BRAIN DRAIN

Here’s a follow-up to my recent musing on comic books. In case any of you are even remotely thinking about picking up a graphic novel in the near future, or are simply curious about what I’ve been reading lately (though I can’t imagine why), here’s a brief review of sorts of the graphic novels I’ve collected since picking up the habit again. I’ll focus first on the Marvel titles and write about the DC ones in another installment.

The first title I picked up was Avengers: Disassembled (Brian Michael Bendis/David Finch), which was to be the last Avengers story paving the way for the title’s re-launch. The story focuses on a series of attacks that befall the superhero team that leave Avengers mansion destroyed and several Avengers dead. As the story unfolds, it turns out that the culprit is actually not an arch-nemesis of the team, but rather one of their own: the Scarlet Witch, who’d seemingly gone mad. Personally, the premise of the story was far more interesting than the actual storytelling and the artwork combined, and I must say that it was a rather disappointing first foray for me into Brian Michael Bendis’s work. In the hope that the story arc would open interesting possibilities I also picked up a copy of New Avengers: Breakout (Brian Michael Bendis/David Finch), but was similarly unimpressed.

And then I picked up a copy of House of M (Brian Michael Bendis/Olivier Coipel), and after reading it I was positively hooked. The story picks up from Disassembled, as the New Avengers and the X-men meet to decide what to do about the Scarlet Witch, who is still in a fragile mental state while in their care. As they deliberate, she apparently attempts to set the world aright by using her powers to reshape reality to one where mutants rule, humans are going extinct and all the superheroes live the lives they have always secretly wanted. I can’t say enough good things about this one. The story was well-paced and developed (though not without its flaws) with wonderful pencils by Olivier Coipel. This one is definitely worth it if you want an engrossing title for casual reading.

A few other titles I experimented with: because of their great work on Batman (which I’ll cover in the next installment), I picked up a copy of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Spider-Man: Blue, essentially a retelling why and how Peter Parker fell in love with Gwen Stacy (people tend to forget, she was his first love and her death probably his greatest failure). The storytelling is typical Jeph Loeb, though towards the end I think he ran out of pages with which to wrap things up; for his part, Tim Sale’s draws a decent Spider-man. Without a doubt, this pales in comparison to their critically acclaimed Batman stories, but isn’t hard to appreciate. I suspect that Gwen Stacy fans enjoyed this one thoroughly.

On an impulse I also tried out Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee’s Inhumans. I remembered wanting to collect the title when it first came out (and missed it) so I couldn’t help myself this time around. This one’s a gem! While telling the story of how Maximus the Mad seeks to escape imprisonment and overthrow his brother and the rest of the royal family, Jenkins also adds plenty of color to the different nuances of in Attilan, where every individual is his own species. Jae Lee’s art was also very well suited to the story. So impressed was I with the title that I picked up their follow-up collaboration, The Sentry. A story about a supposed forgotten hero of the Marvel universe, the book was entertaining (be warned: it amounts to a clever retcon of the Marvel Universe) but nowhere near as good as Inhumans.

Last but not the least, of course, are the X-men titles. Back in the 90’s there was an X-men story arc called the Age of Apocalypse, where (if memory serves) Professor X’s son goes back in time to murder Magneto and ends up killing Professor X instead, sending the world into an alternate future where Apocalypse rules. To commemorate the tenth year of that story arc, X-Men: The New Age of Apocalypse (Akira Yoshida et al./Chris Bachalo et al.) picks up where it left off, demonstrating how the alternate timeline survived as well as how the world rebuilds itself. I hear that the story has a number of inconsistencies with the original story arc, but on its own was well told. Also, I have to admit I am a huge fan of Chris Bachalo’s work, and his pencils on this book are fantastic.

