We’ve put the annual Suburban Sprawl Music Holiday Comp up for download over at suburbansprawlmusic.com. This is the fourth year we’ve put the comp together, and all four year’s worth of MP3’s are available for free download. Some highlights from newcomers to this year’s comp:
The City On Film – “O Holy Blanket (A Christmas Waltz)” [MP3]
I was a huge Braid fan, and Mr. Nanna’s post-Braid band Hey Mercedes was kind enough to play a benefit show for the Art Scholarship we set up in memory of my younger brother, Chris. The City on Film is Bob Nanna’s long-running one man band-ish project. Needless to say, I’m really excited to have this song on the comp.
The Canadian Dollars – “Outsourcin’ Christmas (The Unemployed Little Elf Song)” [MP3]
I’m not sure yet if the ‘Canadian Dollars’ name is just for fun or if he really wants his identity kept secret, so I’ll play it safe and say that this guy has impeccable production abilities, is super nice, and writes music you can hear on the Cartoon Network.
Of course, many of the SSM standbys also appear in one configuration or another, contributing both characteristic and uncharacteristic holiday songs.
Chris Hatfield of Those Transatlantics isn’t a newcomer to the comp, but I love the crap out of his song, because it’s like a painstakingly researched history lesson crossed with a comic book, and I harangued him into writing it just a few days before it was due. So good!
“It’s very tough for us North Americans to imagine Mary and Joseph trudging to Bethlehem in anything but, as Christina Rosetti memorably described it, “the bleak mid-winter,” surrounded by “snow on snow on snow.” To us, Christmas and December are inseparable. But for the first three centuries of Christianity, Christmas wasn’t in December — or on the calendar anywhere.
If observed at all, the celebration of Christ’s birth was usually lumped in with Epiphany (January 6), one of the church’s earliest established feasts. Some church leaders even opposed the idea of a birth celebration. Origen (c.185-c.254) preached that it would be wrong to honor Christ in the same way Pharaoh and Herod were honored. Birthdays were for pagan gods.
Not all of Origen’s contemporaries agreed that Christ’s birthday shouldn’t be celebrated, and some began to speculate on the date (actual records were apparently long lost). Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215) favored May 20 but noted that others had argued for April 18, April 19, and May 28. Hippolytus (c.170-c.236) championed January 2. November 17, November 20, and March 25 all had backers as well. A Latin treatise written around 243 pegged March 21, because that was believed to be the date on which God created the sun. Polycarp (c.69-c.155) had followed the same line of reasoning to conclude that Christ’s birth and baptism most likely occurred on Wednesday, because the sun was created on the fourth day.
The eventual choice of December 25, made perhaps as early as 273, reflects a convergence of Origen’s concern about pagan gods and the church’s identification of God’s son with the celestial sun. December 25 already hosted two other related festivals: natalis solis invicti (the Roman “birth of the unconquered sun”), and the birthday of Mithras, the Iranian “Sun of Righteousness” whose worship was popular with Roman soldiers. The winter solstice, another celebration of the sun, fell just a few days earlier. Seeing that pagans were already exalting deities with some parallels to the true deity, church leaders decided to commandeer the date and introduce a new festival.” – Christianitytoday.com
So… the ‘Reason for the Season’ is actually to make sure that all those other guys who had the idea first didn’t win out.
Plenty has been written online about ‘socially conscious’ clothing company American Apparel, their risque advertising, and their sexual harrassment-happy CEO of late (link, link, link, link). I’ve been ‘not a fan’ of their ads on sites I read, but nothing had ever been overt enough to make me actively ‘Anti.’
Maybe I’m turning into a grandpa, but this American Apparel ‘holiday’ ad (link) officially makes me ‘Anti.’ Really? THAT’S your holiday message? A faceless female ass with “STUFF THIS” in block type beneath it? Stuff this ass? Good job guys.
Also, thanks to Pitchfork for accepting advertising that brings that classy ‘soft porn’ aesthetic to their site.
I haven’t sunk to the level of posting an IM conversation for quite awhile, so I figure I’m about due.
