Links of the Week: June 10, 2011 Edition

Been a while since I’ve stunk up your linkses. Lots popping in the world of AWESOME. Let’s see what’s up.

Welcome to the Glee Lantern Corps

I hate Glee. I love Green Lantern. Makes for an interesting mix.

10 innovative digital books you should know about

I haven’t audited every one of the digital books Peter Meyers lists here, but there are some fairly AWESOME looking concepts. I really think tablets are the future of transmedia storytelling and that the book experience needs to be redefined for them. There’s an incredible app listed here from the New York Public Library that’s downloadable for the iPad: every photo and article they have from the 1939 World’s Fair, which is an AMAZING experience on the iPad.

U.N. Report Declares Internet Access a Human Right

I don’t think people realize how huge the implications for this are. The U.N. is basically saying a human’s access to the unrestricted information on the Internet is equal to that same human’s right to be free. In the wake of the Arab Spring, this sets up immense shifts in the ubiquity of the global Internet, perhaps even paving the road for the persistent integration of web connectivity to human biology. This is a big moment that will appear on historical timelines decades from now.

ComicsAlliance Recaps The ‘Smallville’ Series Finale

I make no secrets about my loathing of Smallville, a television show that could have presented a thoughtful yet entertaining mainstream exploration of Clark Kent’s pre-Superman life to a wholly new audience. Instead, the show featured cheesy “re-imaginings” of classic Superman comic book stories, horrible dialogue and characters, and outright disrespect of everything that makes Superman special. And yet, it ran for ten fucking years. What insipid assholes actually thought this was a good show??? In any case, Smallville’s series finale retained the degree of silly ridiculosity established in the 10 years prior with everything from killer planets to Tom Welling never actually putting on the Superman suit. Chris Sims and David Uzumeri at Comics Alliance continue their horrified deconstruction of this television travesty in the wit-filled mockfest that any Smallville review deserves. Definitely one for laughs.

There’s Something Happening Here…

Futurist Venessa Miemis tipped me off to this dark, dark vision of the future, where the optimism of our modern social and technological advances is crushed by the realities of today’s economic and political downfalls. Dave Pollard, writer of the blog How to Save the World, presents an extremely well-researched and sourced assessment of the current state of the world and how he thinks we are all on an inevitable downslide into hopelessness and decay. Pollard notes several observations of evidence for this assessment that make a lot of sense despite my own personal hopes for a better world in the future. It’s a frightening punch to the gut that everyone should check out and comment on. This is our world we’re trying to save here, people.

Bleeding Cool’s Coverage of DC Comics’ Relaunch Announcements

Last week, I wrote about DC Comics’ ballsy move of relaunching its entire line of comics with new #1 issues and publishing them digitally on the same day they see print. This week, DC has slowly rolled out announcements of new creative teams and directions for their 52 new titles in September. The content is not as impressive as originally thought. Initially, this was presented as an opportunity to recast its universe into a more modern, future-looking and diverse playground for new audiences to discover. Unfortunately, the selection of creative teams for some of these titles is backward-looking, in my opinion. The Batman titles, for example, feature the exact same creative teams as they do now, just mixed up a little bit. They also include two titles written by artists who have since been unable to get their books out on time. I’m not sure how revolutionary this is going to be for modern audiences.

DC's rebooted TEEN TITANS #1 by Scott Lobdell and Brett Booth.

There are some positive indications, however. DC is taking this opportunity to indeed ratchet up the diversity factor in their books. We’re seeing more women, more heroes of color, and more international representation amongst team books. It also looks like a design edict has come down the pike from DC Editorial to ensure women’s costumes are much more appropriate for modern audiences, as opposed to the pervert suits we’re all used to. I think these are all positive steps toward modernizing the DCU for maximum appeal to that key young demographic that has proven so elusive to them over the past 20 years. I’m most intrigued by the inclusion of a brand new title featuring Batwing, the Batman of Africa:

BATWING #1 by Judd Winick and Ben Oliver.

Although, I would have been much more impressed in DC’s attempts to diversify their lineup had they given an ongoing title to the Muslim Batman of Paris: