Interview

A Fiction for the Modern Generation

Think back to your childhood reading goosebumps by the master of childhood nightmares RL Stein. You might remember the deranged ventriloquist dummy Slappy or anything involving horror in a basement. I remember a book called Beware the Purple Peanut Butter. I know what's scary about peanut butter, read it and find out its creepy. The book was part of a series called Reader Beware...You Choose the Scare ( insert scary voice and flickering lights). I remember this book because it was the first book I had ever experienced that let me tell the story. Granted it was a limited story because printed media only gives you so many pages, if they gave you ever option imaginable it would be a ridiculously large book. I really liked being able to engage with the story and now with the Internet changing the way we view fiction, interactive fiction has become a true genre.

There is this program call Twine. It allows you to make interactive fiction online using their software and you don't have to know how to code html or css or anything like that to use it. You set up your boxes and start to make different paths and options for the viewers. It can be as expansive or as limited as you want it to be. It is truly making the reader engage. These fictions are called "games" but I truly think they are stories just presented a new way for a new audience.

If your interested in Twine you can go to their website, there is an online component so you don't have to download anything ( if you want to, there is a desktop version). I will also give the link to the Twine fiction I made if your curious about how the stories are told.

http://twinery.org 

My story link-

http://wwwstu.tcu.edu/ebrownspence/cyberlit/ 

DC and Marvel and Image, Oh my!

Titans of the comic book industry DC Comics and Mavel Comics have a brand new independent competitor coming for their business.

Image Comics, starting relatively late in the comic game in 1992, allows comic book creators to publish their work without giving up the copyright to their characters. What you thought the creators of Batman and Wolverine got to keep the rights to their characters, nope, the rights were taken practically as soon as they were published.

The popularity of the comics in Image's gallery has to do with the diversity of material. Unlike the pretty standard superhero comics DC and Marvel put out Image puts out a multitude of narrative and conceptual work. From the fantasy sci-fi epic of Saga to the cult phenomenon of the Walking Dead and the hilarious antics of Sex Criminals, Image has something for ever genre and every fan because they aren't recycling titles from the 30s. They are truly making titles for the readers of today in a way that allows creativity and storytelling to flourish.

The independent publisher is coming for DC and Marvel and they aren't going to diminish in popularity anytime soon.

If your interested to read some yourself some titles you can check out are:

Spawn

The Walking Dead

Saga

Sex Criminals

Chew

Rat Queens

The Wicked + The Divine

Wait all their titles are amazing so here's the link  

https://imagecomics.com

Barbie Becomes A Vlogger

"Be who you want to be." Is the motto of one of the most iconic dolls in history and Barbie takes that motto very seriously. With the rise of YouTube culture Barbie has become a Vlogger.

Segments are a couple of minutes long with a computer generated teenage Barbie talking about events in her life, her family, and her friends. Barbie follows the tropes of being a good Vlogger. She has a draw my life segment, she talks about style and hair,she as a semi-clever sign off, and she makes you feel like you are her best friend. It all seems like Barbie is giving it all to be who she wants to be, but why?

Barbie has been going through some hard times as of late. With the rise in popularity of other dolls, like Monster High and American Girl dolls, who have messages of excepting you individual qualities and showing that they are your strength and not something to be afraid of Barbie has seemed a little to perfect and cookie cutter.

Using the new form of narrative that is vlogging Barbie is marketing herself to be more personal and relatable with a media that was built to make you feel close to some one you don't know.

Cell Phone Novels

Cell phone novels. You might not have heard of them in America but they are a very popular writing form that was created in Japan.

Cell phone novels are just that, novels disrupted via text message. They consist segments about 70 to 100 words due to the character limitation of cell phones. They are released in increments giving parts of the story at weekly or monthly scheduled times. The novels are usually about romantic relationship and the themes include lovers, rape, love triangles, and pregnancy to name a few. These novels are the perfect size to be read on a commutes seeing is how most people in Japan take a form of public transportation whether it be the bus or the most popular train. This compact fiction was made to be distributed by phone but had not stayed stated in that media.

Many Japanese cell phone novels have been adapted to other forms. The popular cell phone novel "Love Sky" by Mika. It originally had 20 million subscribers in its digital form. Its popularity pushed it to become a printed novel. It has also been adapted to manga (Japanese comic), a theatrical film, and a TV drama. The cellphone novel "Deep Love" by Yoshi was later made into a print work. It has also been adapted into five manga adaptations, two dramas, and one live action film.

Japanese cellphone novels are innovative and practical form of fiction for the life style of on the go modern Japanese citizen. I think it is a form we could utilize more here in America seeing is how we to are a fast paced on the go society as well.

Why do I think Broadsides are cool?

           For those of you that may not know what a broadside is let me explain. They are printed posters that announce events, news, advertisements, proclamations, etc. They are a single sheet of paper and where like newspapers before newspapers.

I love broadsides one they are so cool just the way they are printed with cool weird illustrations and two they said the coolest stuff. They ranged from, ads to religion, to stuff about dead people to last words of people sentenced to execution. You could put what ever you wanted on them and I love that.

In class we got to make our own broadsides. I was really interesting to here what people did.  Some went funny, making a satire of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, some went historical talking about the printing press, and some went news related talking about the recent property destruction of TCU by Baylor. They took the form of news page, announcements, wanted posters and more.

The one my group did was a propaganda poster for people to go to Mars for water set in the not to distant future. It was fun to come up with something that was engaging that people might want to read.

I really enjoy broadsides and think they are a great way to get information out with out having to create mass amounts of content for a whole book or newspaper. That's why I think broadsides are cool.