Unwinding (at work)after finishing up the last of my Christmas Shopping last night at Yorkdale Mall on the night before Christmas Eve. I'm always astounded by the number of really well-off looking young people I see at all these Malls...I couldn't help feeling that if I'd been standing in the middle of a market at a similar period in some ancient civilization I would have probably had the same kind of feeling of never-ending affluence and importance radiated by the younger portions of the 'cream' of the society. Altthough I'm sure that our consumerist society must been unmatched in history by the overwhelming numbers of well of middle class youths we've produced. It was with a rather cruel satisfaction that I considered those past societies invevitable decline as I stood in line at the back of a winding line through stacks of books. But the truth is that whatever harsh future awaits 'those young rich bastards' will also take its toll on me, because really, I'm one of them aren't I?

Afterwords, waiting to exit the parking lot in a never ending line of metal boxes in front of me, I listened to the tail end of a very interesting Christmas Edition of Ideas (my favourite radio show) about how different religions see Jesus, the part I listened to dealing with how he is protrayed in the Qur'an. According to the show, he is seen as a Prophet who foretold the coming of Muhamed, but he differs from the Chrisitian Jesus in several signifigant ways. For one thing he is seen as a true 'aesthetic' who has utterly renounced this world and its attachments. Several popular Islamic proverbs are credited to Jesus, and one of the most well-known is: "Life is a bridge; you should cross it, not build on it." I like this, and for a second I seriously considered: "isn't blogging just building on the bridge?", and promptly decided I that that was it, I was done with this new experiment. But when I carry this philosophy on to its logical conclusion then I have to consider: "what's the point of the majority of these worldly things I engage in, comics and writing..."? You see, this is my weakness when it comes to religion. I believein the basic tenets of most religions are correct and reasonable, I just lack the desire to follow them through to their logical conclusions. I'm sure that Jesus would have something to say about this.

After some thought about this I decided the point is the pleasure that the work brings me. Which brings to me a passage about Work in Kahlil Gilbran's book The Prophet "When you work you are a flute through whose heart th whispering of the hours turns to music"

Regarding the the craziness at the shopping mall, I like what one of the Muslim intellectuals said about what Jesus might say today if he were alive witness all this: "Look at my children, look at what you've done. You've made a monument to my memory but forgotten my teachings, when I would have rather you had remembered my teachings and forgotten me..."

posted by Alan
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3:52 PM

Monday, December 23, 2002 

Astro Boy

I'm currently making my way through the second volume of 'Astro Boy' collections being published by Dark Horse comics. I've been wanting to read the original comics for ages and am glad to finally have the chance, this being the first time they'be been printed in english. I was originally turned on to Astro Boy by the Australian made colour cartoons that were shown in Canada sometime in the mid-to-late eighties, and that I always felt that I was a little bit too old to be able to admit to enjoying it, so I used my younger brother's liking of the show as a 'cover'. This was also the case with the first couple of issues of the short lived 'Droids' comic books that came out around the same time(which I remembering thinking were much better than the Saturday Morning cartoon on which they were based) that I would buy "for Brian", and the 'Gummie Bears' cartoons, which I always made a poin of joining him to watch on Saturday mornings. Why do I feel shame about enjoying things that are so much fun? Anyway, I can remember that much of what I liked about the Astro Boy cartoon was the dark tone of the show's themes, contrasted against the constant optimism of the little robot. I'm definitely not a 'minimalist' cartoonist, but I'm becoming pretty enamored with Tesuke's sparse style, and anyone who read my recent Taddle Creek story may be able to see this coming through somewhat in the drawing of certain sequences. I have to say that I mantained a ignorant anti-manga kind of attitude for a long time, even though I have enjoyed many manga cartoons throughout my life. It makes no sense, does it?

posted by Alan
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4:04 PM

Sunday, December 22, 2002 

Because I Suck at Fousball...

Hi there. In my continuing quest to explore the different avenues of online communication I have decided to start my own little blog which which mainly deal with comics, but which will probably segue into opinion pieces about films, philosophy, my hometown and anecdotes and sketches from my life. I have a couple of motivating factors behind wanting to give this a try. First off, I've been finding a lot of things of value from other blogs, mainly Pete Ashton's site which has inspired me that I might wanna try to create something of my own. At the very least I can get some stuff out of my system.

I am also going to give myself the leeway to not take this too seriously, and to just let this be another one of my 'phases' if that's what it turns out to be. I'm a 'phase' person. I was convinced for a week in the early nineties that I wanted to be a puppeteer, even though I never before considered it as a career possibility and how no knowledge of anything required to actually do it. I even started to plan my Art School with a counselllor about how to best design a new course load around this 'new direction.' I have also flirted with several other 'alternate' careers in my lifetime, the most recent one being an astronomer, although I soon discovered that my complete lack of understanding of physics, mathematics and the constellations may be a hinderance to that goal. If blogging turns out to be another such phase, so be it.

Secondly I've been having some frustration with Message Boards over the last year and a half since I started using back when I had way more free time and open access to the internet at work. To be perfectly honest the whole idea of sticking my opinions up on the net and risking the possibility of embarrassing the hell out of myself is a constant worry of mine, but one that as a point of principle I've felt determined to overcome. I'll be damned if I just sit and lurk as people have a conversation that I think I could contribute something to. If anything, my cyclic behavious of posting on messsage boards, then regretting I posted and swearing that I'll never post again and then posting another message the next day and immediately regretting, and on and on ad infitum has at least helped me to get closer to the bottom of where this anxiety comes from. My opionion about the topic has recently been solidified by listening to Margaret Visser's 2002 Massey Lectures on the CBC, and is something that I'll elaborate on in the future. Basically my feeling about the whole topic today is that Message Boards may not be the best forum to get my opinions across. Blogging might work better for me. Or it might not. We'll see won't we?

Thirdly, I used to keep volumes and volumes of Journals, started with the encouragement of one of my College profs who recommended will all keep a daily journal just to keep up our writing chops. I really enjoy reading these over now, a couple of years later, and and I want to recreate the loose kind of "heres what I feel like today" "here's a drawing I did today" looseness without the annoying obsessive sections devoted to girls that I was in 'love' with at the time

Finally, it should give me something to do on my lunch break, while everybody else that I work work with battles on the Fousball table.

posted by Alan
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8:26 AM

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