Zach: “performances from breathing underwater, broken sunday,
autumn and wasp, pillar of autumn, forever in a day, between broken
ends, the evening raid”
Zach: those are all real band names
Adam: hahaha
Adam: you should name a band that
Adam: “Those are all real band names”
Adam: And insist on always being billed last
Zach: hahahah
Zach: that would be pretty funny
Adam: I’m starting a band called the mapquest directions
Among really nerdy dudes who obsess over things like the beginnings of Chris Ware’s career, the primary representation of his early work has long been ‘Floyd Farland: Citizen of the Future,’ an out-of-print collection of College-era strips featuring the titular character. ‘Floyd Farland’ is illustrated in a modernist style that is completely unrecognizable when compared with Ware’s later works, so it’s somewhat difficult to trace the path of his ‘artistic development.’ It was recently pointed out to me that additional college paper-era Ware material was collected in a trade paperback called ‘Commix,’ published by Protein Storm Press in 1988.
After I expressed interest in seeing what the book contained, Chris Rice pointed out that Mile High Comics had a copy in stock for just over cover price, so I went ahead and ordered it. The book is of the ‘Garfield’ size and shape, and contains all the fascinating developmental beginnings that I’d hoped to find in ‘Floyd Farland.’
Included are several strips bearing the title ‘Comick Strip,’ presumably published in the Daily Texan. Four of these, which bear separate titles and appear to have been published on consecutive days, can be cut out and joined together to form a circular, infinite comic strip. There’s a brief Floyd Farland strip, an oddly postmodern page-sized lettering of the word ‘Joke,’ and an interesting precursor to the faux-advertising style that Ware became known for when The Acme Novelty Library was publishing regularly.
This one is an interesting combination of advertising imagery and linear narrative, a disconnect that echoes another of Ware’s early works – ‘I Guess,’ which is available online here.
While shopping at Target the other day, I was pretty excited to discover that they are selling Murakami-esque ‘eyeball’ throw pillows as halloween decorations. Since I fervently peruse Target’s halloween section every year (The design is always so good!) and didn’t notice them until now, I figured I’d point this fact out to any like-minded folk who happen upon this.
Now I need to buy another one, so my couch will appear to be sentient.
UPDATE!
I bought another one. Exciting, I know. Doesn’t it look like it’s PLOTTING? Inset: Also doubles as a cheap Residents costume.
The Cardhouse robot recently pointed out this article, which discusses the cover art for Kate Bush’s forthcoming album “Aerial,” correctly asserting that it is “right up my alley.” The central image of rocks reflected in water is also clearly representative of an audio waveform. While this has been mentioned on Kate Bush message boards, I wasn’t able to find any investigation into what exactly the content being represented was, so I decided to poke around a little bit.
I found a relatively high resolution version of the cover online (click the image above to download), then used Photoshop to adjust the contrast until I had a relatively distinct image of the waveform. Obviously, this isn’t the best method to use if you’re attempting to preserve the integrity of the waveform, so I definitely lost some resolution by doing it this way.
At any rate, I ended up with the image you see below. Click the image to obtain a higher resolution version for your own experimentation.
The next step was to turn the finished image into sound. To accomplish this, I used a windows program called Bitmaps & Waves. This required that I cut the image of the waveform in half – which produced the image below. Same ‘click for higher-res’ standard applies for the whole of this article.
Feeding the image of the half-waveform into Bitmaps & Waves resulted in a full audio file, as seen below.
Here’s an image of the finished audio file. Close enough, right? So what’s it sound like? Download it here, or click on the player below.
Kate Bush – Aerial Cover Waveform
[audio:Kate Bush – Aerial Cover Wave.mp3]
Admitting Defeat
So why does it sound like that? I should first preface this with the fact that I didn’t retain very much of the soundwave stuff I learned in various physics classes, and everything I say from here on in is based on stuff I’ve picked up while using audio editing software. In short: take everything with a grain of salt.
My understanding is that the file I produced emulates only the volume envelope (variation in level), and position with respect to time (rhythm) of the recording, and not the actual sound waves (oscillations) being produced. Bitmaps & Waves appears to use a simple Sine oscillator to generate the soundfile based on the image you provide. Based on this, I don’t think it’s possible to retrieve the actual audio content being displayed on this cover, so rather than stay up any later thinking about this, I’m handing off my work as it stands to the internet at large. Maybe someone with more insight will devise a way to figure out what the damn sound is.
