Currently Reading: The Hunger Games
Posted: July 23, 2011 Filed under: books, ideas, inspiration, post apocalypse, reviews Leave a comment“The Hunger Games” is a 2008 young adult novel by Suzanne Collins (it is the first of three books in a series by the same author). My S.O. is currently writing a young adult novel, and, as a result, she ends up reading other things that have been published for young adult readers (most of which, according to Annie, is wretched stuff). She recommended I read ‘The Hunger Games,’ and, since she knows my taste fairly well, I finally got around to starting it a day ago.
I didn’t like the highly regarded “Ender’s Game” enough to finish it, and, in most cases, I’ll pass on literature written specifically for young adults. Although I am only about half way through “The Hunger Games” and am glad I picked it up. Collins is an excellent writer; her prose is spare without being bland and her characters are interesting. Since the book is for young adults, the main character is a fifteen year old girl named Katniss.
‘The Hunger Games’ takes place in a dystopian future where the inhabitants of the outlying towns (known as “districts”) work in near wage-slavery in order to support the lavish life of the privileged in the Capitol. Every year the Capitol hosts an event called “The Hunger Games.” A boy and a girl are selected at random from each district and fight to the death in a setting known as ‘The Arena.’ The last survivor’s district is given extra food and privileges for the coming year, so there is great pressure for the children selected to succeed.
The entire contest is televised. Participants are released into the ‘arena’ and expected to compete and win by any means necessary. Supplies like food, tools, medieval era weapons like spears, swords, bows and arrows, etc., are available if the participants are lucky enough to reach them first. Players are allowed to form alliances if they wish in order to ‘gang up’ on other players, but, eventually, they will need to turn on each other since the games end when only one survives. In addition, according to their popularity with the television viewers and the bribes provided by ‘sponsors,’ different participants may be occasionally given helpful items like a loaf of bread or some medicine, so smart players attempt to appear interesting or appealing to the viewers.
Katniss ends up being one of the ‘tributes’ to participate in “The Hunger Games.” Before his death, her father taught her how to hunt in the woods, fish, forage for nuts and berries, set snares for rabbits, etc. While the other players compete against one another for food supplied by the game masters, Katniss feeds herself with her hunting and foraging skills.
I’m only about 1/2 way through, but have enjoyed the book immensely so far despite the fact that it is written for a younger reader. Although the book is not as emotionally brutal as 1984, I think the book is not written ‘down’ for a younger audience. Her prose is solid; we learn a lot about Katniss‘ world and her opinions in passing and in context rather than having it laboriously explained. The book explores themes of Independence and personal responsibility but (as I am about 1/2 way through) is not too heavy handed in trying to get young readers to think about these topics.
I have been avoiding reading the Wikipedia entry on the book before I finish it. Suzanne Collins claims she was inspired to write “The Hunger Games” while channel surfing between news from the Iraq war and reality television shows. The idea of ‘fight to the death’ gladitorial games in a distant future isn’t original, but I think the book is good enough that I don’t care that I have seen these themes before.
Definite recommendation.
GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
Posted: July 19, 2011 Filed under: ideas, inspiration, movies 6 CommentsOn Life Drawing
Posted: July 3, 2011 Filed under: art, ideas, inspiration 1 CommentIn the June 27th issue of the New Yorker, there was an article by Adam Gopnik called ‘Life Studies’ about how he took art lessons (sort of) to learn to draw. You need to be a subscriber to read it, but the link is here anyway. If this interests you, hopefully you can beg, borrow or steal a copy. My s.o., Annie, gave it to me saying I might find it interesting. She was right.
Gopnik is an art critic, and writes extensively about art and culture… but it seems he felt a bit like an imposter since he spent all that time talking, writing and thinking about what made some art good and other art bad and yet he felt he could not draw a convincing stick figure. The article tells of Gopnik forming a friendship with an artist who gives lessons in life drawing (i.e.: drawings where one draws directly from observation, striving to make the marks on the paper resemble the ‘real thing’ as much as possible). By the end of the article, Gopnik doesn’t feel that he has become a good draftsman, but he does feel like he has at least learned a new appreciation for the art of representation. There is a lot more to the article than this pat little summary (including some fascinating glimpses into how his friend tries to teach Gopnik how to draw from life), but that’s the part I found myself thinking about today.
Gopnik’s artist friend, Jacob Collins, considers himself a bit of an ‘artistic throwback’ to art’s past. He doesn’t draw or paint anything other than what he sees with his own eyes. Collins impresses upon Gopnik that when most people sit down to draw something, they don’t look at the thing they are drawing — they look at the paper and draw what they think that thing looks like. So we are drawing ‘symbols’ rather than the thing itself.
I had occassion to think about this when I was talking to someone about some drawings I have been working on for a collaborative project. She was explaining why the drawings didn’t quite work for her, and that was frustrating for me (who likes to hear that they have to do something over again?). Suddenly I wondered if part of the problem was that I wasn’t drawing anything other than the ‘representation stuck in my head’ of things. As I looked at the drawings under discussion, all of the faces of the characters started looking alike to me — these were not individuals, they were just place markers or chess pieces. Perhaps I had to at least spend more time looking at source materials and inspiration before drawing something rather than just relying on my imagination, simply because my imagination may have started to travel down some very well worn paths recently, especially as I have gotten busier and some drawings have felt more like ‘work’ than ‘fun.’
