To Be A Nerd: Patton Oswalt and Nerdism

Patton Oswalt wrote a compelling and interesting article on nerdery, pop culture and subculture. It could be considered the co-theory of Pop Will Eat Itself: Nerds Will Eat Themselves, Throw It All Up and Coat the World. (The article)

I got to thinking a little bit. 'Nerd' as it was used in the eighties and, certainly for me, the nineties, wasn't just about what you liked, or to borrow Oswalt's vernacular, what you lined your thought-palace with. Being called a nerd was as much about the people who did the name calling in the first place. You can't be called something without someone calling. To be a nerd was to like something different, weird, not part of the mainstream. We liked things the cool kids weren't aware of, and that made them dislike us but it also made us special.

I don't think that defining aspect of nerdism is gone. True, nerd culture is now pop culture, but that just means a different set of likes and small joys that sit outside the mainstream are being devoured by a new, different set of neo-nerds. Maybe using the word 'nerd' to describe an outcast kid is off-base now, and we need a new word. It should be easy to find: simply go down to the nearest schoolyard and eavesdrop on the words being spat at by those outcasts.

Nerd used to be derisive, or maybe you've forgotten. I think everyone's always been a weak Otaku, they've just had different things to obsess over. From a housewife in the fifties discussing the best laundry detergent with her friends to a member of the Vienese court, waxing lyrical over Beethoven in 1795. What really made a nerd, back in my day, was that what you liked was scorned by the mainstream, but you loved it anyway.

I'm certain those signifiers still exist today. What are they, do you think? In an age where Boba Fett and comic books are cool, what isn't?

One Of My Favourite Chudwuffers

http://www.chudwuffer.com/2008/09/29/boring-sex/

and this one

http://www.chudwuffer.com/2008/09/23/hugh-manatee/

There are an embarrassing number of broken images...

Killeroo still chuggin'

KILLEROO Production Diaries

In case you missed 'em, here are the last five Killeroo blog posts. Check out my Facebook profile (a link is to the right of this post) to see killer character designs by Ryan, our artist supreme.

A Reprimand

By Simon J. Green ⋅ April 1, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

Predictably, I have much to learn. Today I was lightly reprimanded for giving too much detail on posture and stance during a discussion on a character’s design. These are the things I learn in the face of naivety. I was told such details should be left for those moments in the script. Indeed they are [...]

Chapter 2, Draft 1… BASHED!

By Simon J. Green ⋅ March 24, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

I walked into the room late in the afternoon. The room reeked of a whole day’s worth of bodies sweating over their work. The script jumped out at me before I’d even taken my seat. BAM! A knee in the guts and an elbow in my back, forcing me onto the ground, splinters collecting in [...]

My Face! My Valuable Face!

By Simon J. Green ⋅ March 19, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

Oh man. So much has been going down! I’m sitting in a dentist office with a numb mouth, keepin’ it real on the iPhone so I can update this page. We have an artist on onboard, two in fact, and Daz has been going over the layouts with one of them. He’s been kind enough [...]

The Not So Silent Treatment

By Simon J. Green ⋅ March 5, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

Treatments are freakin’ grouse! A film treatment is a prose version of the story, step by step and without dialogue. I’ve been doing this for our graphic novel. If you know this already, good for you my friend! Share the knowledge with people who don’t, because that’s what I’m trying to do. I love treatments [...]

Contract Killer

By Simon J. Green ⋅ March 3, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

Contracts can be a killer. Darren and I are being smart. We’re sorting out the legal wranglings good and early. It sucks, because we both have so much creative juice in us right now, at the very start. But I’ve been through too many creative partnerships over the years that didn’t pay heed to these [...]

Killeroo and Where I Am Right Now!

I'm writing Killeroo!

Killeroo is a comic book series by Darren Close. It's Australian, and I've managed to worm my way into Mr. Close's heart, whereupon he gave me a fair amount of freedom to take the character to a more solid, ongoing story.

Check out my updates on the writing process, as well as sketches and the rest of the team here:
http://killeroo.com/

The Rules of my Dreams

Let me tell you about the very specific, unbreakable rules of my dreamworld. I have no idea why or from whence these rules were forged, but they play an indelible role on every fantasy and nightmare I've ever had. I can't break them, as hard as I try, and despite the obvious influence my own brain has on the formation of dreams, I feel that I never purposefully established or enforced the strict guidelines dream-me has to live by.