Finally, I also couldn’t help but try out Josh Whedon and John Cassaday’s run on Astonishing X-Men (Vols. 1 & 2). The title (which is still ongoing) depicts the re-establishment of the X-men under Cyclops and Emma Frost (that might be news to you: apparently, Grant Morrison’s run on the X-men a couple of years ago did a huge amount of damage to how traditionalists remember the X-men). The first volume (Gifted) centers on how the team assembles and deals with the discovery of a “cure” for mutation (and thankfully brings Colossus back to life!). The second volume (Danger) focuses on the death of a student in the Danger Room and the series of events it sets into motion. I hear that the creative team have signed on to the title for another year, and I hope they stay for much longer. Cassaday’s realistic style with large panels is refreshing, and Whedon’s writing is well suited to the X-men. In fact, he brings to the title the same charm that made Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel such huge successes (yes, it’s that Josh Whedon!) and is reminiscent of the X-men of old. (Speaking of which: I also picked up copy of the compiled Dark Pheonix Saga thinking that I could make collecting the classic X-men stories my latest project. I was wrong. For some reason, I just can’t get used to the old-school art and story telling. Best to look forward rather than backward, I suppose.)

There you have it. I’ll write about my DC titles soon. I guarantee it’ll be much shorter: I have a lot fewer.

I now appreciate why a cornerstone of Google’s corporate philosophy is “don’t be evil”: One day, Google will rule the world.

Of that I am sure. It’s not a matter of if but of when, and of course how. It’s inevitable. With the bursting of the late ’90s tech-bubble, Google is establishing itself as the wunderkind of corporate America, if it hasn’t already done so. And the way things look now, Google can do no wrong.

What prompted me to write about Google was learning recently that they now offer a service called Google Calendar. This might not be news to most of you, but it was news to me. Fundamentally, Google Calendar is a service that allows people to share calendars on the web, allowing users to view multiple schedules at a glance. The applications of this don’t seem quite groundbreaking to an individual, perhaps, but for families and/or companies who have to coordinate schedules, it does present interesting possibilities. Clearly, the concept is nothing new: on balance it’s the same thing that Microsoft Outlook or Apple’s iCal strive to do. But there is a difference. This is Google.

Personally, I like Google and have been amazed at the expansion in the range of services they offer. Google News. Google Finance. Google Desktop Search. Google Print. Google Scholar. Google Groups. Google Maps. Google Mail (Gmail). Google Messenger. Google Earth (!). The list seems to go on and on (and I suppose I should mention that Blogger is now owned by Google as well). Of course some are better than others, but the overall success of Google’s ventures is in little doubt (didn’t Bill Gates quip - in a backhanded compliment - that he thought Google was opening a franchise of burger restaurants?). Think what you will, but in my opinion this tells us three things about Google.

First, they’re quite in tune with what their clients want. I won’t argue that to some degree this is part of a Darwinian process of corporate survival, that Google is better off trying these things out (and failing) than not doing anything and watching its competitors fly high. But if you’ve ever used any of Google’s services, you’ll find they put a whole lot of thought into it. It just seems to make sense in very pragmatic terms. Admittedly, I’m biased – I’ve long since stopped using other search engines and only use Gmail, though I am locked into Yahoogroups and Yahoo messenger - but if my anecdotal experience is anything to go by, I am one happy customer.

Second, Google is well aware of what its core competency is: taking information from those who have it and putting it in the hands of those who desire it. In short: search. You can see this by those ventures that aren’t explicitly search engines. Gmail is a good example. When it was launched, Google made it clear from the first that the whole point was for people to keep every message they ever receive, precisely because all you had to do was search for a particular message if you needed to read it. I’m willing to bet Google Calendar operates in the same way. (No, I haven’t been moved to try it out yet.)

Last, in my opinion Google just does what they do better than anyone else. This is not to say that they offer the best type of a particular service (though their search engine is still at the top of my list, thank you very much), but rather that overall they are way ahead of the competition. Google Desktop Search is one example to illustrate this: not long after it was introduced, Apple included a “Spotlight” function to its Tiger OS. The two may not be related, but you get the point. Further, and more important, Google’s services stay beta for a very long time, maybe even permanently, which tells us something about their desire to continually improve on a good thing. I’m willing to bet that Google’s search engine will eventually offer snapshots of the pages listed in a search result, much like Ask.com now does. Another matter of when, not if.