My current theory is that it’s a clip of the lyrics from the album, and that some obsessive Kate Bush fan would be able to determine which bit of the album is represented by comparing the Waveforms of the album audio with the image on the cover. Believe it or not, even I’m not that obsessive. No, really.
Update: Mystery Solved
Well, if you read far enough down into the comments on this post, you’ll see that someone has, in fact, located the bit from the album that appears on the front cover. Turns out it’s a bird call, which is available as an MP3, here.
Kate Bush – Aerial Bird Waveform
[audio:Kate Bush – Aerial Bird Wave.mp3]
As many suggested in the comments, speeding up the MP3 I originally produced several hundred percent was indeed the way to go — doing so actually produces a pretty convincing match to the rhythm of the source audio. Here’s an MP3 consisting of both the source ‘bird call,’ and my original recovery effort played together, for the extra inquisitive among you.
Kate Bush – Aerial Cover Waveform Comparison
[audio:Kate Bush – Aerial Cover Wave Comparison.mp3]
Remember last November when I proposed a superbowl commercial treatment? Somebody has made essentially the exact commercial I was envisioning. Michael spotted it here — anyone have any idea where it originated?
At the beginning of 2005, I resolved to spend much of my free time figuring out how to run a tiny indie label by actually doing it. In the past eight months or so, I’ve learned:
…the nuts and bolts of pressing and ‘releasing’ a CD by working on the Javelins’ ‘No Plants, Just Animals’ release (March 2005).
…how the college radio and promotions business works, following the release of my band The Recital’s ‘Colour Up’ (July 2005).
… and more than I ever needed to about the world of ‘mechanical licensing,’ in order to obtain the rights to the four television theme songs that make up my other band, The Pop Project’s ‘TGIF’ EP (September 2005).
So, yes — it’s been a busy 2005 so far. The fruits of all this learning can be viewed at the Suburban Sprawl Music website, which I recently spent a good deal of time rescuing from the varying states of disrepair it has languished in for several years now. Several bits of the site are still in a state of disrepair, I’m just hoping not to let them languish this time.
What’s the story with this ‘TGIF’ EP, you ask? Well, I’m glad you asked, because it is a ridiculous and great story. Some might even say ridiculously great. If you don’t care about behind-the-scenes shit, click here to skip ahead.
I play the drums in the Pop Project – A four piece (Guitar, Bass, Keys, Drums) band from various points in the Detroit and Ann Arbor areas. We get along very well because we are all ridiculously nerdy about music. At some point in the past year or so, Zach Curd (keys), and Dave Lawson pointed out to Will Yates (Bass) and I that the impossibly catchy theme songs to all the TGIF shows we grew up watching were composed (at least in part) by the same guy — a gentleman by the name of Jesse Frederick. Naturally we had to find out everything we possibly could about him.
I soon became obsessed with the idea of recording a tribute of sorts to this guy, and harangued my bandmates at any opportunity to help me realize this project. Somehow, this actually worked, and we spent some time earlier this year learning and recording four of our favorite Jesse Frederick-penned TGIF themes — “As Days Go By” (Family Matters), “Everywhere You Look” (Full House), “Second Time Around” (Step By Step), and “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now” (Perfect Strangers).
At some point in the negotiations, it was decided that we would each sing lead vocals on one of these songs. Despite my emphatic recommendations that someone else take my song after the first of many lacklustre attempts, they were steadfast in their resolve, and a version of my shaky tenor warbling the theme to “Perfect Strangers” has now been cast out into the world.
Those of you paying attention to the above impromptu roll-call of the Pop Project know that we are all males, so I should probably explain that the female counterpoint to Zach’s lead vocals on ‘Step by Step’ was provided by our friend Korin Cox, of The Hard Lessons.
After finishing the recording, I think we were all surprised by how nicely the project came together, and we started to think about actually ‘releasing’ it. So it was that we began to consider the legal issues involved with releasing a CD consisting entirely of cover versions of television theme songs. Now, if the band “Me First and the Gimme Gimmes” are good for any one thing in particular, it’s for making the fact that you can cover almost any song you want for 8 cents per CD common knowledge. This is done via a ‘mechanical license.’ In order to have any reputable pressing plant replicate the EP for us, we would need to obtain a license for each of the four songs.
