I feel a little guilty not having class for the next two weeks and only having to post a few times, but I’m sure that I will get over it.

I wanted to speak to my students about their interviews and try to get a little bit more information; I got that idea from one of the reviews that I received.  She liked the basic premises and both writing styles that belong to Jillian, (my co author) and me, but she did show a little concern on how we were going to get it all together.  Honestly, that has crossed my mind, we are no longer doing the dialog style that we did before but now more like the everyday term paper, well the everyday AWESOME term paper. :D 

Great, it seems that hanging out with teens does have an effect on the way one may acts, I’m actually using emoticons in my wiki writings.  Hope no one notices.>:~}

I will be honest, I feel a little odd trying to critique another students page, I don’t want to come off as pretentious, (or is it a little too late for that?)  I believe that everyone writes well in their own fashion, remember there are many different media forms out there, wiki’s and blogs being probably some of the least formal, just a way for someone to get his or her word out on this ever expanding ethereal universe we call the internet. 

Have you ever looked at that word?  Internet.  Inter- as in inside.  Maybe it should have been called the externet?  Although the “net” part is very fitting, it is very easy to get caught up in and tangled up in it.  Sorry, my mind was wandering off the subject again, but wow, what a segue, huh? 

That’s what our paper is on, the way that many video games that are addictive.  I don’t mean games like solitaire, but the RPG games like WoW, Star Wars, EverQuest, and the like.  But we really shouldn’t be just looking at the games that take place on the ‘net, I was addicted to a few “regular” games as well, I remember staying up to all hours of the morning playing the Jedi Knight series video games, and lets not forget Sims.  But lucky for me those games had an ending, well not so much an ending for the Sims as much as it became less of a game and more of an aquarium.  But I’m gonna' stop there, because this is something that will go very good on the aforementioned paper.

The more I read McCloud’s book the less likely I am to sell it back at the end of the semester.  I am really enjoying the style of text book, it reminds me of reading those old comic books Illustrated Classics.  Any of you ever read those?  A slightly (depending on which one you got) abridged version of the classic books, in comic book form, I loved ‘em.  Hell, I still use them sometimes when I teach a book.  Ahh, the ADD in me strikes again, back to McCloud.

He way he describes art is, well, I like it.  “Art is any human activity which doesn’t grow out of either of our species’ two basic instincts, survival and reproduction” (164).  I thought that the two basic instincts were Fight or Flight, but looking at that I can see how F&F can fall under the survival heading, and who in their right mind would ignore reproduction?  His description of the possible birth of art is intriguing, art born from idleness and frustration.  I can see that.  I can remember many times in my youth being bored and pulling out a piece of paper and a pencil so I could draw.  This is something my daughter does to this day.

McCloud carries over the S&R into modern times but instead of the sabretooth tiger, we have a job interview.  Not completely sure if that would cause the same sort of stress, teeth and claws are a little worse than pinstripes and ties.  But the eternal dance of reproduction remains the same, just in a different location

Gotta love this text book.  In chapter seven, McCloud asks the rhetorical question, “Can comics be art?” I agree with him, it is a really stupid question.  Comics are an art forn unto themselves.  They have grown far beyond the Katzenjammer kids   from the days gone by and have now taken a life of their own.  The characters have starred in their own blockbuster movies, (Batman and Spider-man and their sequels just to name a few) and have seemed to grow up with a generation.  But all that is not what this chapter was about.

This chapter is about the steps to the art itself

Finally I really like his assertion that art is simply in the eye of the beholder.  I like that.