And that’s the point exactly. Google has slowly become a true web portal. A single Google account - which you personalize at your convenience - opens a world of possibilities. Searching the internet. Reading your mail. Staying in touch with your friends. Managing your schedule (and that of others). Keeping track of your financial portfolio. All from the convenience of one company, one set of servers, one set of saved preferences, one account. That’s a lot of information at Google’s fingertips. About you. About thousands of other people on the planet. That’s a lot of power in their hands - power that we bestow upon them - in exchange for their promise not to “be evil.”

So far it seems that Google has been walking their talk. Just recently Google staunchly refused to release data regarding online searches and IP Addresses to authorities seeking to use this information to weed out child predators over the internet. The rationale: to do so would violate individual privacy. Three cheers for Google! Yet one cannot help but wonder for how long Google will be able to stay true to their corporate philosophy. After all, someone once said something about corrupting power becoming absolute. You can look it up on Google.

Ever hear that story about the two campers who inadvertently run into a lion? The details differ depending on who tells it, but the gist of it is as follows: two persons have set up camp in the middle of some jungle. In the middle of the night, they are roused by a noise; when they get out of their tents to investigate, they discover a lion staring right at them. Naturally, they flee. The first camper, barefoot, just makes a break for it. The second, in contrast, takes a few precious seconds to stop and put on his shoes before following suit. When he finally catches up, the first asks the second, “What were you thinking? How do you expect to outrun the lion if you hesitate?” With the lion nipping at their heels, the second replies (as he presumably makes his way to safety), “I don’t have to outrun the lion; I just have to outrun you.“

I’m reminded of this tale because of the results from my econometrics midterm.

Just recently I spent two weeks as a slave to econometrics. It’s true: for the course’s midterm we were given a take-home exam and two weeks to work on it, which I did like a man possessed. I expected the worst. I wasn’t too worried about the theory behind the topics we were being tested on (which I understood - I was doing very well for myself in class up until then). Rather, I was more concerned with the programming that I’d have to do just to be able to answer the assigned questions. You see, since the course is on Applied Econometrics, a large part of the course is devoted to learning how to use SAS, a type of statistical software, as a means to analyze data sets. I’ve never really done any programming before, so using SAS is both intriguing and challenging. And since we have to turn in our SAS code together with our midterm answers, I took extra care to write very good code (and I mean very good code), if anything just to prove I knew what I was doing.

I got the results back earlier. Ah, the agony of econometrics! The bad news: in absolute terms, I scored about 73%. 73?%! I didn’t even get 3/4 of the questions “right” (I can debate this point: arguably, I did get them right though my answers weren’t as thorough as they ought to have been). But then, the good news: the grades were curved, and because of the curve I rated an A-minus.

My feelings about this are mixed. Sure, I am glad that the grades were curved. Objectively, grade curving allows a teacher to correct for a lot subjectivity (such as the possibility a question was misinterpreted, or that a topic wasn’t taught very well) and sets everyone on an even more level playing field. So in a sense, the curve does represent how well I’m doing in class, and more it captures how much better I’m doing relative to my cohort. In many ways, that is important. To succeed in life sometimes entails not just doing something well, but doing it better than others can.

But a larger part of me is distrubed. Grade curve? A-minus? You mean to tell me I’m doing well in class just because others are doing so much worse? I’ve never lived my life that way, and I certainly don’t intend to begin now.

So I just don’t know. Which one would I rather be, attempting to outrun that lion?

Americans generally can’t figure out what I am.

I suppose a large part of it has to do with the diverse nature of American society. It’s easy to forget that America is a nation of immigrants (”melting pot” comes to mind), and thus a person of Oriental or South Asian or Middle Eastern descent could be as “American” as anyone else. Against this backdrop I just don’t stand out, and the fact I’m Filipino becomes little more than a footnote if anyone really cares to ask - and people rarely do. Which, ninety-nine times out of a hundred is actually a good thing: I get treated no better or worse than anyone else around here.

But to some extent this is also probably because to Americans, all Asians generally look alike (at least I think they think that way). I can sympathize: I’m the same way in reverse. It doesn’t help that my appearance is generally unremarkable (or if you’re not too fond of me, insert your own adjective instead). So when people do try to guess, they often guess wrong. Am I Chinese? Vietnamese? Thai? I can’t help but feel that their thinking is preconditioned by whatever Asian fast-food takeout joint they frequent on a regular basis.

