Revolution

I didn’t actually see MTV when it debuted on August 1, 1981. Oh, I’d heard about it. I had friends in the next town over who had it, and I’d seen the “I want my MTV” ads (but that must have been while at my friends’ houses because I have to think that was a basic cable ad).

When I finally saw MTV, it was at my buddy Dave’s. I can picture his parents’ house and just where the television was positioned and the feeling of hanging out there. And I remember the very first video I saw at his house: Saga’s “On the Loose”. It was pretty typical fare for early MTV, a basic performance shoot interspersed with a literal (and somewhat pedestrian) prison break storyline. But that was my first, and it did exactly what the corporate music industry wanted it to: It prompted me to buy Saga’s Worlds Apart album on cassette tape (my first – I’d bought 8-tracks up to that point).

There are all kinds of retrospectives about MTV turning 30, and I remember how revolutionary the station really was in the early ’80s once we actually got basic cable in our house and could watch the artists come to life in short-form anytime I wanted. And I remember the release of the “Thriller” video being an event, and watching the channel’s coverage of Live Aid, and witnessing the beginning of the end for MTV as a music video channel with the debut of Remote Control and the final nail in that coffin a few years later with the premiere of Real World. But it’s the personal details that frame the larger cultural touchstones and bestow importance upon them, and a previously unheard of and long since forgotten Saga is among those particulars for me.

Deus 8: You'd Think There'd be a 12-Step Program for This!

I'm the first to admit that a collector's completist mentality can be a problem, and Deus ex Comica, Part 8: It's a Sickness, published over at Field's Edge today, is my therapy. This installment is a look at the way I purchase comics, and ties back to that whole Type A personality flaw first mentioned in Part 6's Marvel 1985. You see, sometimes it's important to recognize it's better to leave the local comic book shop with just the books you want, and not necessarily the ones you think you need.

Deus 7: Knowing is Half the Battle

Although it is the title with the most issues in the Original Collection, G.I. Joe is also one of the most out of character titles for my personality. I was finally able to sit down and capture my thoughts on the topic, and the result is another Deus ex Comica published at Field's Edge today. Part seven, "A Real American Hero", is an exploration of influence and pop culture on a personal level that builds off of my thoughts in the previous installment, "Marvel 1985". As with so many of these looks back at my mid-'80s comic collecting, I also expose Mark as an accomplice to my fascination with this book.

Deus 6: When Dutch and the Iron Lady Ruled the World

Despite multiple waves of houseguests this past week while on vacation, I was finally able to get Deus ex Comica, Part 6: "Marvel 1985" completed, and the good folks over at Field's Edge published it today. I'm not reading Marvel's current limited series of the same name just yet (I'm waiting for the collected edition), but I've heard great things about it, and it inspired me to think about where I was in my comic reading during that era from a year-by-year perspective.

Deus 5: The Beauty of Trades

Part 5 of Deus ex Comica, "Bound for Greatness", is available at Field's Edge. This time around is my take on trade paperback collections. This will be the last one for a few weeks because of vacations and such. Look for a new installment either the first or second Wednesday of May. In the meantime, watch this space for musings on a variety of topics and check out some friends' stuff, too.

Deus 4 (or How to Scar a Six Year-Old)

There is a new Deus ex Comica is up over at Field's Edge. Part 4 is my take on the pixilated goodness that is the House of Ideas come to life on the Wii.

On a somewhat related note, I'm the first to admit I'm no hard-core gamer, but even I enjoyed Wil Wheaton's 2007 Penny Arcade Expo keynote address. Check it out, but only after you've listened to this week's Marvel Noise podcast!

SubJugated SubCasts

As someone who has never previously ventured into the world of vinyl or statues or the like, I have been totally taken by TWEEQiM's Marvel SubCasts line through Upper Deck. I ended up picking up all four of the released editions. The first of the bunch, Spidey, is my least favorite. He just doesn't translate as well to the format as the others. The three subsequent releases, however, are nothing short of (ironically) spectacular! Iron Man, Ghost Rider, and Wolverine lend themselves perfectly to the funky proportioned polyresin. They are stunning, distinctive, beautiful works of art.

The official Upper Deck website and both of TWEEQiM's MySpace sites had indicated that we might see miQ and Thuy Wilmott's unique take on more Marvel icons, like Captain America, Thor, and Hulk, but it looks like those ideas won't see the light of day beyond some concept sketches found on those sites, and a SubCasts trading card of Cap put out by Upper Deck.

When I had heard this, I reached out to miQ, who responded with a gracious and thoughtful reply. While he couldn't comment on why the line was coming to an end other than to say it was a "bizz thing", he did seem genuinely disappointed. He acknowledged there was a conscious effort to approach these characters with "a bit of a quirky attitude" and indicated that there were a lot of directions in which they would have liked to have taken the line.

It really is a shame this is coming to an end, TWEEQiM's Marvel SubCasts line was able to breathe new life into the Marvel stable by taking two-dimensional characters that have been a part of the pop culture vernacular for decades off the page and rendering them in a fresh three-dimensional way.

The Wishlist

I love the concept art for Captain America, Thor, and Hulk, and would have loved to see them come to life. For what it's worth, here are the top five other Marvel characters I would have liked TWEEQiM to tackle in the SubCasts format:

• Luke Cage (How great would this have been?!)
• Namor (Marvel's ultimate anti-hero in the ultimate format.)
• The Thing (He and Puck already have the proportions for the line, so it would have been cool to see where miQ and Thuy would have taken either of them.)
• Colossus
• Dr. Doom

Honorable mention: Beast, Daredevil, Nick Fury, and the aforementioned Puck. Not sure if it's because TWEEQiM hadn't gone there yet or what, but I had trouble getting my head around a female SubCast.

Deus 3 and the Mutual Appreciation Society

So, part 3 of Deus ex Comica, "Ignoring Personal History", is up over at Field's Edge. I talked with John, and we decided to start publishing new installments every other Wednesday instead of every other Sunday for the time being. The change provides some nice synergy with the traditional weekly comic book release day and my friends over at Marvel Noise.

Speaking of... HUGE thanks to Head Marvel Noisemaker David Price for the gracious nod and kind words he gave the Deus series and Field's Edge in this week's podcast! There is always good stuff to be found in not just the podcasts, but also on the blog and forum over there.

Deus ex Comica

Parts 1 ("Gateway Drugs") and 2 ("Judging a Book by its Cover") of Deus ex Comica, my series of essays looking at the impact of comic book pop culture on a personal level, are up over at Field's Edge. Over the course of these installments, I'll be exploring how the Marvel stable of titles influenced my mid-'80s preteen and early teen years, the friendships formed around them, as well as topics like what it means as an adult to have disposable income and a collector's completist mentality.