While the recording was going on, we were learning all sorts of stuff about Mr. Frederick. Several years ago, Zach was given a copy of the one solo album that he released, on Bearsville records (Found via musicstack.com). It is long out of print, but it served as a decent starting point (It’s available for download below). Eventually, Zach attempted to track down Mr. Frederick via Google. He found a telephone number associated with his publishing company via the ASCAP site, so he called and left a message explaining that we were recording several of his songs and sought his blessing. A few hours later, Jesse Frederick called him back and they discussed both the project and Mr. Frederick’s musical career at length. Zach eventually described the idea for the TGIF EP to him: “I explained what we wanted to do, and he responded with ‘Wait, you want to do what?'”
What did we learn? All sorts of great stuff. He doesn’t see a cent from any of those compositions. There are two unreleased Jesse Frederick albums languishing in studio vaults somewhere, both recorded closer to the era in which his television work was written than the Bearsville debut. The second album supposedly even features Michael Bloomfield on guitar. Zach adds: “It was pretty insane to hear someone say things like ‘Yeah, when we cut the theme to Step By Step, we actually recorded a song-length version of it, with an extra verse, maybe a bridge or something.’ and be totally straight-faced.”
We also learned that we were not the first to hit upon the idea of paying tribute to Mr. Frederick. He told Zach about a documentary being produced by a student at Penn State University. Zach explains: “There is an entire generation of kids who have grown up and know all of the words to these themes, but no one knows his name, or even really knows he exists. You know, victim of the global village and shit.” I tracked the student, Brian Morrison, down via the Penn State film department faculty, and we have since been in touch. Small world!
Back to the licensing. Since we were only looking to license the compositions, and not the recordings it turned out to not be the ginourmous pain in the ass that it could have been. The organization that I was most frequently recommended for licensing was the Harry Fox agency. Three of the songs on the EP were easily located in the Harry Fox database, as they had been released on one of those ‘The Best of Television’ Theme song collections. The theme to ‘Step By Step,’ however, was proving elusive.
We eventually were able to license the song directly from Warner Brothers, via the absolute worst user-interface ever created in the history of man. It only worked in IE on Win XP, and even then, it didn’t correctly pass the song data to the final order form. After submitting my form, I was contacted by the ‘webmaster’ who politely asked me via form letter exactly which song it was I was licensing. It seems to me that fixing that form would save Mr. Webmaster a lot of time and email, but I digress.
Now, even with four songs licensed and ready to go, this EP is BARELY five minutes long. Sensing that additional content would be nice, We decided to put together a brief bit of documentary footage on ‘the making’ of the TGIF EP, culled from Dave and Korin’s off-the-cuff taping. We also had our good friend Shawn Knight (of New Grenada and BoyArm) make everything look nice, via a series of emails discussing the psychology of place and sunset gradients, which has everything to do with why I love working on album art with him (He’s done the other two releases I worked on this year as well). We packaged it all up with the following blurb, which won’t do much to dissuade the cries of ‘Gimmick!’ — but it is sincere.
It seems like a joke: cover the theme songs to four popular early 90’s sitcoms and release the results for hipster consumption. In reality, this release is a painstakingly crafted tribute to the work of Jesse Frederick.
In 1971, a 19-year-old Frederick recorded his self-titled debut for legendary manager Albert Grossman’s Bearsville Records. In the wake of the relative silence following the album’s release, Frederick recorded a pair of follow-up albums for two different labels – neither of which ever saw the light of day.
By the late 1980’s, Frederick had found his way into the world of TV theme music – composing a number of memorable themes with longtime writing partner Bennett Salvay. We feel that the songwriting, arrangement, and density of craftsmanship on display in these four short themes is legitimately mindblowing.
Fittingly, syndication ensures that each of these compositions will receive perpetual airplay — resulting in a uniquely modern, pseudo-anonymous eminence.
Without further ado, here’s a sample of each of the four tracks that make up our completed TGIF EP. If you’d like to order a copy, it’s $5 shipped anywhere in the US, just click here.
The Pop Project – TGIF Preview (Download)
From: “TGIF“
[audio:The Pop Project – TGIFpreview.mp3]
We turned up all sorts of ridiculous information in our Jesse Frederick-related research. Here’s a fairly thorough summary, aurally annotated with MP3’s throughout.
