the Gulf Oil Disaster.
Why?
Because Americans--both Democrats and Republicans-- have the attention span of a jack rabbit on crack. Somewhere along the way most of us have lost the ability to learn from history. We certainly do not seem to learn from our mistakes any more. Thanks to the lack of honest reporting or at least a clarity of news reporting, we can all find the news that makes us feel better rather than news that directly delivers the bare boned honest truth.
So right now BP is reportedly hiring “scientists” who will act as “expert witnesses” to say the oil spill really was not as bad as it might seem. They are spending nearly as much on warm fuzzy television commercials telling us how everything is going to be alright, as they are actually cleaning up the mess they caused. Meaning their media blitz probably will convince lots of folks that things are not so bad.
This environmental disaster should have been a clear message to the whole world that off shore oil drilling is problematic and inherently dangerous. It should remind us that we have to work so hard to find oil because were running out of it. No matter what, eventually we are going to have to find alternatives to using oil generated energy. This should have been the kick in the ass the whole world needs to see that.
But all I see are BP ads telling us everything will be fine and political ads telling us that new clean energy initiatives will somehow mean losses of jobs and more expensive prices at our gas pumps. Someone tell me how creating less demand on gas would drive prices up? Tell me how a space race type project to discover and develop new clean energy alternatives would eliminate jobs? The Apollo program literally created millions of new careers and spun off countless supporting businesses.
While America gets tied up in lies and mixed messages because of the greed of oil companies, China reportedly is taking the lead in developing energy alternatives. Maybe we need to see China as our new rival in an energy race just like we recognized how if Russia was allowed to win the space race, America might be a secondary world power. Maybe we need that sense of competition to drive the whole world towards a better cleaner future.
But for the moment it looks like were going to be lazy and not do much of anything.
SALT- The Movie Review
When I heard Angelina Jolie was going to do a James Bond type action adventure earlier this summer I was really excited. After al, Jolie was the first woman... perhaps the first human... to turn a video game franchise into a watchable movie. Her depiction of video game icon Lara Croft showed that this girl could kick ass just like any of the boys. So I really wanted to see what she could do with a more real type action adventure.
In a nutshell, SALT turned out to be flavorless. So much potential is wasted here that the whole experience was kind of depressing.
Jolie played Evelyn Salt who is an American Agent. Or is she? The movie likes to play on the ambiguity of her alliances. Is she good or is she bad? I should actually care if she is good or bad, right? As a movie, there is an obligation the filmmaker has to give the audience an emotional anchor in the lead characters. One way or another, I should feel something. But I honestly never felt anything for Evelyn Salt or any of her supporting cast. In fact the movie makes it hard to like anyone. And since I did not like anyone I did not really care about what happened to them in the course of the movie. Its such a basic rule in story telling. Yet this experienced actor and the experienced crew that made the film somehow overlooked it completely.
What I found most hard to swallow was the amount of relatively innocent people who get hurt or killed by Salt while we are all trying to figure out who she really is working for. Literally dozens and dozens of security guards and cops and secret service agents and random Russian agents are killed... which begs the question; why is that ok?
The movie has so many gaping flaws like that it makes it hard to enjoy the movie. And so I really did not enjoy this movie.
Maybe if I had not seen the well crafted, well written INCEPTION earlier in the week I would have been more forgiving of SALT, but I really doubt it.