Hey Look at This!

So OL3 Media just published my Scott Pilgrim article. Go Look at it!

“Oh check it out! I learned the bass line from Final Fantasy II”: Scott Pilgrim vs. Geek Culture

 

How I feel at the moment.

 

Check it out yo!

Black, White and Shades of Grey- Blundering Espionage and the Politics of Spy vs. Spy

Note: The Following was originally done for a class on Spies in Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University. The paper, can also be found at Sean Ahern’s Profile at Academia.edu.

The January 1961 issue of Mad Magazine would introduce a new section to the humor periodical entitled the Joke and Dagger Dept. to present the work of artist Antonio Prohias. A Cuban political cartoonist in exile after the rise of Fidel Castro, Prohias would move to New York and approach the magazine with a pair of characters that saw the world in black and white- two characters that hated the others ideas so much that they would work to kill, maim, or steal from each other at every possible chance (Evanier, 149). Spy vs. Spy would become a staple of the magazine in the coming decades with Prohias creating outlandish scenarios for the two characters to outwit and outsmart each other on a regular basis. While interactions of the black and white spy in the Spy vs. Spy comic is filled with physical humor directed at a young teen crowd, the former political newspaper cartoonist’s use of pantomime alongside a world colored in black and white helped to create a comment on the spying practices of the Cold War and parody the mysterious and often intriguing life of a spy.  Using the works of Teodora Carabas and Kristin L. Matthews on the subject of Mad magazine and Spy vs. Spy, I argue the strip , while not directly political, presents a comment by Prohias and the publishers of Mad magazine during the Cold War on the black and white nature of our society in a time where shades of grey dominate. I will also the work of Stuart Hall’s “Encoding/Decoding” as a basis to how to look at the spies now in a post-Cold War setting as a satire comic drawn by Peter Kuper and the changing image of spies in culture.

Seven Evil Exes and Nerd Commodities

So…OL3 Media wants me to finish an academic essay on Scott Pilgrim for them. You can only assume what I looked like when I checked my email this morning and saw that they wanted 2,000 words by May 15.

Basically my thougts exactly.

Here’s my idea in its unadulterated form:

The 2010 release of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Edgar Wright’s adaptation of the popular Scott Pilgrim series created by Bryan Lee O’Malley, introduced a worldwide audience to the adventures of Scott Pilgrim as he fights for the affection of Ramona Flowers via her Seven Evil Exes. Both O’Mally’s original comic book series and Wright’s big screen adaptation rely heavily on the application of video game narratives and aesthetics to push the storyline forward. As Scott defeats each of the members of The League of Evil Exes, he collects the bonus coins left behind in their defeat and moves onto the next level of his relationship with Ramona in hopes of finally saving his princess from the final Evil Ex (and final boss)- Gideon Gordon Graves.  The application of familiar video game narratives to the story, classic video game characters and titles for band names, and “8-bit” styling in both the comic and movie appropriates hip, geek culture for a mainstream audience. Using Dick Hebdige’s theories on Subcultures, I will look at the use of “geek chic” as a new storytelling tool that brings subcultural ideas and images to the forefront of summer movie events like Scott Pilgrim.

Don't underestimate the power of nerds