The LP that Frederick Recorded for Bearsville in 1971 has long been out of print. Those curious to hear the beginnings of Mr. Frederick’s recording career can download sides one and two below. My verdict? Uninspiring. The song ‘Victoria Lenore’ was pulled to represent this album for the Bearsville boxset, but my pick of this batch is ‘When She Goes’ so I’ve separated that song as a point of reference for those who don’t want to bother with the full album.
SInce it’s not in print, here’s an mp3 rip of both sides of the full length, complete with tracklisting:
Side 1 (MP3):
1. Prelude: To A Woman
2. Bless Me Daddy
3. Victoria Lenore
4. You Can’t Hide Away
5. Finale: To A Woman
Side 2 (MP3):
1. Sweet Bye And Bye
2. Slave Runner
3. Alley Lady
4. When She Goes
5. No Reunion
There’s a November 1971 article from some sort of MIT publication here, which reviews both the LP and a live set at a venue called the Pee-Nut Gallery. Some highlights:
“To help the Pee-Nut Gallery get rolling, both Warner Brothers/Reprise and A&M records have brought in new musicians to debut at the club. The
first to arrive was Jesse Frederick, the second to sign on Albert Grossman’s Bearsville WB
subsidiary label (the first being Lazarus, who released a fine premiere album last month).
This young man from southern Maryland is definitely someone to keep your eye on. His music
ranges from solo guitar and voice to a rocking three or four man electric back-up. He has a decidedly interesting voice that grows on you, somewhere between a Joe Cocker and a Randy Newman, with a bit of a Band vocal thrown in.”
“At the Pee-Nut Gallery, Jesse
Frederick was the more impressive of the two: Both albums
suffer from over-orchestration
which is mercifully eliminated
live. As Frederick leans more
heavily on the music, the fact
that his backing musicians were
very tight and competent only
enhanced his set.”
Second Album
In 1973 Bearsville released a promo 45 featuring both stereo and mono versions of the first single from Frederick’s second album, which would never be released. The song was called ‘I Belong to You.’
One pleasant discovery I made is that there are several more obscure themes listed in Frederick’s ASCAP file. Thanks to the wonder of the internet, I’ve been able to track down most of these theme songs.
The only themes I’ve seen attributed to Mr. Frederick that I haven’t been able to track down are the theme to a short lived (6 episodes) series called “Pride & Joy” (Starring Jeremy Piven and Caroline Rhea), and the theme to an NBC pilot starring Tatyana Ali that was never picked up – “Wally and the Valentines.” Any kind frequenters of the Museum of Radio & Television in NYC are encouraged to contribute!
Here’s a comprehensive listing of Jesse Frederick’s Lesser-known television works:
Better Days
Better Days (1986). IMDB description: “Brian McGuire is a California teenager who lives and loves life in Los Angeles, until something happens to his family and he must move to his uncle’s place in Brooklyn. He has a hard time fitting in with the crowd but makes two friends he can count on, wisecracking Luther and the very hip Snake.”
Going Places (1990). IMDB description: “The production staff of The Dick Roberts Show has its hands full booking guests for the outrageous talk show and dealing with its egomaniacal host.”
Getting By (1993) was a sitcom about “two women living together in a large house.” What a premise. Turns out this show was a spin-off from Family Matters (see here). Telma Hopkins, the actress who plays Rachel Crawford (Harriet Winslow’s Sister), also apparently sang backup on a number of Motown records (see here).
Pride & Joy (1995) bears the distinction of being the only televised Frederick theme I can’t find. The IMDB comments describe it thusly: “The cast of this sitcom was made up of several now-familiar faces, but at the time they weren’t particularly well-known. It was a fairly forgettable tale of two young married couples who were neighbors and friends. All four characters were plain vanilla; this was before comedic performers like Caroline Rhea and Jeremy Piven developed their distinctive personas we have come to know and appreciate.”
Meego
Meego (1997) was Bronson Pinchot’s series following Perfect Strangers. He played an alien named Meego, from the planet Marmazon 4.0. Meego only lasted six episodes, and also starred the kid from Jerry McGuire. This theme is instrumental, but does feature some ridiculous Bronson Pinchot-as-alien dialog. I’d be interested in seeing an episode of this.