This morning, however, someone figured it out.

It happened to be this very pleasant lady I was sitting beside during Easter Mass. When the mass ended, she caught my attention and asked, “If you don’t mind, what’s your country of origin?”

“The Philippines,” I replied.

“Aha!” was the reaction, and with a smile, “I thought so. I have a bunch of Filipino students, and you look like them.”

And so it was that a schoolteacher from New Hampshire figured me out. Maybe it’s time I donned a different disguise.

Since coming back to New York in January, I’ve gone on a graphic novel buying spree. It started with a couple of graphic novels right before Spring Break; before i knew it I’d accumulated enough to consider myself collecting comics again for the third time in my life.

It just makes a lot of sense, value-wise. First, I’ve come to realize that comic books are really priced for the US market. In the Philippines, comics are expensive relative to all the other things that a person can spend on for the same price (not to mention relative to the average salary a person receives). Here, the cost of a comic book is largely marginal. The same is true for graphic novels, which cost the equivalent of a decent dinner or slightly more than a bestselling pocketbook.

Second, graphic novels themselves have changed the comic book market considerably. It used to be that graphic novels were either compilations of limited series or specially commissioned one-shot stories by a writer or artist. Now, comic book companies have wised up and begun collecting story arcs of ongoing series as graphic novels. This makes it easier for those who want to get back into comics to do so, as well as for casual readers to simply pick and choose the stories and creative teams they want to follow. This last point I appreciate a lot. My past flirtation with comic book collecting has made me realize that not all comic books are created equal. Some artists and creative teams are better than others, making collecting a monthly title somewhat of a crapshoot. Collecting comics entails a certain degree of “devotion” to a particular hero, mythos or canon; yet I’ve always found that my devotion goes only as far as how good the creative team behind a specific title is, and have been frustrated on more than one occasion by a creative team I’ve come to like leaving in midstream. At least now it’s easy to follow a creative team and get a complete story in the process.

More, comic book stores here, like many American retail stores, offer a lot of value for money. Walking into one is almost like a religious experience: shelves packed with every conceivable title out there, the freedom to browse as long as you want, and staff that are themselves comic book enthusiasts and often know more about what’s in stock than you do. And of course, there’re the discounts. My neighborhood comic book store, Midtown Comics, offers a 20% disguised discount on graphic novels: for evey $100 spent, they give me back $20 store credit. And it’s not that hard to run up $100 over time. Life just couldn’t get much better.

(Aside: Ten years ago, when my family went to New York on vacation, I happened upon Midtown Comics. So it was a pleasant surprise to discover that the place was still doing well so many years later. In fact, I ended up picking up those first couple of graphic novels recently while killing time at the store before going to Mass. So I guess passing by that one time was very much like a religious experience…)

Actually, it is a whole lot of fun to spend time at a comic book store just to watch the people who frequent it. I’ve noticed that comic book collectors here are more diverse than back home, and it makes for interesting observations. They come in all forms, shapes and sizes. There are people decked out in business attire who go through the new releases shelf with a pile of X-men comics in one hand while fielding a business call on the other with their Blackberry. There are parents who drop by with their kids. Sometimes, it looks like the parents are indulging the children, telling them what they can and can’t buy and when they’re going over their budget; other times I think the children are the ones indulging the parents, waiting (im)patiently for the store clerk to dig up that issue of Green Lantern their parents missed two months ago. Occasionally there’s the well-dressed lady whom I never would have guessed was a comic book collector (collectress?), and I wonder where they have been hiding all my life.

And then of course there are the geeks and nerds. I can spot them a mile away. They come with their (occasionally) unkempt hair, clad in t-shirts or basball caps that proudly display the logo of their favorite superhero. They walk through the aisles and browse the shelves debating some finer point of comic book lore: whether Kevin Smith had a better run on Daredevil than Brian Michael Bendis, who the real Holiday killer was in Batman: The Long Halloween, or whether Marvel’s Ultimate Universe is better than the more established Earth-616 one. I find them amusing, but every time I see a bunch of them animatedly discussing comic book minutiae I can’t help but think them a bunch of weirdos.

Somehow, I suspect that they think the same thing of me.