I survived!

I survived through the whole weekend of Comic con. Be proud of me. Three full days I spend with complete strangers but still it wasn't awkward. There were people everywhere, doing all kind of things. Funniest thing might be when there was two people playing a car game and it was shown on a big screen and there were lot of people just sitting on the floor and watching. I guess it was some sort of tournament? In my last post I told you about things I liked but nothing is perfect.

Comic con had some real problems. I think the biggest failure was on Sunday when we found out that they had only one cloakroom to use (on previous years they had two) and it got full around 11 am. After that if you came to the convention with your luggage you had to carry it with you everywhere and people who tried to chance in to their cosplays couldn't do that. Some people just decided to leave compleatly.

In Finland we don't have expos like Comic con. We have lot of conventions but they are mainly for Japanese pop culture. There are of course Finncon, for science fiction and Ropecon for role players. But there is nothing you can compare with Comic con. I'm not saying that London Comic con is better than any convention in Finland. Because it surely is not. In London they have big names and lot of people, but the heart of the organization is not made by fans, unlike in Finland. That makes a big difference.

It was easy to see that advertisement and making money had much bigger role than in Finnish conventions. Sure they got free goodies, but also load of advertisement and useless crap. What I did not expect was that in some technical things they are way behind us. 

For example the stages they have, they are enough if you have some famous person up there and all you do is ask questions. But, if you are making a cosplay show on that very same stage it's not going to work at all. The stage is small and nobody can see anything. This year there was lot of technical issues during the Euro cosplay contest, the lights went on and off very randomly and sometimes they played the music too early. Even without those problems the stage was not good enough. It was really small and unpractical.

Here is picture of the winner of Euro cosplay 2015: 

My super busy weekend

So yes, I attented MCM London Comic con on October 2015. If you ask me what I remember about that weekend, I would say people. There were so many different kind of fans and how they showed their point of interest. Some people cosplayed, other took photographs, they draw fan art or their own stuff, people bought lot of merchandises and took pictures with their idols... There were so many different things fans could and did do that it felt little overwhelming.

We all have our own top interest and should focus on that. My first comic con problem was that there were too much going on. I felt huge need to run from one place to another at the same time so I could see it all. Which naturally isn't possible.

On Friday I thought the best thing ever was the comic village where people were selling their art. I loved it and since it felt like good idea to support independent artist I spend way too much money on there...

Saturday's highlight was Doctor Who panel, there were some writers and directors of the show. I was positively surprised that there was one quite young female writer. I'm not going to comment on that more because I haven't seen the episodes she has written so I don't know if she is any good but I have hope so.

What I heard from other visitors is that usually in May Comic con has bigger stars. So, next time let's go there on May!

On Sunday... There was the Hillywood show! Visit their Youtube channel if you don't know them! I'm not their biggest fan but I do enjoy watching the parodies they have made. It was really heart warming how happy they got when they saw how excited and happy fans were when they saw them. It was also funny how you could see that they also are just fans who after hard work ended up being famous. I think they said they have been doing this for 9 years?

Google you are my creepy stalker and over protective mom

Google never stops surprising me. Today it was reminding me about my flight to London that leaves tomorrow. Since when has Google known about my flight plans? I still don't know how. Well part of the reason why I'm not looking in to it is because a.) I'm lazy, b.) don't really care (seriously I'm not that important, if you want to spy me feel free to do so) and c.) if there are things I don't like or understand I tend to ignore them.

I'm a person who never reads those small texts after contracts so I won't be surprised if I hear some day that I have sold my kidney and brains to Google so they can do some nice experiments. I would be a little upset but not surprised.

Somehow Google manages to make me feel stalked and "over protected" at the same time. When ever I use new computer to sign in to my account I get emails everywhere telling me that I have singed in at new computer. Don't worry Google, it's just me.

I use Gmail, Google maps and Google drive almost daily. I think three different apps from same corporation is quite lot. And I'm sure there are more I'm using but just not realizing it. For example Google search. I use it so often that I don't even realize it is Google.

Is our privacy being compromised? Well most likely yes. In future probably even more. My solution to this problem is to stay as unimportant and as boring as I can. That way if somebody would accidentally stalk me they would stop very fast.