Two of a Kind (1998) was an Olsen Twins-centric series. The theme is instrumental and fairly unremarkable, but it’s here both for completeness and to illustrate the post-TGIF glory days patronage that Frederick recieved.
Frederick popped up in a few films, both musically, and on-camera. Though he didn’t write the music, he performed the lead vocal duties for the main character in the 1980 Taylor Hackford film “The Idolmaker.” One single from the Idolmaker soundtrack was pressed. It contained both stereo and mono versions of the song ‘Here Is My Love.’ Download it here. He also apparently played Alice Cooper’s roadie in the film ‘Roadie.’ He also did soundtrack work for the Troma film ‘The Fanatic’ (also known as ‘The Last Horror Film‘ There’s a screengrab of the relevant bit of the end credits crawl here. MP3’s may or may not be forthcoming.
In the brief ‘documentary footage’ accompanying our TGIF CD, the members of the Pop Project can be seen speculating that the theme to “Camp Wilder” may be free jazz. I was not able to track down this particular theme to confirm, but I was able to determine that Jesse Frederick was not the composer – Fred Wolf bears that distinction. It does appear to have been played on KFJC in october of 2004, so I remain hopeful that I will one day happen upon it.
A few years ago I got way into arcade game restoration. Let me tell you, it really wooed the ladies. One of the most interesting aspects of that diversion into nerdery was the insight into the commercial end of the arcade industry that I gained. Nearly all ‘modern’ (ie post-JAMMA) games have vendor-configurable difficulty settings – so high scores and other such arcade accomplishments can be ambiguous.
The video linked below, which I recently found via the Make Magazine blog shows the secrets of other bits of arcade machinery, including the tension adjustment on claw-grabber games, and the hidden coin harvesters on those ‘coin pusher’ machines. Sneaky! It’s realvideo (10 Minutes, 25 MB), but it’s worth it — just click here or on the image below for a direct link. The host of the video is Tim Hunkin, his site, which is packed with nerdy goodness, is here.
The work of Jason Shiga first came to my attention in 2003, when he won an Eisner award for “Talent most deserving of wider recognition.” A few months later, I read a write-up on his then-current interactive comic book, ‘Hello World,’ and immediately ordered it from the USS Catastrophe store, hoping for the best.
‘Hello World’ turned out to be a tour de force in the relatively uncrowded field of interactive sequential narrative. In concept, it’s a bit like a combination of the obsessive block diagramming of software development and the traditional comic book narrative. Put simply, it’s an ambitious, illustrated “Choose Your Own Adventure” story, complete with a self-contained inventory system. The pages of the book itself are cut into two halves – the upper half contains the narrative, the lower half displays your current inventory.
It’s a bit difficult to explain the function of the book without actually experiencing it or seeing it in action, so I’ve provided a short video clip below. It’s a must-see, if only to truly appreciate the complexity of the book Mr. Shiga has put together.
Hello World thoroughly blew my mind – when you think about the planning that went into executing such an idea, it’s just insane. I’m not sure how understandable the video above is, so I’ve pasted the official description, from the Shigabooks site, below:
“Hello World has two tiers that work independently of each other, not unlike the mix-n-match monster books of your childhood. Memory is stored in the bottom tier while the story takes place in the upper tier. The panels of the story are connected by a network of tubes. These tubes constantly dip in and out of the memory tier to determine what happens next in the story.”
Those familiar with my interests are by now realizing that this discovery — comic books that are NERDIER than NORMAL comic books?! — ranks pretty high on my list of best shit ever. Obviously, I had to find some of his other work. What follows are summaries of two of the other noteworthy books I eventually tracked down, as well as a ‘highlight reel’ of the new work that Jason recently added to his redesigned Shigabooks website. First though, some perspective on the guy behind these comics. Here’s the bio from his website:
“You could say that cartooning was in my blood. My father was an animator and worked on such shows as Obake no Q-taro and the legendary Bas Rankin Rudoph the Red Nosed Reindeer Christmas Special.”
“My parents have always been supportive of my interests. In highschool, I drew comic strips for the school newspaper and started to take up animation as well.
In 1998, I graduated from Cal with a degree in… Pure Mathematics. Why? Well, ever since I was ten years old, I had always thought that math was the best subject because even if you’re locked in a room for 25 years with no books you can still study it.”
