28 January 1998: Signal from Grid Epsilon

Wednesday, 28 January 1998:

Signal from Grid Epsilon

Yesterday's entry set me thinking about this on-line journalling gig, and how ideas get passed around by it. Some folks refer to a journalling "community", but it's really (and fittingly) a network. There are some subgroups - cliques, I guess - of journallers, but I think that most of us labor without having much contact with a larger "community", just with those people whose journals we read, and those readers who read ours.

I don't know how many people the idea that I used for yesterday's entry passed through before it got to me. There might be some small interest in graphing it, if that were possible. On one level, on-line journals are just another way to pass memes around.

As for communities, well, I'm not sure the Internet can support communities, as such, anymore.

The new season of Babylon 5 is interesting; the first two episodes have felt a lot more like the first season than any other. We're seeing how the station functions under the new status quo, and the contrast with the daily reruns underscores how much it's changed (although in some ways it hasn't changed enough; Straczynski seems afraid to let go of any of his major characters, moving too swiftly to work Garibaldi back into the heroic fold, for instance).

I quite like the new theme music, too.

Sometimes I think about what I'd do if I had certain superhuman powers. One such daydream recently has involved being able to find an alternate universe where Babylon 5 didn't diverge so much from (what I imagine was) the original plan, and reaching in to bring back a complete set of videotapes of the series produced there. Sinclair in the center spot for the whole series, Takashima's role as the Psi Corps-controlled traitor, a greater role for the Great Machine (which has been all-but-irrelevant in the series here). Boy, releasing something like that onto this world's market sure would cause a lot of trouble!

Of course, someday we'll probably be able to create whole TV shows in the privacy of our own home, all on computer, so in a few decades who knows what B5 variants will be lurking on the net...

Speaking of B5, this week's comics crop included Babylon 5: In Valen's Name, in which Sheridan and company discover the ancient hulk of Babylon 4, and go there to learn what secrets about the fate of Valen (a.k.a. Sinclair) it has to give up. It's pretty good, with decent art (unlike the first B5 series), but the drab coloring undercuts much of the artwork's power. DC colorists still haven't figure out how to color science fiction series (their first Star Trek series was pretty decent, but the coloring was awful; again, the colors were too drab). Fortunately, writer Peter David tones down his knee-jerk impulse to tell gags every other page, leaning toward a more serious tone.

Other releases included The Avengers #2, with more lovely George Perez artwork. The plot is kind of old hat (didn't they do this in Legion of Super-Heroes a few years back?), but Kurt Busiek is nailing a lot of the characterizations perfectly. He does Captain America quite well.

Also of note is Mage: The Hero Defined #2, which is another fun romp by Matt Wagner, and Concrete: Strange Armor #2, which is a rather dreary re-telling of Concrete's origin.

I checked out eBay today, out of curiosity. It looks like there are some comic books there I'm interested in bidding on - in particular a few Marvel Masterworks hardcovers. I'd say this looks like a good way to spend a lot of money, but I doubt there are that many things that people would bother auctioning off that I'd like to buy.

Karen and I got together for dinner tonight, having some Mexican food at the second-best such restaurant in town. It was a nice touch of social contact, since I'd invited about nine people over to my place to watch Babylon 5 and all of them said no. Ah, well.

Michael Rawdon (Contact)