One goal for the coming months is to try to do a bit more research and preparation before I sit down to draw. I can’t hire models or limit myself to drawing/painting plaster casts, wine bottles and drapes, but I can at least try to find photographs and attempt to make the people in the pictures a bit more differentiated. Expect to hear more about this current experiment, especially in about 3 weeks when I (hopefully) will have finally finished the big mosaic commission that is kicking my butt right now.
(above, left: some studies of hands by Da Vinci)
Updates for Khunmar / other work
Posted: June 27, 2011 Filed under: ideas, Mines of Khunmar, portfolio, project 9 CommentsI’m still thinking / working on the new version of Exquisite Corpses; the entire concept/layout has changed several times in the course of the past 2 months and I need a bit of time to stew it over.
A while back I did a few illustrations for ‘Mines of Khunmar.’ I was thinking of doing a 1/2 pager to introduce each level, but that is probably too much work for a freebie. Perhaps after I win the lottery. See some previews below.
Meanwhile, I have more work for another client coming up, but that’s all I can say for right now.
Below is a picture for level 1b (which I believe is just east of level 1; I don’t think this level appeared in the free preview pdf I released a few years ago). It looks like the party’s torchbearer is finding out that the Vargouille’s bite is worse than it’s bark. I’m not sure if ‘Vargouille’ is released under the OGL and if I need to make a subsitution or create an ‘offbrand’ version. I haven’t decided what kind of compatibility the public version of Khunmar will have when and if I ever finish it.
The good thing about A to Z posts
Posted: April 22, 2011 Filed under: A to Z, aldeboran, ideas, inspiration 2 CommentsI keep reading comments here and there where people are slagging on the whole ‘A to Z’ thing. I finsished the last of my A to Z posts the other day (they are all just sitting in the queue waiting to be autoposted when the right day comes around). While I’m not proud of all of my A to Z posts, I can honestly say that there are a few that I wrote that I think could be pretty interesting to the community at large and were fun to write and think about — and I would have probably never written them if I hadn’t had to find a topic that started with a certain letter.
This morning’s entry (T is for Tana Tak) is a case in point. I had a pile of notes and drawings in my binder, so all that stuff was ‘already written,’ but it wouldn’t have occure to me to look it over, scan it in, write it up, etc., unless I had to come up with something for the letter T. And once I started looking at it, I became more excited about it. And now that I have posted it, the wheels have started turning and I am eager to do some more work on it.
I took the A to Z challenge as a chance to repost a lot of campaign notes from Aldeboran which I have added to, very sporadically, over the years. It’s given me a chance to take a closer look at the stuff I’ve accumulated as a whole. And that’s a good thing.
Melan’s Fomalhaut
Posted: April 19, 2011 Filed under: games, ideas, inspiration 2 CommentsA while back I downloaded Melan’s custom made RPG rules for his campaign on Fomalhaut (which he has shared with the world here. Thankfully for those of us in the US, it is not in the author’s native Hungarian).
Wolverton: Crab People!
Posted: April 10, 2011 Filed under: art, ideas, inspiration 3 CommentsAnyone know where it comes from?
Fact or Fiction: Why does it matter?
Posted: February 15, 2011 Filed under: ideas, inspiration, philosophy, Shaver, wierd stuff 5 CommentsJames over at Grognardia was waxing nostalgic about Erich Von Danikken(sp?) and “Chariots of the Gods?” over on Grognardia. ‘Chariots of the Gods,’ TV programs like, “In Search Of” and similar ‘pop science’ that blurred the line between fantasy/fiction and reality (or at least tried to) was a big part of my growing up in the 1970s. Since the cover of von Daniken’s book is so boring looking, I thought I would dress up my blog with some ‘Eternals’ artwork by the great Jack Kirby.
I have an unabashed love of these ‘Fortean’ type studies… including the story of Richard Shaver and the Shaver mystery, so it probably does not come as a surprise that I’m enthusiastic about seeing Grognardia include von Daniken and similar ‘the pyramids were built by aliens’ and similar psuedo scientific theories in his sources of inspiration for fantasy, science fiction and pulpy stuff. However, reading the comments that followed his post, I was surprised to read several people take issue with the inclusion of von Daniken and his ilk because ‘Chariots of the Gods’ was not intended as a work of fiction.
I guess I find that idea really puzzling. That von Daniken claims that these things are true doesn’t make it ‘ineligible’ for inclusion in inspirational material (at least to me). One person wrote, “This isn’t pulp fantasy. If this is included as pulp fantasy then every book in the New Age or Metaphysical section at Border’s book store is pulp fiction. A dreadful misrepresentation, James.”
“A dreadful misrepresentation?” What did I miss? I don’t get it. Is this just a matter of taxonomy? And, if so, where do you draw the line? If you have strong feelings on the subject (especially if you feel that Grognardia was wrong to include von Daniken in a list of ‘potential inspiration sources), please reply and explain your views; I want to understand where you are coming from because this just makes no sense to me.
Bass Ackwards Dungeon Design
Posted: February 12, 2011 Filed under: adventures, art, ideas 3 CommentsHere is the normal order of things (at least as I know it):