“Currently, I work at the Oakland Public Library as a Library Aide and do freelance cartooning for magazines.”
Meanwhile
‘Meanwhile’ is another interactive comic book that is less work-intensive on the part of the reader, and generally a much more readable iteration of the same ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ concept — a reversal in balance of plot and principle when compared with ‘Hello World.’
In ‘Meanwhile,’ the paths the reader can follow are linked by pipes that extend between pages. Transitions from page to page are coordinated via tabs that extend beyond the edge of the page. If the reader follows a path to a tab, the page is turned and the reader continues on the newly-revealed page, starting from the tab. Confusing? The best way to get a feel for it is to experience it yourself, which is now possible online, as Jason has put together a Javascript version of the book here.
Like ‘Hello World,’ my first reaction to ‘Meanwhile’ was to marvel at the fact that someone was able to wrestle it all into a cohesive structure. The slightly-less-maniacally-detailed approach allows the plot to develop much more freely than in ‘Hello World.’ There’s a Mad scientist, a Time Machine, Secret Passwords, and Ice cream. All the good stuff. Shiga has actually isolated each panel, twist and turn contained in ‘Meanwhile’ and constructed a single ‘posterized’ version of the book, which he has exhibited at comic shows in the past. The finished product measures 5 feet by 5 feet, and can be seen here.
Fleep
‘Fleep’ isn’t an interactive comic, but it managed to capture my interest nonetheless. While it doesn’t turn sequential narrative on its ear in the same way many of Shiga’s other works attempt to, it does have elements of logic and puzzle-solving built into the relatively straight-forward narrative, which will appeal to many of the same readers that would be enthused by his other efforts. The story begins with the main character waking up locked in a windowless phone booth with no memory of the events landing him in said situation. The rest of the plot consists of this character trying to piece together the specifics of his predicament, based on clues in the phone booth, information obtained using the telephone, deduction, and math. Awesome.
Fleep has been available online in its entirety for quite awhile, and made the rounds of notorious nerd-hives such as metafilter sometime last year (mefi discussion here).
For those keeping score, the print version has the best production values of any of the books I’ve yet seen. Nice thick paper and better print quality than the interactive comics (Which I imagine are far more expensive to produce).
Further Online Works
I started piecing this entry together shortly after I originally ordered these books in early 2004. Research at the time seemed to indicate that Mr. Shiga had disappeared from the face of the earth shortly after winning the Eisner award. I emailed him in early 2005, asking about his next project and the availability of additional copies of “Hello World.” Here’s what he had to say:
“I’m currently working on a new
choose your own adventure type comic. The gimmick this time is that you get
to choose from 7-20 branches at every node (by the way, you only get to make
3 choices before a crazed gunman shoots you in the stomach). This project
should be finished within a couple months. I won’t make it in time for this
APE but it should be available by the next one.”
“As for obtaining a copy of
“Hello World”, you’re out of luck as usscatastrophe sold out recently. I’m not
selling any copies on my site because I get killed on the shipping. I will
be selling copies at APE so you should come down if you’re still in the area.
About a month ago, Mr. Shiga emerged from e-exile and completely revamped his website, adding all sorts of new content and revealing that he’s been doing interactive comics for Nickelodeon Magazine in the interim (“I started working for Nickelodeon Magazine in 2003. It is an awesome responsibility knowing that my comics could potentially corrupt over a million children across the country. I do mostly double page interactive spreads which the kids seem to love.”). Some other highlights from the newly updated site, in relative order of recommendation, include:
‘Dead Lock‘ – An absolutely great autobiographical story, illustrated by a friend. A glimpse into how the mind that creates these works functions in the real world. The story comes from an entry on his circa-2003 livejournal. Awesome.
‘Bookhunter‘ a new longform strip about crime and libraries. Super good.
Description of ‘Theater Eroika’, a scrapped project involving an interactive narrative with panels printed on 5 rotating paper ‘wheels.’
‘Every Dog Has His Day‘ – a comic strip with panels that are randomly ordered based on punchcard-like cuts.
A few samples of his work for Nickelodeon are here.
‘Double Happiness,’ a book that won a Xeric award in 1999 is now also available online in its entirety.
You can order copies of several works directly from Mr. Shiga via this order form.