For one, I can run almost never. If there is a situation that requires haste, running is slower than walking. When I try to sprint I'm taken by a sudden and overwhelming heaviness that weighs me down so much so that running is impossible. It's like walking through invisible sand piled up to my chest. If I'm in the middle of a scene, being chased by CIA agents big, black over coats, sunglasses and dark trilbys, I might panic to the point of forgetting the rules I'm bound to and try as hard as I can to run away. My entire body literally bends against the restriction and I grab at the wall next to me or the gate just within reach, pulling myself through the mental muck. It's excruciatingly slow and frustrating. Yet, as soon as I remember, "Oh yeah, The Rules," I straighten up, stop trying to run and simply begin the first pace of a brisk walk. Immediately the heaviness melts away and I can now make good my escape. A simile is like when you punch wet sand and the sudden force turns the stuff hard and impenetrable, but as soon as you relax your hand and push lightly, your fingers slip under the surface of the sand with the flying trapeze.
The second unavoidable rule that I never invented, but discovered through experimentation in the dreamworld of Simon, is the precise nature of flying. I can usually fly in dreams, especially if I pull myself out of a passive state when I realise I'm mid-dream. More than once I've been in a tremendous fight at the top of stairs in and old clock tower, only to be over powered and thrown through the banister. At the exact moment I look down and recognise I'm about to fall to my death, I actually say to myself, in mid-air and a fraction of a second, "Hang on, this is a dream, Ha!" and as I swoop down, I pull up sharply with my will and rocket up, through the ceiling and into a new lucid escape. The rules of flight, however, are immutable.

1. I cannot simply take off in any direction. There's a method. First, I have to crouch down as low as I can and then push up, as if trying to jump as high as I can. Only the jump works much better than you'd expect and I launch directly vertical. I can't simply jolt forward Superman style.
2. I need to reach a certain altitude before I can begin horizontal flight. After this first big jump, I usually go up, up, up over the city or country, so high that the clouds whip through my hair and all the lights below are breathtakingly far from my floating feet. Sometimes I feel a little giddy in my tummy or get that weird swooping sensation in my groin (like what you get in the forward motion on a swing). I then start a head first dive. If I don't get enough height, the dive ends with me having to quickly pull my head up and land back on my feet. However, I can use the momentum as if the ground was a trampoline, and I'll immediately launch back up again. I pretty much always make teh required height on the second go.
3. Flight is not unlimited. Once I get the right height, as I swoop down I'll know and at the last moment, before I hit the ground, I pull up sharply and rip straight back up, over the threshold of height, and I start flying through the air like the little plumber does in Mario 64. After a few dips and pull ups, I can fly pretty much unhindered until I need to land, at which point I glide down at a weak angle and then softly pull up and plop onto my feet.

I have no idea why, but that is how I have to fly in dreams.
The last rule isn't anywhere near as solid as the other two, but pretty prevalent in Simon's dreamworld. When I websling or shoot guns, I sometimes do it through a Playstation controller. For shooting, this is occasional. For webslinging, a Playstation controller is a must. The way it works is a bit odd. Imagine my dream as a scene you're watching through a screen that takes up your entire vision. Now, when I want to sling across the city like Spidey, my hands pop up at the bottom of the eyeball screen. My mind controls the controller, and at the very same time, the me inside the dream, but the controller controls the webslinging direction and when I shoot each rope of webbing. Usually It's L1 for the left arm, R1 for the right, the left joystick for direction of swing and the right joystick (with far more precision and speed than the real Playstation) is used to aim where exactly I'm aiming the next web shot.

Weird, huh? These rules just are, and always have been, and pretty much never change as far back as I can remember.

COMIC SWAG

I can do what the other guys do now!
My first big (for me) swag of comics got picked up today. What'd I get? Why don't you read on!?
X Necrosha: one-shot, X-Force, New Mutants.
X-Force 20. Uncanny X-Men Nation X 516 (Fraction baby. I've heard good things...)
Tales of the TMNT 63, 64 (Jonesie's last). Donatello The Brain Thief and another edition of No1 TMNT...again? Colour though.

UPDATES: Uncanny, cool, but fuck! I'm not used to this issue by issue thing.