Comic industry what are you doing

You can thank other media course I'm doing at the moment for this post. Our job was to make a research on subject of our interest and I chose eComics. Downloading comics and reading them from your computer or phone isn't new thing anymore, but is it destroying printed comics?

After short research it seemed quite clear to me that is not the case. Quite opposite actually. Digital comics have chance to prove themselves being useful if the industry managed to develop some things. For example the pricing is ridiculous. You would think that since there will be no costs from shipping or printing the price would be cheaper. That's not the case at the moment. Only small part of comics are cheaper when you buy them digitally.
They might be scared of losing profits if people can buy comics cheaper online but I think they worry for nothing. Most of the comic book fans are collectors. You are proud of your comics and you want to be able to show them off. Cheap digital released would just help them to get more readers. Usually when people get hooked they will start buying other merchandises too.

I also found one interesting article here. It had lot of good points. I don't really care about rivalry thing going between Marvel and Image comics. But what I could agree with is that Marvel has lot of characters people love more than anything. Only problem are the story lines which are super confusing. I like reading Marvel comics but I would lie if I said I always understand what is happening in them.
You read one good story and get all happy just to soon to be disappointed when they start over and all that has happened is wiped out. I feel mad that they keep destroying great characters and good story lines just so they can get a little bit more money. Even though, honestly sometimes you are just happy that the story line gets erased. Writers keep making crazy stuff up to get people interested. It's just like soap opera!

So instead of worrying about losses you might get from digital publishing we should really start helping companies like Image comics to keep making comics with reasonable stories and good characters! It shouldn't be all about money. Most people don't start making comics just because they want to get rich. I can't imagine worse plan to get rich that being a comic artist. Where do we go wrong?

The Cheetahs

We had to design our very own reality show. We ended up with idea where three or possibly more students have to go undercover and act as if they are students of different field. For example three art students go undercover in astrophysics class. These three people are called Cheetahs.
All students in the class are told that they are coming from same study field so these three art students don't know about each others. If the undercover art student is found out they get eliminated. So you ether study really hard to be good or then you cheat. As long as you don't get caught everything is allowed.
If Cheetah finds other art student they can join their forces or try stab each others on the back. You just have to be really careful not to get caught yourself.


Other alternative version of this program could be if there were more students from different fields and they are put into one class. They are told that they all are from different schools but your goal is to keep your study field secret and get as good grades as you can from all different courses. Who gets the highest points wins the prize. There will be art, mathematics, chemistry, building cars etc...

Again you can study or cheat. Main point is you can't reveal your real study field or get caught at cheating. This makes it interesting. Imagine situation where student desperately needs more points from a test and it happens to be from his real study field. If he nails the test he gets more points and bigger chance to win, but if that is only subject where he is succeeding he might get exposed by others.
And if you are found out it's game over. So it would be interesting to see how people try to be equally bad and good so their real study field isn't found out.

Dear radio, please no more

Like I mentioned before radio is one of my favourite media platforms. I would like to say that it's perfect background noise to keep you awake and make you feel like you are not alone. But lately it hasn't been like that.

Since they have only voice to use when making advertising through radio it feels like they don't care how horrible songs they are making. Only thing that matters is to make sure people remember it. But is that really such a good thing? I wouldn't buy something that makes me feel annoyed.
And it doesn't end with horrible songs. They are just tip of the iceberg. There are bad puns, word plays and stories. Don't forget voice acting which is always poorly done!

I have found only one good solution for this problem. Oh, right now you might be thinking that maybe I should be using Spotify? No! That's not what I want! I want to use this huge horrible looking thing which is older than earth itself to listen music.

See picture below.

But yes! Back to my solution. Answer is the night. They play much less advertisement when people are sleeping and usually the music is also better. So I'm getting ready to say goodbye to our dear sun. I shall embrace the night and forget light. From what I know there are less people around night anyway so it's pretty much win-win situation.

Music with videos and videos with music

First, watch this music video from Madonna and then watch this music video from David Bowie.

We were told to analyze how gender influence the representation of the artist and are were likely to discuss about these artists in the same terms?

Of course the gender influences a lot how the artists are represented but I think the music genre matters even more. Even if David Bowie was still hot and in good shape I wouldn't want to see him rolling on his back on the floor or dancing if the music is like that. We live in a world were pop songs include ether sex or super cuteness. Number one rule is you have to be attractive. 

I can't think even one female artists that is ugly. That may be because I'm not that into music but for some reason I doupt there are too many of them. I don't think Madonna and David Bowie are discussed in same terms, after all the music is different and they represents different things. I don't know what Davie Bowie is about but Madonna is pretty much some kind of Pop Queen? Pop Icon? 

For my textual analysis I chose Franz Ferdinand's song "Evil eye". I honestly don't know what genre that is. Wikipedia told me that they are Scottish rock band? Their genres include : Indie Rock, post-punk revival(whatever that is), dance-rock, dance-punk and art rock? Let's believe Wikipedia on this one. I would have said Rock-pop since that's my answer to everything.

What kind of world view this video is giving? My head is pretty confused at the moment. Before this task I had never seen the music video. I never imagined it would be like that. When I just listened to the song I thought it was about how sometimes you get mad with people and they manage to bring the worst out of you. And sometimes some people just hate you for what you are but that's life and better take other people down before they destroy you down. Instead of believing in higher power we just have to live with our shitty lives. I didn't imagine worms with popcorn or bloody murders and other violent stuff.


Uh, some people get a freak out of me
Some people can see that I can see
Some people want to see what I see
Some people put an evil eye on me


What I think these lyrics mean is that there are always some people who won't understand you and then there are people who think alike with you and are similar. Some people are just jealous and want what you have or then they just hate you. To me the song has always been about different kind of people and what they bring out of you. There are lot of things you can decode out of this song but I like to keep it simple. So yes, it's about people and how sometimes there is no other way than to get mad at them so you can survive.

Who is rescuing cinema?

This week we got to read this article about how lately older people have been going to cinemas more than before. In fact, I quote: " In Britain, the proportion of over-45s among regular film goers rose from 14% in 1997 to 30% in 2008. These figures reflect a sharp behavioral change."

Honestly I wouldn't call 16% rise in 9 years that large difference. It makes sense if you ask me. People are living longer than before so of course there are more people to go and watch movies. Whole article seemed quite narrow minded to me. It said that when they were trying to get young people to see movies they just added more special effects and action in to it. And now that young people are "stealing" movies from internet they are not going to see movies anymore. 

I would like to think that they are not going to see those movies because the tickets cost way too much and producers are underestimating their audience. No matter how cool your explosion is if I see it ten times in one minute. I will start waiting for something else. And when I realize there is nothing new or even partly interesting coming I won't be coming back. Not if the film is from the same production team.

Studios keep spending way too much money on effects and then forgets the script. Sure older people are easy way to get money with just some drama but how about if you made actually a good movie with good characters and a plot? And throw some nice effects in in. That way you could get old and young together. Only thing different with old and young is that old people are not stupid enough to pay money for a movie without story and young people just want to get away for a while. We are not going to bay 12 bucks so we can try to concentrate on some super long speech, at least when you are watching pointless action and explosions it feels like your brains are on vacation.

I think the whole article stereotyped all audiences. Old people are not boring and young are not stupid.

InkTober

I have to tell the truth. Before last Thursday I had never heard about InkTober. I just happened to see how my friend tweeted a picture of her drawing and said. "Hi guys! This year I'm going to try out InkTober!" That got me curious. What exactly is InkTober? Here, I found the answer. Making one ink drawing per day sounds like a fun. I don't know why I get so motivated to draw when I think how people all around the world are learning how to ink. I guess it's easier to learn and do something everyday if you know you are not the only one.

It's quite silly actually. People are drawing all the time. Why that is not motivating me? How can the fact that you post your drawings under the same # with thousands of other people makes you feel so special? I honestly don't know but I'm happy about it. I have never been good at inking and now I have reason and motivation to practice. Even if it is just for a month. This is one of the things I like about Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram. It's so easy to post and tag your drawing even if you don't spent that much time making it. What's important is that you are learning and being part of something. At least that's how I feel.

I keep saying that I don't meddle with social media too much but I think this month is going to chance that. I have to post something everyday! I hope I will success.

Here is my day 3.